Gambling apps have been actively trying to pass themselves off as gaming ones for a while now and they have started pushing to make it official now. Recently, people like the co-founder of Nodwin Gaming, Akshat Rathee and Vishal Gondal, Co-Founder and Chairman of FAU-G studio Ncore Games spoke out about the same.
And now according to a post of Twitter by Vishal Gondal, he has been slapped with six legal notices from people all based in different cities in India. These legal notices threaten him with criminal and civil action for his tweets.
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Received multiple Criminal & Civil Defamation notices https://t.co/nekW4aBk9bRead @medianama https://t.co/S8kezTKYIzPeople across India have taken offense to my article & tweets highlighting online gambling(read them they are hilarious 😂) @TheKenWeb #IndiaAgainstGambling pic.twitter.com/l1oJKrc3nlFebruary 23, 2021
Gondal has responded on the tweet saying that these legal notices are “frivolous and baseless” and that he has “full faith” in India’s courts. He urges the Indian gaming community “raise the issue of getting gambling under all surrogate forms under strict government regulation and oversight”.
Gambling companies are actively trying to get themselves classified as gaming apps and have even met with government officials to follow up on that. Since 2018 these companies have been trying to mask their way in being called gaming companies and even participated in the Indian Game Developers Conference.
Last year IGDC governor Rajesh Rao even defended these companies by stating that they are making 'games of skill'. In the last month or so, the debate of gambling apps vs gaming apps has heated up and IGDC seems eerily silent about the whole thing. According to this IGN report, this is rather unusual considering that it is pretty active when it comes to talking up to the international media. This is surprising since there is a stigma against gambling in India and yet this nonchalance is weird at best.
IGN says that it approached the IGDC for a comment back in January regarding this and is yet to receive a reply. While Vishal Gondal has the means to defend himself, many game developers do not and this needs to be a point of contention. Game development in India is hard as it is and developers definitely don't need to be compared with gambling on top of it.
