IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw chaired a meeting with Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) officials on March 6, where they discussed mandating registration of online games based on factors, according to two officials who spoke to Tech Trace. The officials said the government is considering empowering the Centre or the Online Gaming Authority (OGA) to notify specific categories of online games or companies to register. “The parameters could be related to national security. For instance, the game could be from China. Or the game could be harmful, or the content may be something that is not in favour of our culture,” one official said.

Under the current framework, registration is not uniformly mandatory. The Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Rules, 2025 requires e-sports to first obtain recognition under the National Sports Governance Act and then register with the OGA. However, for online social games (OSGs), registration remains optional.

Removal of ‘material change’ definition: The government is also considering removing the definition of “material change” from the rules, even though the concept will continue to apply in practice. The draft had defined it as changes to features or revenue models that could alter a game’s classification. 

Officials clarified that re-evaluation would still be required: “If the nature of the game changes, the determination [about whether it is an OMG or not] is no longer valid. If I have determined your game [to not be an OMG] but you change it, that means the old determination is no longer valid. You should come and get your game determined again.” They added that a registration certificate depends on the original determination, and if conditions change, the certificate effectively becomes invalid.

Changes to OGA composition: Earlier, the draft proposed a MeitY chairperson with five members, including joint secretary-level officials and two director-level experts. Now, the government is considering a structure with six members drawn from five ministries: home affairs, law and justice, finance, information and broadcasting, and youth affairs and sports. It may remove the two director-level positions. Additionally, the quorum requirement could increase from one-third to half of the authority’s strength.

GAC removal from the grievance process: Separately, MeitY is considering removing the Grievance Appellate Committee (GAC) from the grievance redressal chain. The draft rules had allowed users to escalate complaints from gaming platforms to the GAC and then to the OGA. The revised proposal would instead route appeals from the platform to the OGA and finally to the MeitY secretary as the appellate authority.

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