Reliance ADAG owned Zapak has tied up with virtual world maker Jagex Games Studio to host its flagship game Runescape in India. The UK-based Jagex has also created FunOrb, a website for Java based games and a minigame for children called Vertigo.
Zapak seems to be on a spree of building up its games database by partnering with international publishers, which is good for gamers in the country. It recently partnered with Chobots to bring in the MMORPG for kids, and before that brought Wanted, another multiplayer based on the movie, Sherwood Dungeon, Tank Ball, the social hangout game Club Marian and TBA Virtual World. The multiplayer games section on Zapak includes snooker, chess, a dart game and Teen Patti.
If you’ve played Second Life, Runescape is similar but has younger members and has more adventure. In the game, you travel around, learn how to combat enemies, wield spells, witness events, mingle with other players, and even play mini-games that are set in Runescape. There were 38,038 players on the platform today; it has well over 10 million registered users. Zapak seems to have neglected the online store – merchandising could have been a revenue stream for the company which told us that they were looking at virtual currency and other e-commerce options within games. The store offers books, backpacks and accessories branded with Runescape in pounds.
Gaming For Channel V
Channel [V]’s relaunched website now has games from Zapak. There are 20 games in the section; poor resolution images, low count and shoddy selection of games gave us a negative impression. Being a youth brand, Channel [V] might want to take gaming more seriously. There is no mention of Zapak on the site, and no options to go onto Zapak, nor save your scores, but there is a Zapak pre-roll before the game.
Nikhil Pahwa adds:
The interface isn’t great, with the game loading in an in-frame, which makes for terrible user experience, since a part of the game is virtually cut off.
Strangely enough, I was shown an HP Business Solutions advert on Channel [V], prior to the game loading. Not exactly an advert one would associate with a Channel [V] visitor, is it?
District 9
This unique movie about malnourished aliens now has a game that Zapak links to, through its international tie up with Sony Pictures Digital Inc. Zapak has set up a contest and the game is at District9game.com, which was set up by the producers Sony TriStar, Wingnut Films and QED International as a promotional strategy.
Related
- Zapak Brings Chobots To India, Dates Fropper
- Channel [V] Relaunches Site; Mobile SocialNet Deal With RockeTalk
-NDTV Launches Gaming Subsite Powered By Zapak
- Airtel Launches Subscription Model With GamesClub; Cross-Operator Opportunity
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4 Comments until now.
Zapak seems to be hyperactive in last few months – how do they manage so much stuff? They must be a huge team
Please do your research before writing an article and posting it on the internet. RuneScape has well over 10million active players, and it is played worldwide not only in UK, and mind you neither does UK have the majority of players, that belongs in the US.
If you don't have first hand experience of something then I suggest, you atleast refer to people who have, or even if that is not possible then there are always sites like Wikipedia to refer to.
Yep, I would like you to do extensive research over the annual user growth rate of RuneScape in different countries before posting such an article.
There are well over 10M players all over the world, primarily from the UK, US and other European countries. India has quite a number of player aswell.
I did search the site for stats on registered users but they didnt have any. Wikipedia said it was 104 million, but I couldnt get a confirmation.