Gaming as a segment is fast becoming popular with the young and millennials hooked onto many games – whether on desktop/laptop or mobile phones – that have attained global following.

Games like Call of Duty, Valorant, Fortnite, Need for Speed, Forza, Minecraft, Assassins Creed, BGMI, Freefire, PubG New State, Candy Crush, Ludo, Poker and Rummy among others that have a huge following globally are equally popular in India as well.

According to a recent survey by MySmartPrice, a top gadget research site, while Call of Duty and Need for Speed are the most popular laptop games in India, battle royale games such as BGMI and Free Fire are the hot favourites among smartphone users.

The report titled ‘MSP Gaming Consumer Report’ analysed data from nearly 14,500 respondents though a majority of those were men — 94.4 per cent — with females accounting for only 5.6 per cent. Further, 42.7 per cent of the respondents were in the age group of 19-24 while 32.3 per cent were from the 16-18 years category.

Interestingly, as many as 62.4 per cent of the respondents said that they play smartphone games multiple times a day while 19.2 per cent of the respondents play just once a day. Further, more than 50 per cent of the respondents said that they play smartphone games for more than 90 minutes a day – with 26.7 per cent of those playing for more than three hours a day.

“The distribution for use of laptops for gaming is much more even for our respondents as compared to smartphone gaming. About 22.6% of the respondents do not own laptops while 23.4% and 23.7% of the respondents play laptop games sometimes a week and multiple times a day respectively,” stated the report.

About 30 per cent of the respondents said that they played laptop games for more than 90 minutes a day.

Gaming consoles, meanwhile, do not appear to be very popular, as more than 41 per cent of those surveyed did not own a console. Of those who own a console, only 15.6 per cent said that they play the console multiple times a day.

In terms of smartphone brands popular among gamers, Realme and Samsung top the charts followed by Vivo, Poco, IQOO, Apple and oppo. Among laptop brands, HP, Asus, Dell, Lenovo and Apple are the top five favourites in the same order.

For features, respondents listed high RAM size, battery life, gaming capabilities, superior graphics card as top factors while deciding the brand of smartphone or laptop.

Indian audio brand boAt emerged as the favourite brand of headphones amongst gamers.

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