From Student to Entrepreneur: The Rise of an Online Game Distribution Business
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Bilal Ashraf, a student of the Batch of 2024, at the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences, has established, TGD - The Game Drawer, an online game distribution business, achieving over $300,000 in sales within its first year.
“This success is rooted in the skills and knowledge from my Economics and Mathematics major at LUMS, enhanced by courses in Computer Science and Finance. These disciplines have provided me with a unique blend of technical prowess and financial acumen, vital for managing a global business,” says Ashraf.
Ashraf, also a Dean’s Honour List 2023 awardee, was just looking for a free version of Resident Evil, a game he sometimes liked to play offline. However, the paid version was extremely expensive ($70). So, he went online and came across this marketplace where they were selling the shared game account that cost a meagre three dollars. “I started thinking how these people were able to make money by selling that original game account to me for just three dollars. So, I went to the marketplace and explored it a bit. I was very intrigued by how people were selling a whole plethora of other digital games and services,” shares Ashraf.
Compared to the Pakistani market, the prices were very low. Ashraf figured out that he could make a lot of money if he acted as a middleman and bought the online licensed games, sold by Microsoft, Steam and other publishers/developers, off the international market and sell it to people in Pakistan. A resident of Faisalabad, he went looking and talking to local game shop owners. They were willing to give him a chance and he started business with them. He later expanded his services to Lahore and Islamabad where shop owners started giving him more orders. The next step was to expand his initiative to Daraz, South Asia's leading e-commerce marketplace.
Not wanting to settle with the small profit he was getting out of the deals, Ashraf set himself to the task of understanding the entire system of selling and buying. He wanted to know how and where those who were involved with the industry sourced it from. He wanted to be more than a middleman. He spent a couple of days and nights figuring it out and finally cracked the code for one category. Ashraf found out how to be a supplier of Xbox CD keys. However, he now faced a problem. He did not have the necessary funds to start the business. A friend gave him some money. This was the start of TGD. At this time, his brother, who has no background in this area, could see his dedication and involvement and heavily invested in the project. After this, there has been no looking back.
Ashraf developed a lot of automated solutions for mundane tasks and made the entire process more efficient. “My skills in programming helped me make bots that were able to help me achieve the target of hopping onto trends early on and being able to manage that inventory. This enabled me to expand,” says Ashraf.
Initially, TGD was catering to Russian customers only. Then in 2022, post the Russian-Ukraine conflict, sanctions were imposed on Russian citizens. Most of the payments made for the games was made through portals belonging to the West. Post the sanctions, the companies stopped offering their services in Russia, the world’s second largest market for gaming.
A vacuum was created in which Russian customers who wanted the games could not pay for those games. As a result, people started sourcing these games for the Russian customers. “I was able to spot this opportunity early on and started sourcing Steam games from those regions. I started selling it to Russian customers. That is how I got involved in expanding my games catalogue from just Xbox CD keys to games on Steam. Our business expanded outside Russia and penetrated the European market as well,” explains Ashraf.
So, what is on his cards for the future? “There is a lot of room for growth and improvement. I think that we can grow 100 % just by staying in these markets and doing what we do. However, we will need to be more efficient. I have a couple of goals that I have set for 2024 for TGD to achieve,” adds Ashraf. He also plans on launching services that would include innovative solutions that the markets require at this time.
“My learnings at LUMS have been essential for strategically guiding the business, showcasing the practical value of a diverse academic background. During my time at the University, I've discovered the power of integrating various fields of study to address real-world challenges. TGD is a testament to this interdisciplinary approach, reflecting how combining different academic streams can lead to meaningful entrepreneurial achievements in an international setting,” says Ashraf.
