Pixel P&L: Indian Lawmakers Push for More Gaming Regulation and Esports Recognition

Welcome to another Pixel P&L edition. This issue takes 6 minutes to read. If you only have one, here are the 5 most important things:

• Indian lawmaker pushes for esports recognition as an official sport while calling for gaming regulation.

• Nvidia prepares GeForce Now relaunch in India with RTX 5080 SuperPODs, targeting cloud gaming market.

• RRR director S.S. Rajamouli confirmed talks with Japanese studios for an anime adaptation of the blockbuster film.

• BLAST names Polymarket as official prediction partner for 2026 CS2 and Dota 2 season.

• Supercell revenue dips 4% but profits rise 6%, CEO doubles down on new game development.

Let's get into it.

Indian Lawmaker Pushes for Gaming Regulation, Official Esports Recognition

Rajya Sabha MP Kartikeya Sharma called on the Indian government to regulate online gaming across its full chain and to grant official sports status to esports.

Speaking during Zero Hour, Sharma framed the issue as two distinct problems. Unregulated amateur gaming, he said, has led to child deaths linked to addiction, with clinical studies connecting excessive play to rising ADHD, anxiety, and depression among young people. He asked the government to mandate game audits to make digital spaces safer for children.

At the same time, Sharma argued India is sitting on untapped esports potential. He cited 500 million amateur gamers, a $3.7 billion domestic gaming market projected to reach $10 billion by 2030, and an AVGC sector that could require two million skilled professionals by the decade's end.

"I urge the government to grant official sports status to esports, as they are also being accepted by international competitions, Olympics and other bodies," he said.

Separately, BJP MP Sumitra Balmik raised concerns about children's phone addiction and called for a digital detox initiative in schools.

Nvidia Readies Cloud Gaming Relaunch in India

Nvidia is preparing to relaunch its GeForce Now cloud gaming service in India, deploying RTX 5080 SuperPODs to power the platform. India will be the third region, after North America and Western Europe, where the company operates the service directly.

At a media preview in Mumbai on February 6, the company demonstrated the service across devices ranging from MacBook Airs to Steam Decks and entry-level TVs. New features include Cinematic Quality Streaming, which supports HDR10 and AV1 codec at 100 Mbps for improved visual fidelity. The service library includes over 4,500 games, with more than 180 Xbox Game Pass titles.

Nvidia has not announced pricing or a firm launch date, saying a beta phase will precede the public release. The relaunch comes as rising memory and GPU prices make cloud gaming an increasingly practical alternative to hardware ownership for Indian consumers.

Rajamouli in Talks With Japanese Studios for RRR Anime Adaptation

S.S. Rajamouli, the Indian filmmaker behind RRR, told Polygon he is in discussions with multiple Japanese animation studios about an anime adaptation of the 2022 action epic.

"We have been in talks with a few studios in Japan to make RRR in anime," Rajamouli said. "Hopefully it happens, and hopefully we can announce a cool continuation of RRR anime."

Rajamouli said he discovered anime recently through series like Demon Slayer and Attack on Titan, which changed how he thinks about pacing and dramatic staging. In 2024, he met animation producer Rui Kuroki, who now heads studio CUE, and director-designer Kazuto Nakazawa, known for Samurai Champloo and B: The Beginning.

Japanese studio Trigger had already acknowledged RRR's popularity in Japan in 2023 with an anime-style promotional poster for the film's dubbed release.

Separately, an animated Baahubali continuation with a reported ₹120 crore budget is already in production.

⚡️Quick Bytes

Supercell Revenue Dips 4% to €2.65 Billion, but Profits Rise

Finnish mobile developer Supercell reported €2.65 billion in 2025 revenue, down 4% year-over-year, while pretax profit rose 6% to €932 million. Clash Royale drove growth, with new players up nearly 500%. CEO Ilkka Paananen said the company doubled its investment in new game development and plans to double it again, even after shutting down Squad Busters less than 18 months after launch.

BLAST Names Polymarket as Prediction Partner for 2026 Season

Esports tournament organizer BLAST has signed prediction market platform Polymarket as its official prediction partner for the 2026 season across its CS2 and Dota 2 circuits. The year-long deal covers seven global events, starting at BLAST Slam VI in Malta, with broadcast integrations and on-site fan activations. Polymarket already holds partnerships with the NHL, UFC, and MLS.

Sony's Next State of Play Set for Thursday

Sony will host a State of Play presentation on February 12, with over 60 minutes of game announcements, updates, and gameplay from PlayStation Studios and third-party developers. The company's 2026 first-party lineup includes Marathon in March, Saros in April, and Marvel's Wolverine later in the year. Major third-party titles expected on PS5 include Grand Theft Auto 6 and Monster Hunter Stories 3.

⚔️Side Quest

🤣Laugh:

📺 Watch: Gamers Nexus tracks the AI bubble's collapse. NVIDIA and OpenAI's $100B deal is reportedly dead, Oracle's data center loans are approaching junk status, and the circular cash flow between AI companies is cracking. OpenAI reserved 40% of global DRAM supply (spiking memory prices for everyone) while promising compute power requiring one-third of America's total nuclear capacity. The math doesn't work.

🎮 Play: ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN is Suda51 at maximum Suda51. Your dead grandpa lives on your jacket, you grow zombie allies called Bastards, cooking minigames grant stat buffs, and yes, you fight a green skeleton in a normal house. It mashes Back to the Future time travel with Mega Man Battle Network hubs and Tron-style dimension hopping. Incomprehensible until it clicks, then absolutely brilliant.

📚 Read: Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen admits the mobile gaming industry is coasting, not thriving. Despite Clash Royale's historic comeback year, the West has launched only two $1B+ games since 2020 versus China's 20. Paananen's solution: double down on innovation by restructuring Supercell like a startup incubator with profit-sharing for founders.

💡Did You Know

Before esports had leagues, arenas, or million-dollar prize pools, there was Dennis "Thresh" Fong. A dominant Quake player in the mid-1990s, Fong earned around $100,000 a year through prize money and endorsements at a time when "professional gamer" wasn't a real job title. His most famous win? John Carmack's Ferrari 328, awarded to the champion of a 1997 Quake tournament. After retiring from competitive play, Fong co-founded Xfire, a gaming communication platform that Viacom later acquired for $102 million. Not bad for someone whose career started by fragging people in deathmatches.

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