Dream11's big gamble: Can free-to-play save India's fantasy gaming giant?

Speaking with Mint, Dream 11’s chief marketing officer (CMO) Vikrant Mudaliar said the near‑term priority is to preserve the contest feel and add free‑to‑enter contests, widen ad formats, and increase contests per match without breaking gameplay flow.

Dream11, India's once-largest fantasy gaming app that has relaunched with ad integrations from companies like Swiggy, Astrotalk and Tata Neu, highlights the central challenge: preserving the contest feel where fans return to build teams, track performance and compete, while also layering gratifications and rewards that keep interest alive without cash stakes.

Commissions on paid contests historically dominated revenues of companies like Dream 11 supported by sponsorships, partnerships, and data monetization. Now, they are floating integrated, gamified advertising to capture the highly engaged, match-time attention of fans. Their pitch is simple: high user activity during live sporting events offers brands critical real-time reach.

The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, which took effect on 1 October, aimed to close legal loopholes around online gambling and betting, blocking payment facilitation for such games while explicitly supporting e-sports and educational games under a regulated framework.

User drop

Dream11's free-to-play app attracts only about 10 million daily active users (DAUs), a steep drop from its registered user base of roughly 250 million, underscoring the challenge of maintaining engagement after the reward loops of cash prizes disappeared.

The company historically ran an ad‑free app for paid fantasy contests, but Mudaliar noted the platform has long worked with brands through official partnerships and brand rewards rather than ad‑supported formats.

“Over the years we’ve partnered with brands as official fantasy partners for the ICC, IPL and BCCI, with player rewards and curated tie‑ins on platforms like Hotstar, but that wasn’t an ad‑supported model," Vikrant Mudaliar said. “Looking at ad monetization is a first of sorts for us, and it’s still early days."

Dream11 has begun a selective pilot for ad monetization using a mixed approach that pairs direct sales of prime inventory to align brands with limited programmatic buys. Alongside this, the platform is crafting curated sponsorships, customized contests and deeper brand integrations designed to show up at high‑engaged moments of a player’s journey.

“The emphasis is on native, gamified ads and contextual placements rather than a performance‑ads‑only play. The goal is to create integrations that feel organic to fantasy gameplay…We’re onboarding brands selectively and focusing on meaningful partnerships that add value to the user experience rather than chasing volume," added Mudaliar.

Other platforms including Games24x7 and Mobile Premier League, has removed real money rewards and turned into a free-to-play app, but has yet to explore monetization. A Gameskraft spokesperson said the company does not have plans for a re-launch yet.

Queries emailed to Mobile Premier League and Games24x7 remained unanswered.

Saurabh Parmar, an independent marketing and advertising consultant, doubts whether the new strategy will work, since the strategic question is user motivation and sustained engagement even without cash rewards.

“Why would users come on?" he wondered, noting that brands that follow users and platforms must prove why fans will join and stay in a free‑to‑play environment.

“I’m sceptical about the current free-to-play model and its future. Of course, the 10 million DAU is a huge number, but I’m not sure those will remain engaged unless there are meaningful incentives or prizes," said Parmar.

These platforms are also entering an already saturated advertising market, where an estimated ₹4,500-7,000 crore is spent annually on the IPL alone. They face entrenched competition from established TV broadcasters, OTT services, social media, and major digital platforms running programmatic channels. This competition makes pricing, reliable measurement, and unique ad integrations critical.

Experts noted that convincing large brands to advertise will be difficult in the near term. The real money gaming category has been contentious in India, and the current ad-supported plays are experimental, lacking the proven reach and measurable outcomes of established media channels.

Monetization challenge

Free-to-play implies a very significant revenue downgrade per match and per game due to the loss of user buy-in fees, a senior marketing executive at a real-money gaming firm said on the condition of anonymity.

"The only model that existed was the money that the user was putting in. That is all gone," the person said.

Insiders see monetization via advertising alone as unsustainable. Previously, gaming platforms often avoided ads; now, they are open to everything from display to video. The question is whether this becomes a sustained strategy.

"Ad-supported is possible, but it’s intrinsically not very friendly for core gamers when it shows up as interruptive ads—players just want the ad to end, and most don’t like anything cutting into gameplay," a second executive with a large RMG firm said.

This executive argued that for a defensible long-term future, free-to-play models will need multiple viable revenue options: subscriptions, in-app advertising, and in-app purchases.

Brands, the executive explained, optimize for sheer reach, and user scale will matter more than clever ad formats. With Big Tech dominating ad budgets, product innovation beyond simple advertising is essential for these apps to compete meaningfully.

The platforms' audience skew, which largely comes from Tier-2 and Tier-3 Indian cities, could be positioned as a unique targeting proposition.

However, consultant Parmar noted that brands ultimately decide on price rather than principle. A major unanswered question is whether these platforms can secure revenue on a stable bulk basis or if they must sell on a risky pay-for-performance model. If the latter, and users fail to engage initially, the entire financial experiment could fail to deliver.