The Hindu Business Line : Indiagames’ online titles now in physical format

New Delhi, May 8 UTV’s Indiagames will now make its online titles available in a physical form to cash in on the growing retail segment. A year after the leading mobile gaming company first made its games available online through the ‘GoD’ or Games on Demand division, it will retail them through UTV’s Home Video distribution network.

“The growing retail segment really excites us. By pricing it at a strategic Rs 199, we are also trying to fight the menace of piracy. Today, the legal Indian gaming market is estimated at $15 million, but if you take into account the pirated sales of CD or physical games it would be estimated at $300 million or roughly Rs 1,200 crore and only 5 per cent of this is sold legally,” said Mr Vishal Gondal, CEO, Indiagames. (Moser Baer undertook a similar strategy to tackle piracy in the home video market, pricing its DVDs at Rs 34, and VCD at Rs 28).

Currently, a significant contribution to revenues comes from Indiagames mobile business, but in the future Mr Gondal expects the online business to contribute equally. Also interesting is the fact that 60 per cent of its subscribers today are from non-metro cities, they also spend a good 25 per cent more time gaming than their metro friends do. “The age profile is also not what we thought it would be. The average gamer is 22 years old and not a teenager as one might have expected,” said Mr Gondal.

After a period of three months each DVD, which is to be played online, can be recharged. Or the subscriber can get downloads at a rate of Rs 200 per month. “We also see the physical market, or DVD version of the game, as an enabler of our online business. There are 3.5 million broadband users today and this is expected to reach 12 million by 2010-11. And we hope to capture eight per cent of that audience,” said Mr Gondal.

UTV bought stake in Indiagames, and UK based Ignition during the end of 2006. According to Mr Gondal, gaming is a big focus for the parent company, and UTV in which Walt Disney also has a stake would invest significant resources in to the business. Indiangames’ prepaid cards currently available at a few select cybercafés, will also be more widely available through other retail chains very soon.

The ‘Games on Demand’ is an online monthly subscription-based service boasting of a catalogue of over 250 games to which Indiagames says it is adding two new ones every week. The company has exclusive distribution agreements with leading international publishers such as Atari, Activision, Codemaster, Microsoft, Cenaga, Eidos, Enlight, Hipsoft, Magnasoft and Oberon amongst others.

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