Ashwini Vittalachar (Partner), Pragya Sharma (Senior Associate), and Drishti Ranjan (Associate) at SAMVAD Partners*

India’s gaming industry, with over 500 million users, stands at a pivotal moment as it integrates user protection into its core framework. The recent adoption of a unified Code of Ethics by key industry bodies, alongside the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act), marks a significant shift toward responsible innovation. This article explores how these developments address concerns around addiction, data privacy, and child protection. It analyzes the operational overhauls gaming platforms must undertake, from granular consent mechanisms and age verification to data minimization and user empowerment tools. While the compliance burden presents challenges, particularly for startups, the frameworks together offer a pragmatic and sustainable approach to balancing growth with accountability. By embedding transparency, trust, and user rights into the ecosystem, India has the opportunity to set a global benchmark for ethical digital gaming innovation.

A. Press Start: The New Game Plan

India’s digital landscape is evolving rapidly, with gaming emerging as a dynamic sector with over 500 million users. The industry is increasingly prioritizing user protection, with the latest adoption of the Code of Ethics (“Code”) by prominent industry bodies on March 10, 2025, marking a significant milestone.

This article argues that the combination of this self-regulatory Code and India’s statutory data protection framework represents a turning point for the gaming industry, one that enshrines user rights, promotes responsible innovation, and addresses societal concerns about addiction and data privacy. This article explores the evolution of these frameworks, analyzes their implementation challenges, and assesses their broader implications on the future of digital gaming in India.

B. Co-Op Mode: Building a Unified Gaming Code

The All-India Gaming Federation (“AIGF”), Federation of Indian Fantasy Sports (“FIFS”), and E-Gaming Federation (“EGF”) have collaborated to create a comprehensive Code, backed by major players like Dream11, Games24X7, Rummy Circle, and Head Digital Works, thereby shifting from fragmented policies to a unified approach. The Code establishes standardized protocols for responsible gaming, age verification, Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols, and fund management.

This self-regulatory framework aligns with evolving government focus.  Highlighted by Lok Sabha MP Shrikant Shinde, approximately 3.5% of adolescents suffer from gaming disorder. Industry leaders have proactively taken steps to mitigate the likelihood of more stringent regulations, particularly in light of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (“MEITy”) introduction of online gaming rules in April 2023. The Code also appropriately responds to state-level interventions such as Tamil Nadu’s regulations that ban minors from real-money gaming platforms and enforce “blank hours” from midnight to 5 AM.

Unlike China’s highly restrictive gaming policies, which include mandatory facial recognition for minors, strict three-hour weekly gaming limits for players under 18, and aggressive content censorship, India has opted for a more balanced framework that prioritizes user protection without imposing playtime restrictions for adults. Simultaneously, while less prescriptive than the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), which requires data protection impact assessments and mandates data protection officers, India’s combined Code and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (“DPDP Act”/“the Act”) and the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 (“Draft Rules”) notified thereunder provide a framework that addresses similar concerns through more gaming-specific mechanisms. The result is a distinctly Indian solution: robust protections implemented with pragmatic flexibility that acknowledges the industry’s economic importance while addressing legitimate societal concerns.

C. Player Profiles & Permissions: Consent, Classification & Children

Under the DPDP Act, gaming platforms are classified as  ‘Data Fiduciaries’ responsible for data processing purposes and ensuring compliance. The Act classifies entities that process data under their instructions, such as cloud service providers, payment processors, and analytics companies, as ‘Data Processors’ with distinct obligations. This classification demands that gaming companies reassess partnerships, formalize contracts, and clearly delineate responsibilities and liabilities, serving as an operational overhaul for agile start-ups used to informal collaborations. The DPDP Act reconceptualizes consent as “free, specific, informed, unconditional, and unambiguous” transforming how gaming platforms operate. The era of dense, unreadable terms buried in scrolling agreements is obsolete. Under the Act, gaming companies must clearly articulate and limit the purpose of the player data they collect, how they use it, who has access to it, and the duration of retention, since the Act prohibits blanket consent.

Online gaming intermediaries must secure distinct, specific consent for each data category they collect. This requires companies to reimagine user flows to incorporate granular consent mechanisms that enable players to selectively approve or decline different types of data collection. Consider a fantasy sports platform. Under earlier standards, a generic “we collect your data to improve services” disclaimer might suffice. The new regime mandates specificity: “We collect your gameplay patterns to personalize game recommendations, retain this data for 24 months, and share anonymized versions with analytics partners in Singapore.”

Notably, the Act’s stringent regulations on children’s data perfectly align with the industry’s mandate to verify player age. Setting 18 as the age of consent for data processing, the Act demands verifiable parental consent for minors and explicitly prohibits data processing that entails tracking, behavioural monitoring, targeted advertising, or any practice potentially detrimental to children’s well-being, posing a fundamental challenge to prevalent business models. Hence, it works out well that these complementary frameworks create a robust system for protecting younger players.

D. From Rules to Real Play: Platform Overhauls

Game Setup: Onboarding

The Code and the DPDP Act go beyond compliance, fundamentally redefining how gaming companies interact with users and manage data. With the regulatory context in place, the next logical step is to understand how these frameworks reshape operations on the ground. Key requirements include:

1. Advanced Age-Gating: Blocking minors from real-money gaming through multi-factor verification rather than simplistic date-of-birth declarations.
2. User-controlled Spending Limits: Allowing players to set daily, weekly, or monthly spending caps that cannot be overridden.
3. Self-exclusion Options: Enabling players to voluntarily suspend themselves from platforms for a specified period.
4. Comprehensive Identity Authentication: Enforcing KYC protocols to prevent fraud, money laundering, and financial crimes.

UX Design: Privacy Nudges & Gamified Safeguards

The principles of the Code and the DPDP Act mandate gaming companies to substantially transform their operations compared to earlier gaming regulations. Previously, users could simply download a fantasy cricket platform, provide minimal information, accept generic terms, and immediately engage in real-money gaming. Onboarding now involves significantly more rigorous compliance steps. Here is an overview of the new requirements:

1. Companies must implement robust age verification: ranging from government ID scanning to telecom-based verification or other approved technologies. Platforms must now either redirect minors to non-monetary games or require them to present verifiable parental consent before accessing paid features.

• Companies must now make consent protocols granular and explicit: with separate approvals for gameplay data, location tracking, communication preferences, and targeted advertising. The era of indiscriminate ‘I Accept’ agreements is over. Every consent request must provide clear, accessible explanations in multiple languages, detailing the specific data they collect and its intended purpose.

• KYC verification: the process needs nuancing and must adhere to enhanced security standards, with encrypted transmission of identity documents. Once verified, companies must make the data permanently deletable post-verification and clearly communicate data retention policies to all users.

• Setting spending limits: Finally, before gameplay commences, platforms must require users to set personal spending limits and provide immediate access to prominently displayed self-exclusion options rather than burying them in obscure menus.

Implementing these verification solutions requires balancing security and user experience. Excessive friction in age verification processes risks driving users away or toward less scrupulous platforms. Too little verification renders the protection meaningless. Companies are experimenting with tiered verification models where gameplay begins with basic verification, with additional checks triggered by specific risk indicators or when monetary transactions exceed certain thresholds. For example, Mobile Premier League (“MPL”) initially verifies basic email and phone number, but requires government ID only when players attempt to withdraw winnings exceeding ₹20, balancing security with user experience.

Further, gaming platforms face the additional challenge of educating users about their new rights and safeguards without disrupting the gaming experience. Initial user testing reveals a significant gap between the importance of these protections and user understanding of their value. Several major platforms are developing interactive tutorials that gamify the privacy education process, transforming dry consent flows into engaging “privacy quests” that reward users for understanding their data rights. Others are implementing progressive disclosure models that introduce privacy concepts contextually during natural gameplay pauses. The most innovative approaches leverage behavioural nudges that subtly encourage responsible gaming behaviours without heavy-handed interruptions. For example, Norsk Tipping, Norway’s state-owned gaming operator, implemented mandatory play breaks after 60 minutes of continuous play. During these breaks, players receive personalized feedback detailing their betting amounts, winnings, and net losses or gains for the day. This approach aims to increase self-awareness and encourage responsible gambling behaviours.

E. Analytics Nerfed: Privacy Mode

The DPDP Act mandates ‘adequate, relevant, and limited’ personal data collection for the stated purpose, this is known as the data minimization principle.  Under this principle, mobile gaming companies accustomed to comprehensive user behaviour tracking must overhaul their analytics practices. Companies can no longer defend collecting excessive data that serves no purpose, such as gender information that does not impact gameplay functionality. To achieve compliance, gaming platforms must critically assess every data field they collect and eliminate non-essential information gathering. This principle becomes clear when considering real-world applications. Take Ludo King, for instance, a popular board game app that, under previous practices, might collect precise location tracking or contact list information. Under the new framework, the app would have no justification for gathering such data since these data points don’t functionally support the game’s core mechanics. However, it could justify collecting device performance metrics to optimize game performance or player progress data to enable cross-device synchronization, provided the company clearly discloses these purposes and obtains user consent.

Platforms must now either anonymize this data completely or obtain explicit consent, specifying that data and behaviours are tracked, insights derived, and data retention periods, if they want to analyze playing patterns for feature enhancement. Tracking aimed at maximizing in-app purchases or play duration must be disclosed and must provide opt-out options to balance user protection with design simplicity. For example, a popular match-3 puzzle game previously collected precise GPS location data, contact list access, and photo gallery permissions despite offering no location-based or social features. Under the new regulations, this practice would be prohibited as the data serves no legitimate purpose for the game’s functionality. Instead, the platform would need to limit collection to data directly relevant to gameplay, such as device performance metrics or game progress information.

A key DPDP Act principle mandates gaming platforms to retain personal data only as long as necessary for the intended purpose and to implement permanent account deletion processes when users request it. This dramatically shifts away from past practices, which kept user data in databases indefinitely, even after users ‘deactivated’ their accounts. Now, when a player opts to leave, gaming platforms must completely erase personal data, logs, and private keys digitally, unless laws require them to retain certain information. This reimagining of data retention forces gaming companies to implement sophisticated data management systems that can track, isolate, and remove individual user data without compromising system integrity. For many platforms, this requires significant technical refactoring, but ultimately delivers on the promise of true digital autonomy for users who wish to exercise their ‘right to erasure of personal data’.

F. The Game Master’s Rulebook: Compliance & Consequences

The DPDP Act represents India’s comprehensive approach to safeguarding personal information in the digital age. The Act, along with the recently introduced Draft Rules, establishes clear guidelines for collecting, processing, and storing personal data. These regulations work in tandem with industry-specific measures like the Code to create a cohesive framework for responsible data management in the gaming sector. The Code aligns with India’s evolving data protection regime under the DPDP Act and the Draft Rules, creating both challenges and opportunities for harmonized compliance by gaming companies. The DPDP Act’s expansive definition of ‘personal data’ as information ‘about’ or ‘concerning’ an identifiable individual significantly impacts gaming platforms.

Gaming platforms collect extensive personal data across multiple categories, each serving a distinct purpose in enhancing user experience, ensuring security, and enabling financial transactions. Personal information, including names, age, gender, and email addresses, forms the foundation of user accounts and identity verification. KYC data, such as bank account numbers, PAN cards, Aadhaar details, and UPI/Virtual Payment addresses, is crucial for regulatory compliance and fraud prevention. Beyond identity verification, technical data, including GPS locations, IP addresses, device IMEI numbers, and MAC addresses, helps optimize game performance, detect suspicious activity, and enhance cybersecurity measures. Financial and transaction data, encompassing payment records, withdrawal of winnings, and in-game purchases, ensures smooth monetary interactions and prevents fraudulent transactions. Moreover, gaming behavioural data, covering details like games played, duration, frequency, and performance metrics, enables platforms to personalize recommendations, refine game mechanics, and drive player engagement. Additionally, communication data, such as in-game chats, voice recordings, messaging history, and contact lists, facilitates social interactions but also introduces significant privacy considerations.

The robust accountability framework distinguishes this Code from previous regulatory attempts. Annual third-party audits will evaluate member companies’ compliance, with results reported to the federation leadership, ensuring that compliance is not merely aspirational but mandatory for continued association. Also, the implementation timeline is pragmatic, reflecting its sensitivity to operational challenges of larger entities generating annual revenues of ₹100 crores or more. Such large companies have been afforded a relaxed timeline of six months, with smaller platforms given a nine-month leeway. This tiered approach balances resource disparities between industry leaders and emerging players without compromising the goal of comprehensive protection.

Economic implications of these new requirements, though, vary across the gaming ecosystem. For established players with robust infrastructure, compliance represents a manageable investment aligned with long-term strategic interests. However, for India’s vibrant gaming startup community, the compliance burden could pose significant challenges. Initial implementation costs for comprehensive age verification, granular consent mechanisms, and security upgrades could be a substantial expenditure for pre-revenue or early-stage companies. Industry analysts anticipate a potential consolidation wave as smaller studios may find partnership with larger platforms more viable than independent compliance. Paradoxically, while creating short-term barriers to entry, these standards could ultimately level the competitive landscape by ensuring all companies operate under identical consumer protection parameters, potentially reducing the advantage previously held by those willing to compromise on user safeguards.

Taken together, these measures acknowledge that every in-game action, whether it’s a click, purchase, or gameplay pattern, contributes to a vast pool of data that fuels innovation, personalization, and engagement. However, with India’s evolving data protection framework, gaming companies must navigate complex challenges, balancing data-driven insights with stringent privacy obligations.

G. Game Completed, Achievement Unlocked

India’s gaming sector is standing at the crossroads of growth and responsibility. The convergence of industry self-regulation through the Code and statutory enforcement under the DPDP Act creates a layered, yet cohesive system that balances innovation with accountability. This dual approach ensures that user protection is embedded not as an afterthought but as a foundational element of gaming platforms. From age verification and self-exclusion tools to granular consent and the right to erasure, platforms are now compelled to move beyond compliance into a space of meaningful user empowerment.

By placing trust, transparency, and control into the hands of players, these measures transform gaming from a regulatory grey zone into a model of responsible digital innovation. While implementation challenges, especially for startups, may lead to short-term friction, the long-term outcome is a more trustworthy, equitable, and sustainable digital gaming ecosystem. Ultimately, these reforms offer India a chance to define a globally relevant model for ethical gaming, one where innovation thrives not in spite of regulation, but because of it.

*Ashwini Vittalachar is an Equity Partner heading Samvad Partner’s New Delhi office with over 18 years of experience centring on corporate law, and in particular regulated sectors across the e-commerce, technology and fintech industries. 

*Pragya Sharma is a Senior Associate at Samvad Partners, New Delhi, with over four years of experience focusing on technology, media, and fintech laws, advising clients on digital regulation, data protection, and complex commercial transactions.

*Drishti Ranjan is an Associate at Samvad Partners, Bengaluru.  She is interested in technology, and data protection laws and advises clients on navigating India’s evolving digital regulatory landscape, with a focus on compliance, innovation, and consumer protection frameworks.