India Gaming

13
Apr 09

Sony Entertainment to launch India specific games

Sony Entertainment, which sells PS3,PS2 and and the PSP gaming consoles in India, is planning to launch six India specific games for PS2 and PSP platforms in 2009. The games will be priced starting at Rs 499/-. The games will be based on Indian market and some of the themes include kabaddi, kite flying, gang wars of Mumbai and quiz games for trivia, enginerring and medical entrance exams.

As per Nasscom, Indian gaming console market is projected to touch $125 million by 2011. Currently, Sony has a user base of 4.4 lakhs for the PS2 while 1.35 lakhs for its PSP console.

via ET



India Gaming — 2 comments

15
Oct 08

Metrics for Online Gaming sites in India

Here’re some metrics for online gaming sites in India:

Reach: 27.4%

Total Unique Visitors: 8,295,000

Average minutes per visitor: 45.4

Average visits per visitor: 4.3

India ranks lowest in terms of popularity of online gaming websites in the APAC region. Additionally the ‘average visits per visitor’ metric also seems to indicate that number of “repeat visitors” is incredibly low as compared other APAC countries.

via release



India Gaming / Stats and Numbers — 4 comments

29
Feb 08

India Gaming market: Nunook, an awesome, Indian social gaming network

The Indian gaming market seems to be on a roll lately – FX labs launched their PC game Agni, Trine Studios launched Streets of Mumbai, IndyaRocks launched their casual gaming section.

nunook.pngNunook would be the latest buzz in the Indian gaming market. They are a cool, new social network for casual Indian gamers. You can play games without signing up on the site, but the point system on Nunook is tightly integrated into the other aspects of the site.

Each time you play a game, you earn points. This in turn, increases your ‘achievement level’ on the site. The higher the level, the more access you get to exclusive content on the site. Points not only get you access to exclusive content, they also enable you to change avatars, and buy collectibles – aka virtual goods. In other words, they earn you bragging rights. Simply put, points are the currency on Nunook.

mynookpage.jpg

Continue reading →



India Gaming / India Social Networking / India Startups — 3 comments

27
Feb 08

IndyaRocks launches casual games, video chat

irlogo.jpgEver since its launch, IndyaRocks has continued to amaze me. They innovate and innovate quite frequently. Since their beta launch, they have introduced MoviePlex, SMS-Mobile features, wide screen video etc.

And tomorrow they will be launching their casual gaming section. As per Kalyan, the founder, the initial launch will have 800 casual games. Users will be able to rate, review and share games, with the ability for users to upload their own games. This will enable independent game developers to reach out to IR’s large community. They also plan to launch downloadable and multi-player games in partnership with major game development companies. They have also launched a new video chat feature.

Casual gaming is a flaming hot market – both in the US as well as in India. Zapak is betting big on gaming and recently, FXLabs acquired casual gaming aggregator Knibble for $3 million. So, I wont be surprised if the IndyaRocks gaming section becomes popular in no time.

I asked Kalyan on how they plan to compete with Zapak, which has a huge marketing budget. As per him, they do not intend to compete with Zapak. The gaming section was developed as a request from the member community.

I also asked him about their traffic details and how they are marketing IndyaRocks. In response, Kalyan mentioned that they are getting close to 1.5 – 2 million page views daily and are growing virally. They dont advertise and are pleased with the response generated from blog reviews and press releases.

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India Gaming / India Social Networking — 12 comments

23
Dec 07

Bogus: Zapak buys Sony Online Entertainment

ContentSutra pointed to a story in ET about Zapak acquiring Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) for $300 million. Just like Nikhil, I had my own doubts about the deal — $300 million is too small a price for a company making $150 million in revenues.

Its now reported that the rumor is bogus and is SOE has denied any such deal.

The ET story has since been taken down.  Way to go ET !!



Acquisition / India Gaming — No comments

18
Sep 07

XBox Live officially arrives in India

While XBox Live is yet to go ‘live’ in India, Microsoft held a press meet to announce the official launch of XBox Live in India. The service is planned to become active some time later this year. While the pricing and other details are being ironed out, technical aspects of the service are also in the works. The service is not compatible with all broadband providers – for instance, Sify broadband has some likely issues with XBox Live. Discussions are on with all ISP’s for the service.

via GameGuru 



India Gaming — No comments

13
Sep 07

India Gaming companies want industry status

I was reading a recent story in Business Standard on how Indiagames, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and other industry players are planning to approach the central government to get an industry status for the gaming market in India.

As I’m scrolling down, I notice the following:

Since gaming does not fall under the preview of any one single ministry, the committee will approach the IT, Telecom and sports ministry with the proposal.

Gaming company to approach the sports ministry of India ? Ok..by now, the story has my undivided attention. So, as I continue reading, I notice the below:

Some of the demands includes tax benefits for the gamers, college admission preferences among others.

And then comes the jewel in the crown:

CII and Indiagames wants that gaming should be considered as a sport and players involved should be treated as sportsmen.

Gamers should be treated as sportsmen ? Are you friggin’  kidding me ?

What’s next ? Proposal to nominate a gamer for the Arjuna award ?



India Gaming — 3 comments

14
Aug 07

Trine Game Studios – adding the Indian flavor

Trine Game Studios is a small (about 80 team members) Mumbai based game design studio. Besides providing services related to game development, they are working on some really, really cool games for the Indian market. Their flagship game is titled ‘Legends of Great India’ and is a real time strategy game. The twist – they characters in the game are based on Indian mythical characters and Gods like Hanuman, Ganesha, Ram, Arjun etc. The goal of the game is to save the future of India from all evil, including Ravan. This, in my opinion, is localization at its best. By incorporating characters and stories that we’ve all grown to love and cherish.

But dont take my word for it. Take a look below at some of the screenshots of the game.

trine.JPG

trine1.JPG

The game is currently in production and as per Trine co-founder Sangam Gupta, they will take their time to release a high quality game.

Trine also has some other upcoming games for the Indian market – ‘Streets of Mumbai’ (car racing based on Mumbai city streets), ‘Wings over Kargil’ (a third person airplane combat shooter game based on the 1971 Indo-Pak war).

I think games with such Indian flavor will definitely appeal to the Indian gaming audience. Hopefully, we get to play these awesome looking games sometime soon.

The studio is founded by Somil Gupta and Sangam Gupta and they have had stints at EA etc. The company is currently bootstrapped.



India Gaming — 3 comments

21
Jun 07

Indian portals plan 3D Avatars

3D gaming and virtual worlds are the craze world over. At one time Second Life ruled over the 3D virtual world landscape. Now, several others like Habbo Hotel, Zwinky, Gaia Online, CyWorld have emerged, making the virtual world and 3D avatar ripe with buzz and activity. Just yesterday, Susan Wu, a Principal with Charles River Ventures, announced the launch of the Virtual Goods Summit.

And now it seems that Indian portals are hit by the 3D avatar and virtual world bug. In a story on FE, Rediff and Zapak admit that they are toying with the idea and hope to announce something in the next couple of months. Zapak.com plans to come out with a range of avatars in about two months after extensive testing in internet cafes and with about 50 games. “Avatars are the stickiest of applications and we estimate avatars will help us grow by 30-35%,” says Rohit Sharma, COO Zapak.com.

Continue reading →



India Gaming / Internet — No comments

6
Jun 07

PC Gaming is the way to go in India

FXLabs CEO Tony Garcia thinks that PC gaming is the way to go in India. Gaming consoles and games are cost prohibitive in the Indian market. He feels that gaming in India is largely untapped and holds a lot of potential. Although he agrees that there no good estimate of the market and size of the Indian gaming scene. (IAMAI pegs Indian gaming at Rs 21 crore, but I have my own doubts).

FXLabs is currently working on Dhoom 2 for Yash Raj Films. Isnt it a bit late for a Dhoom 2 video game ?
more here.



India Gaming — 1 comment

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