Globally, scholars and industry experts have recognised the challenges of defining what a game is and this is something that the draft will have to struggle with as well.

“Deposit” and “winnings” have been defined to include both cash and kind. Rule 2(1)(qb) defines “online game” as a “game that is offered on the Internet and is accessible by a user through a computer resource if he makes a deposit with the expectation of earning winnings”.

The first challenge in the draft policy is the way in which a game is defined as an “online game” and then acted upon – a regulation that is almost unnecessary if you regulate all forms of games that are made available in India. Thus, while the temptation to include gaming regulations in the IT Rules is significant, the two need to be conceptualised as separate Bills that will form a dialectical framework where one can inform the other and vice versa.Ī separate Bill for gaming – which understands offline and online gaming activities as cutting across socio-economic and cultural sections of the nation’s society – is essential if we want to safeguard the country’s population in the Digital India drive. However, in India, we are drafting our new IT policy at the same time as we’re mulling over regulating online gaming and related activities. Most countries in the Global North have pre-existing regulations on gaming, video games and other related activities but these rules have been informed by broader regulation frameworks on media, digitality, the Internet and online practices. However, as conversations swirl around these expectations, there’s little in-depth analysis of what the draft rules for online gaming wish to accomplish. The recently proposed amendments to the IT Rules, 2021 relating to online gaming by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) have sparked debate on whether it’ll limit the engagements video games offer or if it’ll open up new avenues for leisure, work and business.

Online gaming laws in india