[Exclusive Interview] This Gaming Platform From India Has 35 Million Downloads, 5 lakh Daily Winners & Distributed Rs 1200 Crore Prize Money

Recently, we interacted with Mr. Ankur Singh, Founder and CEO, Witzeal Technologies – a new age-gaming technology company that is disrupting the online real money gaming industry in India.

Here are the interview highlights:

1. How has the journey been from being bootstrapped to being profitable? How did you overcome the initial challenges?  

I come from a small town in Uttar Pradesh and since childhood, I was passionate in playing the game of catapult and stone to break bulbs. As I started my career as a software engineer, I had an urge to leverage technology and curate an interesting game. Putting my skills to the test, I ended up creating a game that was a massive success. This motivated me to put my best foot forward and form Witzeal. With a team of five, we released ‘Bulb Smash’ in 2017 and it will remain special to me forever.

Shortly after the release of Bulb Smash, we further entered the domain of casual gaming with three new titles and the cricket fantasy segment in 2018. Our games were doing exceptionally well as the online real-money gaming sector flourished throughout the country and the shift in the Play Store’s rules for real-money gaming apps in 2019 propelled us to re-evaluate our strategy and I must confess that it was a game-changer. With the aim of bringing in-house developed games in real money gaming (RMG), we unveiled our own multi-gaming platform ‘Big Cash’. 

Having said that, with being bootstrapped and the ever-growing competition which is great for the sector, the journey still continues to be challenging for us. The aim from the beginning of our journey has been to create an institution that is self-sustainable and for us to be to be self-sustainable, it was pertinent for us to have a profitable business and we continue to be that way. 

2. Can you state some challenges that were specific to the gaming sector?

The online gaming industry in India is a sunrise sector which is expanding at an exponential rate. One of the key challenges is that gaming is a state subject while gaming businesses are online and digital. Currently, the real money gaming Industry is self-regulated, governed by comprehensive charters and audits. While skill-based games are permitted in most States the absence of comprehensive regulations in the gaming sector makes the subject complex. In addition to this, most of the State Gaming Acts are archaic and were brought into effect much before the era of the internet. Moreover, differing state interpretations of online skill games make it difficult to build scale for businesses. However, we see a hope of ray with the recent government announcement in line with regulation post extensive consultation with the stakeholders of the industry. 

As and when the rules are enacted, we believe that it would propel structured growth of the gaming sector and our extensive experience and focus on innovation infused with technology and creativity would continue to enable us to stay ahead of the curve. 

3. What makes Witzeal unique compared to the rest of the players in the industry? 

We at Witzeal, have always aimed to stay ahead of the curve by constantly innovating our products and providing a distinct gaming experience. All of the games on our multi-gaming platform, Big Cash, are designed and developed in-house. So, this enable us to give a personalized gaming experience to our players while maintaining a high level of security. This has boosted players’ affinity and has also increased user-trust. We take pride in mentioning that through our research we have been able to create the app in a way that it takes up very less storage space as compared to other apps in this segment. 

We are constantly committed to delivering unique gaming experiences and keeping that in mind, we have recently launched RummyKhel and CandyCash games. Besides this, we recently joined hands with SHIELD, a global risk intelligence company, to ensure a safe and authentic platform for our users. Additionally, we have RNG (Random Number Generator) certification in place that safeguards fair play for card-based gaming. With such developments, we stand among Top 5 RMG operators in India.

4. What are Witzeal’s plans in terms of growth strategy and market expansion? 

In order to keep attracting new players of all ages and genders to our “Big Cash” platform, we are planning to roll out new games and features on a quarterly basis. We are concentrating on bringing in new technology that will improve user experience and help our platform gain popularity.

With Big Cash, Witzeal’s flagship product, having received over 35 million downloads, we plan to launch a few more games in the upcoming quarter based on customer demand. We have already released several versions of Ludo in the last quarter, and given the amazing reception that it has recieved, we plan to continue adding new features to give our users a unique gaming experience. 

We are in discussions with a few investors for raising of capital and at an opportune time we would do it to boost our growth opportunities. 

5. With technology advancing at such a formidable pace, how do you think will it impact the gaming sector?

Over the years, India’s gaming industry has experienced remarkable growth, primarily driven by technology-led innovations. To further drive the growth of the Indian gaming industry, a constantly changing technology landscape is expected to incorporate emerging technologies, including machine learning, artificial intelligence, data science, and blockchain, among others. 

The seamless integration of cutting-edge technologies like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) into games is another way that 5G technology is predicted to significantly boost the growth of the gaming industry. VR allows users to fully immerse themselves in fake settings, whereas AR mimics artificial items in the real world. These technologies are set to become more and more commonplace in the online gaming sector as developers and businesses look to take advantage of their enormous potential as the need for deeper levels of connection develops.

In addition, as creators work to make games that are more responsive, adaptable, and demanding, artificial intelligence (AI) is also taking on a larger role in the gaming industry. AI is not just limited to the creation of intelligent characters but is also being used to improve pathfinding, decision-making, non-player characters, interactive stories, and environmental conditions in games.

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