Zapak Adds Single Player Mobile Games From Greystripe

A few months ago, we’d written about the launch of Zapaks mobile site - Zapak.mobi, in collaboration with Cotopia. What had suprised us then, was the sheer lack of games - just seven. However, we’d also pointed out then that the games launched were essentially turn-based multiplayer games.

Zapak has now launched single player mobile games in partnership with Greystripe, which has a far more robust catalogue of over 900 advertising supported games. Also worth nothing that the turn-based multiplayer games have been pushed into the background with this move, and the single player games load on the front page. Remember what Jump Games CEO Salil Bhargava had told us - Single Player Casual Games are what sell in the mobile gaming business.

At present, there are essentially two players competing in the Indian market. Both Greystripe and Hovr provide games to users for free, and monetize by displaying advertisements before and after the game. Greystripe had tied up with the ABP group to launch Mjoy4free a year or so ago, but that was eventually was shut down. Hovr has since partnered with Indiatimes and NDTV Convergence to power their mobile games sites.

Difference between Hovr and Greystripe (more…)

Sony Ericsson Files Cross Platform Online Gaming Patent In India

Sony Ericsson has filed a rather interesting patent in India: for “a method and an apparatus” that allows gamers to switch between devices, without losing their place in the game. Essentially, this is an invention that makes the game platform agnostic. The player can pause the game, and switch from, say, a console to a mobile device, and similarly switch from the mobile device to the console.

Given that much of mobile gaming is still centred around single player casual games, I think the games will have to be pretty basic for this to work. Something on the lines of street figher, bounce, or perhaps even a racing game. It’ll work best for turn-based games like Chess, since the games will be hosted on an online network, so the bandwidth will have to be pretty spectacular. Perhaps this is one of the applications planned for 3G.

More on the patent filing here.

Games2Win Launches Games Search Engine; Data Collection For Inviziads?

Clearstone funded online Gaming company Games2Win has launched a search engine for games, called GameCurry, report TechCrunch and VentureBeat. GameCurry indexes flash based games, but doesn’t scrape them like ZapakWorld, In.com and Addicting Games etc.

It’s an interesting experiment from Games2Win - depending on searches, they’ll be able to determine what kind of games people are searching for, and based on geographic location, identify demand and trends. That data can then be used for their in-game ad network Inviziads.

The problem for Games2Win is that some of the content just isn’t worth indexing in the first place. I did a search for one of the suggested queries - puzzle. Over half the results on the first page were for Yahoo Games without any relevant information. It’s one thing to have a search engine, quite another to display results that are useful to users. I wonder if Google has a games search engine in the works…

Interview: Salil Bhargava, CEO of Jump Games Says The Indian Mobile Games Market Is Rs. 30 Crores; Things More Sane Now

In Part 1 of this interview, Salil Bhargava, CEO of Jump Games, a Reliance Entertainment company, had told MediaNama had outlined the companys plans for the US market. Interestingly, he had said that, at present, around 70 percent of their revenues come from overseas. Part 2 of our discussion with him, he talks about how the mobile gaming market in India has changed over the past year:

How big is the India market, if you take out the operator share?
If you take out the operator share - there are taxes etc - but I don’t think it’s more than Rs. 30 crores. But there are new revenue streams that are making a difference - like using mobile advertising and WAP site. It’s still small, but those kind of models will also emerge in India.
Is there a significant dependancy for you on Reliance Communications for revenues?
Not at all. There’s no dependancy at all. We’re operator agnostic. We’re a part of Reliance Entertainment.
Is the mobile gaming business in India viable yet - standalone?
Not yet, but I think it is becoming more and more viable for the existing players. There are very few people left in India.
What happened in India?
Most of the players who were focused on 20 other things, have stopped making games, or figured that they really can’t compete with those who’re making high quality games, which is what the operators are beginning to ask for in India as well. A lot of those people who flooded the market with a lot of content, are now beginning to fall off the radar in terms of mobile gaming. Most of them doing all kinds of other stuff also, and they’ve gone back to doing other things - ringtones and wallpapers business, and some becoming a platform company.
Are you in the black in India?
We’re privately held so I can’t disclose. We as a company don’t focus purely on India. What we have is a global deployment team. We have a team which does some aggregation for India, but in terms of deployment, it’s a global deployment. It’s still early for us as a company - we’ve only completed two years of the company.
Well, I’m asking because I’ve heard that Paradox Studios (the previous avatar of Jump Games) was shut down as a sick company…
No. I don’t know where you’ve heard this. It was restructured because all the people moved and started a new company called Jump, as a part of Reliance Entertainment. Paradox Studios was a legacy company, and used to do different things, including PC and console stuff. When we started Jump, we took a decision to focus on Mobile.
What kind of games are you making? Any iPhone games?
Not for India specifically. We do have the SDK and our teams are working on it, and we should have a game ready in the next 3-4 months.
What about multiplayer games?
We’ve done a few in the past as well. Its very early, and the bread and butter of this business for quite a while is going to be single player casual games. That’s not going to change anytime soon. A lot of people talk about multiplayer and bluetooth games, but its easy to stay in the news that way. The number one mobile game of all time is Tetris. It’s just a simple fun game. Most consumers don’t want to press a million buttons - they don’t want to complicated a game.
What needs to be done to ease the process of game discovery in India?
I honestly think, it’s education from the operator themselves, and the real growth will come when the subscriber growth starts tapering off. It’ll lead to a spurt in data. It’s understandable - for example, if an operator has $100, he’ll spend the money on subscriber growth. When that starts tapering off, he’ll still have $100 to spend. I honestly think it will take 2-3 years.

(more…)

Interview: Jump Games And The US Mobile Games Market; 70% Of Revenues Are From Overseas

Reliance Entertainment company Jump Games launched its US operations, setting up shop in Chicago. Jump has also set up an office in Singapore, and announced plans for a London office. Remember that Jump has licensed Manchester United content for a period of 3 years, a deal that is believed to be worth over $50 million. MediaNama spoke to Salil Bhargava, CEO of Jump Games. In Part 1 of this interview, Bhargava talks about the US market and why they launched services there, what they are looking for in an acquisition, and most importantly, how mobile operators across the globe have changed the policy for accepting games:

Why have you entered the US market?
Wel, if you look at the mobile gaming industry, the US is a very very important part of the business: from a geographic point of view, there are only five or six carriers. It’s easier to do business: it’s a very well established business model in terms of revenues and operator share. If you look at US, it’s a very big driver of mobile gaming revenues - maybe two or three years ago that wasn’t the case, but it has rapidly become a much more important market than Europe as well.
How big is the mobile gaming market in the US, if you take take out the operator share?
If you take out the operator share, it’s around $400-500 million. It’s the largest market in the world, in terms of a single country. If you include the operator share, it’s almost a $1 billion market, with operator shares at 50 percent. Verizon is the largest, then there’s Singular and AT&T.
How much are you investing?
We’ve opened an office in Chicago, and will be adding sales and QA (Quality Assurance) people in the US, because a lot of network testing can’t happen in India. Ultimately, over the next year, we really want to establish a design studio there. We’ve built the back-end infrastructure here in India. If you look at all the global majors, it’s a rapidly consolidating market. All the ones who are successful right now were the ones who were early enough to establish a back end, particularly here in India. Our focus has been to build out our back-end infrastructure. The idea is that by end of March, we will be 250 people in Pune, and leverage the lower cost infrastructure we have here to feed all the markets. Game design and high-end game production - even on the cell phones - I don’t think we have the experience yet. It could be a 10-15 people studio for concept work and building, and the porting and maximum QA happens here in India, and last bit of the QA in the US.
Why are you planning a design studio in the US?
The carriers have become very strict about the criterion. There’s a 3 strike rule, and game can get pushed to the back of the queue. We have to be careful about the criteria now. All these things really lengthen the process from creation to going up on the deck. In India, we really need to improve on the design capability. Today we outsource most of the game design - the concept, not the artwork. The artwork is good in India. Which is why we want to establish a design studio. Over a long term, we want to transfer that knowledge to India.
What kind of an investment would it require to set up a design studio in the US?
Really depends, but you’re looking at around a $1 million at least - it’s really about the people. At the same time, there are opportunities for inorganic growth. There’s so much consolidation in the mobile gaming business - the smaller companies are feeling the heat because of the credit crunch. So we’re talking to people, and looking - when the right opportunity comes, we’ll take the decision.
What capabilities are you looking for, in an acquisition - market presence, content licenses….?
There are various criteria - definitely one of things we’re looking for is distribution - would it be easier for us to buy instead of setting up our own distribution channel, which we’re in the process of creating. We’re looking at people, technology, design capabilities, content library.
Have you set a timeline by which you have to close this?
No deadline as such, but there is an active interest.
When will the US start contributing to revenues for you?
Well, it already is. We have multiple relationships, but it’s very important for us to have a local presence. Amit, whom we’ve hired, is the global head of sales.
How does South America play out as a market for you?
It’s a very interesting market - so far we’ve done things through partners, but we’re getting a lot of interest for the Manchester United content. Brazil interests us a lot - it’s a $200-300 million dollars as a market, then there’s Argentina and Mexico. The Americas office in the US will cater to entire South America. We’re looking to increase the content portfolio.
What about US as a content licensing market?
The US is still one of the more significant generators of content, which appeal globally. So we’re very strongly looking at enhancing that portfolio. One is from a game licensing perspective - and if people have content libraries, we might even buy them out.
What was the reasoning behind the Manchester United deal? Just getting a big brand?
We really wanted to establish ourselves in the world market, and we couldn’t think of a bigger brand than Manchester United - it’s among the top 10 recognized brands. And definitely there are revenue implications.
Do you see a revenue of above $50 million from Manchester United content?
I’m really not going to go into revenue figures - I’m contractually bound.
How many operators are you live with?
We’re live with 5 operators in India, and around 45 globally.
How much does International contribute to your revenues?
Around 70 percent.
How is the your pay-per-play model been doing in Europe?
It’s been doing okay. The whole pay-per-play model hasn’t been pushed yet in Europe. There’s just a lot of consolidation taking place in Europe. A lot of partners we’re working with right now are focused on that. The pay-per-play model, in 2-3 years, is going to be an important part of the business. The margins on the pay-per-play are similar as in case of downloads. Pay-per-play model is where a good game makes a big difference. At times, we’ve made more money on pay-per-play than pay-per-download.

Tomorrow, in Part 2: The Mobile Gaming market in India.

Related:
– Ozura To Power Tournament Based Mobile Gaming Community In India
– @IAMAI MVAS: Consumer Segments & Content; Ad-Funding vs Ad-Subsidized
– @IAMAI MVAS: “What’s in a Game? It’s All In The Name”; Only 2-3 Players In Mobile Gaming In India?
– Jump Games Launches US Operations; Mobile Gaming Industry Woes

Global Cricket Ventures Moves Fantasy Cricket Game Out Of Facebook, To Cricket.com

Global Cricket Ventures (GCV), the joint venture between Live Current Media (LCM) and Netlinkblue, appears to believe that their application will do better out of the Facebook ecosystem,  than within it.

The game, once hosted at http://apps.facebook.com/fantasycricket/ has been moved to www.cricket.com. Cricket.com is among Live Current Media’s portfolio of premium portals, which also includes boxing.com, perfume.com and karate.com (related story here), among others. LCM had bought the cricket fantasy game for $25,000, with an additional performance dependent payout of  $10,000. The game was live during the Indian Premier League, when I first saw it. LCM claims to already have more than 750 registered team entries “in the first 24 hours of operations”, but…aren’t they just teams that have been ported from Facebook? Global Cricket Ventures has also appointed Alex Chamberlen as Chief Revenue Officer, who moves from competitor Cricinfo.com. Chamberlain has the Global Head of Sales for Cricinfo, from Sept. 2004 to Aug 2007, and has 15 y ears of media experience.

(also read: BCCI Gets Restraining Order Against Online Fantasy Cricket League, Rediff; Why Rediff?)

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LCM had bought exclusive portal rights to the Cricket tournament Indian Premier League (IPL), and the rights to manage the portal for the governing body BCCI, for $50 million for 10 years. Promoting Cricket.com was a part of the plan, but that hasn’t been implemented, until now. According to their SEC filing for the last quarter, revenues for the first season were immaterial. This is probably because the deal was announced just a few days before the season began, giving them a couple of days to get the IPLT20 portal up and running. And, signing these deals were expensive:

The Company has incurred substantial costs relating to negotiating and performing under the terms of the MOUs with each of the BCCI and the IPL, and establishing the venture with NLB.  During Q2 of 2008, these costs totaled $678,222 (Q1 of 2008 - $55,317) including, but not limited to, expenditures for business development, travel, consulting, and salaries. Not that the expenses are going to reduce: On or about October 1, 2008, the Company is scheduled to make a payment to the BCCI in the amount of $625,000 and a payment to the IPL in the amount of $375,000, in connection with the Global Cricket Venture.

I wonder if GCV and LCM will survive the IPL.

Related:
- BCCI.tv Launched By Global Cricket Ventures, A Live Current Media - NetlinkBlue JV
- ContentSutra: BCCI Gets Restraining Order Against Online Fantasy Cricket League, Rediff; Why Rediff?
- Nimbus Looking To Raise $140 Million: Report; Nimbus Mobile?
- Sports: ESS Pays $975 M For 10-Yr Champions League T20 Rights; ICL - $110 Spend, Games2Win Tie-UP

BK Modi To Invest $1 Billion In Media & Ent Via Spice Enfotainment; Gaming Co Buy

Many a headline making statement from BK Modi in this interview with Mint, which gives you the big picture of the billionaires investment plans. Modi, who had sold his stake in Spice Communications to Idea Cellular reportedly for over $450 Million, now plans to invest $1 billion in the media and entertainment business through Spice Enfotainment. And, he is singing a digital tune. Some key points:

– Gaming Acquisition: Modi is looking to acquire “a big gaming company” from the Israel to Indonesia region. Any guesses?
– The MSM deal has not been completed. Despite several reports to the contrary in May, it appears that BK Modi has not closed the 32% stake buyout in MultiScreen Media. He says they’re in talks with Sony on the films side, and may come in as a financial investor in SET. So the deal is still in the balance.
– M Films: Modi’s launching a film production company called M Films, which will invest $200 million to produce 5 films in the next 3 years
– Cellebrum back on track? Apparently. Modi says that Cellebrum has filed its IPO prosectus again, after SEBI had pointed out issues with it earlier. It was a topic much debated at MediaNama.

Key themes from the interview:

– This Is The Time To Buy: companies in the media and entertainment space, which requires significant investment in content production and distribution, are either hard up for investment, close to bankruptcy, or looking to sell out. The funds that were backing them earlier have dried up. So if someone like Modi has the money, this is the time to pick up stake at lower valuations. A case in point is Lehman Bros backed California based Culver Studios in California, which Modi can now buy from the liquidator. He says that ” at least six companies that are talking to us.” What’s interesting is that he’s not looking at majority control, but to be the single largest shareholder, and have board control.

– Cross Media and Digital: Modi is looking to set up or acquire companies that will create digital content which can be repurposed across platforms for monetization. So he is eying the film and TV production business, and looking to buy gaming and music companies. Then there is the distribution element, where Cellebrum fits in on the mobile, and on TV - the TV channels he will have a stake in. What’s missing is the mobile operator play, which he exited. Appears to be on the lines of Anil Ambani’s plans for media and entertainment domination.

I wonder what Modi’s plans are for the Internet space. Do read the entire interview, which touches upon many other Media and Entertainment topics.

Related:
– “Is the Cellebrum IPO still on?” Apparently Not
– Virgin Comics Reincarnated As Liquid Comics; Thoughts On Cross-Media Content
– Reliance ADA Group Inks BIG $1.2 Billion Dreamworks Deal
- Sony Entertainment Television Sells 32 Pc Stake To BK Modi For $320 Million