Reliance Jio has appointed Sidharth Kedia, the former CEO of Nodwin Gaming, as the Senior Vice President and Head of JioGames.
The move aims to scale up JioGames’ business operations. Kedia, who officially took on the role in June, expressed his enthusiasm for returning to Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) after nearly a decade.
“A decade later, I feel pretty stoked to be called back in the RIL family and be entrusted with the opportunity to scale Jiogames and build a gaming behemoth that India awaits,” Kedia said.
What is Kedia’s professional background?
Sidharth Kedia brings a wealth of experience from his previous roles. Prior to joining JioGames, he served as the CEO of Nodwin Gaming, an e-sports company backed by Nazara.
Kedia also held various positions within the Reliance Group, including executive roles at Viacom18 and Network18. At Viacom18, he was the Executive Vice President and Head of Strategy, M&A, Data Science, and eSports for almost three years.
At Network18, he served as CEO-Digital (Non-News) and corporate strategy for nearly two years.
What did Sidharth Kedia say?
Kedia is optimistic about JioGames’ potential growth, particularly in the context of the broader digital landscape in India.
“Over the last decade, D2C businesses focused on lifestyle, social, and entertainment have been the biggest beneficiaries of internet democratization by Jio. In fact, they exist today because Jio changed the way India accessed data,” Kedia noted.
His vision for JioGames is to build it into a significant player in the gaming industry, leveraging the robust digital infrastructure that Jio has established.
How does JioGamesCloud fit into JioGames’ strategy?
A key component of JioGames’ strategy is JioGamesCloud, a cloud gaming platform that offers a diverse catalog of games ranging from high-end AAA titles to hyper-casual games.
The platform caters to various age groups and genres, allowing users to play games on a range of devices, including PCs, smartphones, tablets, TVs, and web browsers, without the need to download them locally. JioGamesCloud benefits from Jio’s extensive network infrastructure, providing seamless gaming experiences.
Partnerships and future plans
Last year, JioGames entered into a 10-year strategic partnership with French cloud gaming services firm Gamestream, which includes notable partners such as Ubisoft. This partnership aims to enhance JioGames’ cloud gaming capabilities.
Jio’s collaboration with Gamestream is expected to help scale its cloud gaming platform, JioGamesCloud, further integrating advanced cloud gaming solutions.
