NLU Delhi and the not-for-profit organization E Gaming Federation have collaborated through a Memorandum of Understanding to propose regulatory frameworks for the online gaming sector.

The university has convened roundtable discussions involving representatives from the legal fraternity, academia, and the gaming industry to compile recommendations. These recommendations will be submitted to the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

Assistant Professor Raghav Pandey commented on the University's role in the process, stating that...

“We thought that this is an area we should develop research on and we did a roundtable with key stakeholders and people in the profession and people in academia. The industry globally is a bigger industry than Hollywood and OTT combined. In India, we have 40% of all players but we only account for 1% of revenue. Online gaming cannot be completely banned, but there must be some leeway in terms of freedom to trade and business, and if we allow that, there ought to be a framework. Currently there is no framework, and there should be certain principles based on which the prospective framework can be built upon. We are in process of finding out these principles. We will be constituting another roundtable soon.”

The University is expected to submit its proposal to MeitY by late 2024 or early 2025. This initiative follows the Central government's proposal last year to introduce regulations for online gaming, which were outlined as amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

While some welcomed the proposed regulations, others advocated for a more comprehensive approach through separate legislation. The amendments initially included provisions for the establishment of self-regulatory bodies (SRBs) to oversee the content of registered games. However, MeitY eventually abandoned this idea due to concerns regarding the autonomy and impartiality of such bodies.