The Missing Middle: How Mid-Scale Game Studios are the Key to India's Global Breakout

As someone who's been part of India’s gaming industry for nearly two decades - and now building with GodSpeed Games - I’ve seen the growth, the struggles, and most importantly, the gap that mid-scale game studios often fall into.

When we talk about the Indian gaming industry, we often spotlight two ends of the spectrum - the scrappy indie developers building passion projects with limited resources, and the large-scale gaming giants (often with foreign backing) running massive operations or Real Money Gaming (RMG) platforms.

But somewhere in between lies a crucial - and currently underdeveloped - piece of the puzzle: the mid-scale game studio.

So what is a mid-scale studio?

These are companies/studios with anywhere from 20 to 200 employees - large enough to execute high-quality titles across platforms, but still small enough to retain agility, creativity, and innovation. They may not have a unicorn valuation or flashy investor decks, but they are building IPs, offering services, and shaping the future of Indian gaming quietly but steadily.

Let's see why the Mid-Scale Matters

1. Execution Capability

   Unlike solo devs, mid-scale studios can finish what they start - whether its a console port, a mobile game, or a full fledged PC title. At GodSpeed we have delivered over 50 games across mobile, console and pc ports. And it is this operational maturity along with the creative freedom, that defines the strength of mid-scale studios.

   
   

2. Global Partnerships

   They are often the ones collaborating with publishers, tech companies, or international studios - bringing global work to Indian soil and upskilling local talent. In our case, we've collaborated with publishers worldwide, ported global IPs, and supported live ops for top-tier games - yet we still operate with the lean, hands-on energy that’s typical of mid-sized studios.

   
   

3. Employment and Skill Development

   These studios act as talent incubators. They provide structured learning grounds without the corporate rigidity of larger firms. Personally we have always prioritized mentorship. From training fresh QA testers, Programmers to contributing to curriculum frameworks for gaming education, now with our new initiative GodSpeed Media Labs.

   
   

4. Balanced Risk Apatite

   Mid-scale studios can take calculated risks - experimenting with monetization models, gameplay mechanics, and genres - something that’s hard at both extremes of the size spectrum.

   
   
   
   

The Challenge: Survival Without Spotlight

Despite their importance, mid-scale studios often:

• Struggle for visibility (media, government, and even player recognition).

• Don’t fit into VC narratives focused on exponential growth.

• Get clubbed with either "service vendors" or "indie devs" - neither of which fully defines their ambition.

Worse, without support, many of these studios plateau or burn out - unable to cross the chasm into sustainability or scale.

What Needs to Happen

To truly enable India’s gaming breakout on the world stage, we need to build a support system for this missing middle:

• Access to funding models that understand steady, long-term growth (not just hyper-scaling).

• More domestic publishers who can support and distribute Indian IPs.

• Government policy support and visibility for entertainment gaming beyond just RMG.

• Recognition of these studios as serious players in global game production pipelines.

So if you ask me, we don't lack talent or ideas. What we lack is a thriving middle class of game studios that can take these ideas to market and make them successful - commercially, creatively, and globally.

Supporting them isn't just about business - it’s about building a sustainable, respected Indian gaming industry that stands on its own two feet.

India’s gaming future won’t be built solely by unicorns or solo devs - but by studios like ours that operate in the middle, quietly pushing boundaries every day. It’s time this segment got its due.