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In Conversation with Rajan Navani, Chairman & Managing Director, JetSynthesys
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In Conversation with Rajan Navani, Chairman & Managing Director, JetSynthesys

by
19/04/2021

Rajan Navani is the Vice Chairman & Managing Director of the Indian arm of Jetline Group of companies and the CEO and Founder of JetSynthesys. He is currently the Chairman of the CII National Council on India@75, the Past National Chairman of CIIs Young Indians, and is a member of CII’s National Council. Rajan is a founding trustee of the India@75 Foundation which is working to help create an inclusive, developed India of 2022.

In our last conversation with Rajan, he mentioned, “The movement from fewer to forever playing games is what will overhaul the approach for Indian millennials taking up esports passionately and professionally.”

On being asked if he still sees that happening and how things have been at JetSynthesys in the past year, he says “ We are talking at all these opportune times where the belief and the focus on the size and scale of this opportunity have gotten more clearer. At JetSynthesys it’s been a progressive year for the company as we’ve been able to accelerate our growth several times faster than we had anticipated in the lockdown. The pandemic has caused a lot of people to stay home and the entire ecosystem in gaming especially what applies to us- from building online games to the casual gamer and the professional game and esports, all have seen a tremendous amount of growth in terms of engagement during this period.”

One of Navani’s invested companies ‘NODWIN Gaming’ has also raised a massive round of capital. On the recent development, he says, “We own fifty percent of that funding and have unlocked value to be able to bring strategic stakeholders to grow the company, as a primary focus. That strategy has also paid off because it’s very important that the industry collaborates in areas that have massive potential but at the same time requires a different level of investment as well as commitment for a country like India.”

He further says, “We had some powerful releases with big IPs and partnerships such as with WWE, with Square Enix, the two-billion-dollar Japanese company, and Ludo. So a lot has happened around in this last year a lot more is yet to happen. Summing up I think all the things that we thought would take you to know anywhere between 24 to 36 months to happen have actually compressed themselves and happened in 12 months.“

While the online gaming sector witnessed massive growth during the pandemic, it is also believed that it is unlikely to happen again. In fact, a dip in the user base is expected by the online gaming industry. Rajan shares his inputs on this facet, “What you’re saying applies to probably every industry, which goes through very accelerated growth. But what happens is that the order of magnitude changes. Even when things return to normal that dip is a small percentage of that. So assuming the magnitude changes anywhere between 60 to 80 growth in terms of engagement, even if that comes down by say 10, 15, or 20 percent, it’s still a significantly high jump that has happened in this period.”

He explains the reasons behind the same, “At a time when people were not meeting each other, gaming also became a great place for people to connect socially right now. A lot of our gaming platforms are enabling gamers to interact in real-time and do a lot more together.  So I think that will again create viral growth. Things that we have not earlier probably decided to invest in very early on or would have waited on, maybe another two years before we even came to investing deeply into that space, have also got accelerated. So for us to now deploy capital that we’ve raised into areas that are going to be strongly driven by the future, whether it’s social gaming or 5G, which is going to change.”

The partnership with Square Enix managed to renovate the legendary game of Ludo. Rajan talks about their journey, “This has been a journey where we’ve had a large Japanese company partner with us on a genre that is applicable to an Indian audience. And it’s been a beautiful journey where we brought the best of what Japanese companies have done for Japanese markets. Companies like ours have been able to crack the Indian market and created a product that we believe will not only strengthen its positioning in India but actually take it global.”

He explains how the game has been changed in terms of its positioning, with characters that are playing off differently, which gives even casual gamers the option to deploy a lot more strategy. The idea is to ensure the positioning of Ludo in a very strong competitive global gaming environment.  He believes that such partnerships strengthen the belief in what countries like India and Japan can do together and what gaming companies can learn but also strengthen the entire ecosystem as we move forward.

Furthermore, as we move on to the blurred lines between skill-based and chance-based games right and how strong opinions on the same are dividing the industry at large. Rajan gives his inputs, “The best way to look at India’s entire gaming market is to see what are the different components that are at play here. On one side we have online gaming which is part of the 170 billion dollars global gaming industry that includes mobile, PC, and console. India definitely has a lot of catching up to do because we have an industry that is some billion dollars and growing rapidly in this large community. 

Secondly, the categorization of gaming that has happened in India in fantasy sport has now taken shape and form for a completely different level. The third area that is really coming in is real money gaming where you enter with some money into a game. The Indian gaming industry the way it is today is made up of all of these different pockets.”

He further talks about the state regulations that have massively impact the Indian gaming ecosystem, “Interestingly, states regulate a lot of this, as it’s not a federal structure. Now four states in India have banned fantasy gaming. I think the law of the land will take its course, and I think as an industry what we need to do is understand the merits of all the different aspects of the gaming sector as they’re emerging. I always believe that India will create a gaming ecosystem that will be different from what the rest of the world has created. But at the same time, we have to integrate into that large ecosystem and I think there are many opportunities here for a country like India.”

He holds the opinion that that in the Indian digital gaming ecosystem, we engage with all stakeholders-  technology providers,  hardware manufacturers, etc. because all of them play a key role in shaping what the future of the Indian gaming industry will look like.

He says, “The Indian gaming ecosystem should open up these platforms for such discussions as it’s the outcome of these discussions that will direct us, where we want to be. At the end of the day, what will work for India will be a combination of what people want and what is also right.”

Talking about JetSynthesys again, we wanted to understand the future plans of the organization and whether it’s a conscious effort by JetSynthesys to develop games only around cricket and not around hockey or kabaddi or any other game.

Rajan shares some future plans, “We have a few things coming up on the sports side. We do have a couple of interesting launches later in this year on the sports side so at the right time we will be talking about that. We believe in the sports genre quite strongly and we’re also innovating into genres that do not exist like the combat and racing thing on a WWE or strengthening genres that are otherwise in casual and similar areas that will come in.”

On why the focus is largely on cricket, he explains, “If you even see the sports industry in India whether it is a five-six billion-dollar industry at best, 70% of that is cricket. We cannot take away the fact that if you want to do electronic sports games based on sports in India, that will continue to be a strong point and I think strategically we decided that we wanted to be the leading company in the country. At least in the simulated cricket genre space and therefore we have franchises and building instruments upon both of those real cricket and Sachin saga to make that happen. We also have 100 MB which is a joint venture with Sachin Tendulkar where we have everything around the real world of cricket coming together. So an entire 360-degree cricket community approach it’s what we have taken as JetSynthesys.”

About the future plans, he says, “How much of that is really going to be a key part of what we do say five years or ten years from today is always something that will evolve. But today, given that and looking at these sports now as entertainment and the new ways of sports entertainment which is emerging- with people watching streamers rather than playing or witnessing the physical sport,  is an area that we are very excited about and where we think that we will again strengthen our positioning as we move forward.”

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