BENGALURU: Card games have always been a pastime, but more so during this lockdown. This is proved by city-based new-age gaming company Gameskraft entering the Guinness World Records for hosting the largest online rummy tournament. Held on one of their offerings, Rummyculture, more than 1,09,000 Indians participated in the competition.
According to their data, the competition which was open to anybody saw the heaviest participation from users in south India.
Users from Tamil Nadu comprised around 40 per cent of the tournament’s player base, while those from Andhra Pradesh (22%), and Karnataka (7%) also registered a strong presence.
The final winner Nanthakumar Palinasamy from Tamil Nadu, won the first prize of Rs 1 lakh after 41 deals and seven rounds. “I’ve been playing rummy online for about a year now and have played across multiple gaming platforms.
“Winning a nation-wide tournament as massive as this, after just one year of being an active gamer, is a moment of great pride for me. This achievement also highlights how, more than luck, it is skill that determines victory in this game,” he says.
Prithvi Singh, founder of Gameskraft, points out that over the past few years, there’s been a dramatic shift in India’s online gaming sensibilities, as skill-based games such as rummy find greater traction across the country.
“Married, single, home-makers, retired professionals, junior/mid-management personnel, tech-savvy business leaders- people across all demographics are logging onto the platform to test their skills against one another,” he says, adding that their record reflects this growing craze for skill-based online gaming. “We are now looking at building on it with more experiential and engaging gaming offerings,” he says.
According to Singh, the Indian gaming industry is currently valued at an estimated Rs 3,500 crore. “Rummyculture, for instance, has an average of 1 lakh users playing rummy online at any given time. Through the platform, we want to tap into the growing digital opportunity for online skill-based mobile gaming, which has steadily been gaining traction amongst Indians,” he says.