Mobile game publisher and developer Nazara Games has acquired a 26% stake Mastermind Sports, the company confirmed to MediaNama. Through this investment, Nazara will look to create and publish games developed in the sports category. Additionally, the company will also publish games developed by Mastermind, on a selective basis.
Mastermind Games currently develops mobile games in the sports category. It has an interactive prediction gaming platform named ‘Clever Cricket’, which is available on iOS and Android. The company was founded in 2014 and has offices in Bangalore and London.
Nazara focuses on the mobile gaming market, and has developed and distributed a range of branded and original mobile games. The company also claims to be a distributing platform for developers such as Electronic Arts. Its customers include mobile carriers as well as handset manufacturers.
Latest appointments: In December, Nazara hired Anuj Tandon as head of mobile game publishing and corporate branding. Tandon would be responsible for managing B2B relations for the company, along with key marketing and product aspects. In June 2015, the company hired Manish Agarwal, the former CEO of Reliance Games, as chief executive officer, a week after he quit Reliance. Agarwal will work with Nazara’s founder Nitish Mittersain to strengthen the company’s partnerships with studios in India, Southeast Asia and Central Europe and secure global partnerships for IPs.
Previous game tie ups:
-Last month, Advertising platform Tyroo partnered with Nazara Games to launch ‘Nazara Cricket’ app that will allow its users to buy cricket merchandise, and avail e-commerce deals within app itself.
-In January, Nazara tied up exclusively with Amar Chitra Katha Media (ACK) to create games based on Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle characters. Nazara will access all of ACK Media’s intellectual property to develop, publish and market games based on ACK’s characters.
-In November 2015, it entered into a partnership with Moscow-based ZeptoLab, to publish its game ‘Cut the Rope’ in the Indian subcontinent. At that time, Nazara said that it will also have access to the source code and the game engine, which it will use to tweak the features, to make is more appealing locally.
-In February 2015, Nazara tied-up with CSE to develop, distribute and market games around cricketer Virat Kohli for three years. The deal gave Nazara exclusive rights to create games around the cricketer on mobile, web and DTH platforms.
-In September 2014, the company had also signed a multi-movie deal with Fox Star Studios to develop games on the studio’s Bollywood movies and in April 2014, it tied up with Batelco to launch a subscription-based portal called ‘Games Lounge’.
Also read: #Outlook15: What Indian Mobile Gaming Companies Plan To Do In 2015
