All India Gaming Federation blasts Google's "alarming" decision to halt RMG pilot
The federation's CEO Roland Landers has issued a response to Google's confirmation that its real-money gaming pilot would be paused amid legal framework fears
The All India Gaming Federation (AIGF) has taken aim at Google for its decision to halt a pilot scheme to allow new types of real-money gaming (RMG) apps on the Play Store.
The nations involved in the pilot were India, Mexico and Brazil, but Google has paused the trial, citing challenges surrounding a lack of authority to approve the games in certain regions.
January saw Google announce that RMG apps would be permitted in the aforementioned nations on the proviso they adhered to user safety requirements. The pilot programme for digital fantasy sport and rummy has been in place in India since 2022.
Though Google has revealed that the apps already involved in India’s pilot programme will be able to continue operations after extending the grace period, the AIGF has responded furiously to confirmation.
In a lengthy statement uploaded to LinkedIn, in which he also claimed this verdict from Google heightens the need for ex-ante regulations, AIGF CEO Roland Landers made his feelings clear.
He said: “We are extremely disappointed by Google’s arbitrary and anti-competitive decision, primarily affecting pay to play games’ smaller developers and distributors.
“As the oldest and largest representative body of online gaming in India, we were the first to welcome Google’s progressive pilot programme to allow pay to play skill games on the Play Store.
“While we were initially concerned about Google’s decision to limit the pilot to certain games, we understood that, as an early initiative, it would eventually be expanded to include all pay to play skill games.”
Landers continued, crediting Google for engaging with the industry and praising the Alphabet-owned company for its vow to onboard all skill-based pay to play games.
However, the AIGF CEO did change his tone when discussing the impact Google’s recent decision will have on the Indian mobile market, accusing the group of favouring larger companies.
Landers declared: “A private entity’s disregard for Indian law, encouragement of anti-competitive practices and limitation of user choice are alarming.
“Their decision grants them unchecked control to pick winners in the market, favouring large companies and preventing small and emerging startups from effectively competing in this sector.”
He conceded that the AIGF would continue to work with Google amid hopes a “quick solution” can be found.
Google’s decision, which came on 24 June, made clear that the tech giant felt it needed more time to realise its RMG ambitions.
A statement from the company read: “Expanding our support of real-money gaming apps in markets without a central licensing framework has proven more difficult than expected and we need additional time to get it right for our developer partners and the safety of our users.
“Google Play remains deeply committed to helping all developers responsibly build new businesses and reach wider audiences across a variety of content types and genres.”