India's Next Big Game Studio Might Not Need the App Store at All

India has one of the largest gaming audiences in the world. It also has a growing pool of talented game developers. What is striking is how rarely those two things connect.

Most Indian developers building games today are chasing the same crowded path: launch on Google Play, compete with hundreds of thousands of titles, spend money they do not have on user acquisition, and hope the algorithm notices. It rarely does.

There is a different route, and India's own market conditions make it unusually well suited to it.

Web gaming, where players launch a game straight from their browser on any device, has been growing fast globally. Cheap Android devices, patchy connections in smaller cities, and players who want to jump into something quickly, these are not obstacles for browser games. They are exactly the conditions browser games were designed for.

Poki, the world's largest web gaming platform, has already figured this out. India sits alongside Brazil and Indonesia as one of its biggest markets by player volume. Nearly half of all traffic on Poki already comes from mobile, and that share has been climbing steadily through 2025. The players are already there. The question is whether Indian developers will build for them.

What makes Poki's model different from an app store is how it treats the people making games. It is curated, meaning it selects games rather than accepting open submissions. But when it brings a studio on board it commits to a long-term partnership, working with developers across multiple games over time.

The revenue model reflects that. When Poki drives a player to a game through its platform or marketing, it takes a 50% share. When the developer drives the player themselves through their own social media or community, they keep 100%. Google and Apple each take 30% regardless, and stop there. Poki's cut comes with QA support, user acquisition help, and a team actively working to improve games alongside the developer.

India is in the centre of this shift in web gaming. A large population, rising 4G and 5G penetration, and a gaming culture that is already enormous, these are conditions that make a browser-first strategy more credible than it has ever been.