Micro-drama startups brace as gaming giants move in

These companies are zeroing in on how people spend their breaks: quick bursts of entertainment. Their bet is on snackable micro-dramas—two-to-three-minute episodes packed with twists and emotional payoffs—vying to steal the same eyeballs that might otherwise drift into Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts.

The market is already crowded with ambitious players, including VC-backed startups like Stellaris-funded Flick TV, Peak XV-backed Dashverse, and Zee Entertainment’s Bullet. Established media players and social platforms are also pushing in, from Balaji Telefilms’s Kutingg (after its streaming service ALTT was banned in July) to ShareChat’s Moj and QuickTV.

Now, gaming companies like WinZO and Zupee have waded in, pivoting from their real-money gaming businesses after new regulation curtailed operations in August.

The timing could hardly be more critical: India’s short-form video and micro-drama market is clocking a $50 million monthly run rate, according to Redseer—that’s roughly $600 million annually. With more than 300 million users already hooked and a flood of new platforms chasing the format, analysts expect the space to expand into an $8-12 billion opportunity by 2030.

The gaming shift and the revenue battle

Gaming companies bring what entertainment upstarts still lack: captive users and gamified monetization models, translating into commercially primed eyeballs.

Yet, they still have to crack the content puzzle. For the first wave of micro-drama players, gaming’s entry raises uncomfortable questions about user overlap and defensibility.

ShareChat offers a detailed example. Its in-house app QuickTV produces shows at ₹10-20 lakh an hour, takes two to three weeks per title, and has 15 million downloads, though only a fraction pay the ₹499-per-quarter fee.

Moj, by contrast, leans on scale and creator uploads-150 million daily views, nearly 5 billion a month—and runs ad-supported. ShareChat expects ads, not subscriptions, to drive growth as rising customer acquisition costs (CACs) squeeze margins.

But even with this reach, ShareChat sees rising strain with gaming companies fraying in. “Space does get crowded, for sure…what it also does is it pushes the CAC up. Subscription models will feel pressure…everybody is running after the same set of paying users,” said Manohar Singh Charan, co-founder and chief financial officer, ShareChat & Moj.

“As competition intensifies, it will only get harder to acquire, retain and engage consumers,” he added.

In FY24, short-form video platforms in India earned about $100 million from ads alone, while subscription models remained nascent, according to Redseer.

The subscription arithmetic

The subscription math itself may not hold for long. Right now, platforms rely on a kind of working capital arbitrage, collecting subscription fees upfront while paying CACs a month later. But as CACs inch closer to the first payment cycle, that cushion will disappear, forcing companies to burn significantly more cash to scale.

“You collect today, but pay tomorrow. As CACs get closer to first subscription payment, the arbitrage will vanish and companies will incur significant cash losses to scale faster” Charan said.

Redseer pegs the CAC for short-form platforms at about ₹200 per paying subscriber, a number industry executives also cite.

Not all players agree that gamification is key. Dashverse, which raised $13 million last month, is betting that velocity, not gamification, will separate winners from losers.

“People don’t need 100 new microdramas a month—they need a lakh. It’s a very different ball game, which people will realize soon,” said founder Sanidhya Narain. “Every company can spin up a studio and crank out a few projects—that might work for a while. But in the end, only platforms win. What really matters is content velocity, and no single studio can keep up.”

Dashverse’s plan is to flood the market with 100 new titles in the coming months, powered by AI-assisted writing, production, and post-production. For now, the company relies entirely on subscriptions, with all its content behind a ₹399-per-quarter paywall.

Kuku TV, like its audio sibling Kuku FM, also runs on a subscription-only model with no ads or micropayments. Priced at ₹499 per quarter, the platform claims 10 million active paying users—and unlike rivals experimenting with ads or freemium, it is betting that sheer content volume and quality will be enough to keep subscribers locked in.

The gaming advantage

Lal Chand Bisu, CEO of Kuku FM, said gaming companies entering micro-dramas face a steep challenge. While many real-money gaming (RMG) players are looking at content as a natural adjacency after their core business took a hit, he argued that the two industries are worlds apart.

“Games take years to build with uncertain odds of success, while content demands heavy operations and constant output. I don’t know how well they’ll play this game—some might execute, but it’s not the same as gaming. That said, there is a big overlap between gamers and content audiences, even if not all gamers will convert,” Bisu said.

For years, real-money gaming (RMG) companies powered India’s gaming boom, until August, when the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act brought operations to a sudden halt. Giants like MPL, Dream11, and Gameskraft shuttered their paid divisions, while Zupee and WinZO pivoted quickly into the micro-drama ecosystem.

Zupee and WinZO are already bringing their gaming DNA into micro-dramas, layering in gamified monetization with daily check-ins, referrals, and token rewards to unlock episodes. Others are experimenting, too.

Zee Entertainment–backed Bullet blends storytelling with game mechanics to make content “more affordable, stickier and personalized,” said co-founder Azim Lalani.

Zupee, for its part, is leaning on scale. “What sets us apart is the combination of a 200M+ strong user base, proven engagement models and a deep focus on India’s cultural roots,” a Zupee spokesperson told Mint.

“Gamified monetization sustains engagement better than ads (A-VoD) or subscriptions (S-VoD) as rewards and interactivity create a gaming loop, boosting retention and session times,” said Rajesh Sethi, Partner at PwC, Media & Entertainment.

Revenue predictability is much higher because it’s all micro-transaction driven. “A gamer impulsively buys. In ads, spending is volatile. In subscriptions, ₹200 a month won’t cut it—you need a massive base. Gaming companies enjoy a big advantage on CAC too as their customer acquisition cost is very low because they can leverage captive gaming bases for cross-promotion,” he added.

This blend of game design and storytelling resonates especially in smaller towns. “Microdramas align with tier-2/tier-3 audiences as low data consumption, gamified bytes suit perfectly,” he explained. But sustainability, he cautioned, will likely hinge on freemium: “Eventually there will be a mix of ads and transactions.”

The content hurdle

But being ahead of the curve may mean little if content depth doesn’t follow.

“Captive gaming audiences gives a head start in user acquisition, but sustained engagement is not assured. The overlap between gaming behaviour and short-form content consumption is adjacent but not identical,” said Akshat Gupta, practice member, Digital Media at Praxis Global Alliance.

Add to that, gaming is interactive, while short-video is lean back, entertainment led format. “The risk is shallow adoption if platforms merely cross-sell content without curating experiences that blend gaming’s interactive nature with video’s engagement triggers,” he added.

Romance, horror and mythology are driving viewership, with Indian micro-drama apps crossing 50 million cumulative downloads and top Asian players hitting 150 million monthly active users.

Unlike traditional user-generated content, these platforms lean on professionally generated stories across crime, heartbreak and fantasy. Women dominate the user base, largely commuters, shopkeepers and housewives with “wait time,” not “spare time,” according to industry experts.

As of 2025, more than 50 micro-drama apps have gone live in India, collectively crossing 50 million downloads, according to Redseer. Short-form video platforms pulled in $90-100 million ad revenue in FY24, as monetization has begun, though the market is still only scratching the surface.

In a market where both content velocity and gamified monetization are under trial, winners will likely be those that can scale production rapidly while sustaining engagement. The next few quarters will reveal whether India’s micro-dramas are shaped by gaming DNA or subscription discipline.