The Hindu Business Line : In a mood to play

Online gaming is seen widening the Internet's reach across the country. When gaming is the stuff of serious business, there's no stopping the fun - or the bucks.

EVERY CLICK counts - Mohammed Yousuf

You play for fun, but the sector benefits. Online gaming is all set to help widen the reach of the Internet across the country.

And the numbers matter. The Indian gaming market is expected to grow to $424 million by 2010, according to a recent study by Nasscom.

San Francisco-based analyst and consulting firm Pearl Research says, "The online games market in India is being driven by the rapid adoption of the Internet; increasing broadband penetration; growth in Internet cafes with more than 100,000 outlets; and a sizable middle-class with rising disposable income. Most importantly, game operators are promoting and educating consumers about online games, including MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games)."

Casual gaming heating up

Naveen H, National Manager, Sales, Sify Gaming, says roughly 8-10 per cent of Sify's Cafe business comes from gaming. And 60 per cent of the company's gaming business is from the top eight cities. Interestingly, "we have seen the non-metro contribution growing in the recent past," says Naveen.

He says currently, the gaming business is primarily from hard-core gaming but with casual gaming heating up, the company expects the gaming contribution to grow substantially.

If the gamer is an MMORPG player, there is high probability of the gamer playing both at Cafes and at home, but LAN gamers are more confined to Cafes, he says.

Asked about the player profile, he says the majority of gamers are college students, and primarily male. With casual gaming getting active, there would be increase in the 25+ age group Internet users getting into games, but the chunk would still be college-going-students at the Cafe level, he says.

Part of the package

Clued in to the fact that games have long been regarded as the easiest way to learn, service providers are packaging games with their broadband offerings. Several of them, such as YouTelecom (previously Iqara), Tata Indicom, MTNL and Airtel, have begun the service.

BSNL recently launched the Games on Demand service, wherein it offers zero charges on data download for the game. You can thus either play online or download the game and play it from your hard disk. You will be able to use the Internet to log back onto the site to update your membership, and join communities, or chat with other gamers.

`Piracy-killing rates'

Offered at a `piracy-killing' price of Rs 100-200, the games are of a wide range — from sports to puzzles to action and role-playing games.

"Internet infrastructure in India has been lax, and is bound to change. We expect a significant ramp-up this year in the number of users from the thousands that are currently playing our games," predicts Venkat Mallik, Managing Director, Level Up, a distributor of two multi-player games — Ragnarok and Guns.

Mumbai-based game developer Paradox Studios is also talking to 2-3 Internet service providers to offer games to Indian homes. "Multi-player games will see a definite pick-up with the increase in broadband capacity," says Salil Bhargava, CEO, Paradox Studios.

Braodband expectations have been raised from 256 kbps to 2 MBps across the country and the public sector telecom companies have already automatically upgraded lines to 2MBps.

Exclusive gaming cafes

Reliance ADA gaming firm Zapak Digital Entertainment has a bigger plan in mind. According to the company, it is bringing exclusive `gaming cafes' to reach out to B and C class cities that don't have adequate PC infrastructure. This division of reliance ADA group is investing $100 million in the next three years in content (bringing world class titles). It plans its own technical infrastructure (upgrade datacentre) and access — bringing PCs and gaming in the form of cyber cafes to the far reaches of India.

In the next two years, the firm plans to install 1 lakh gaming seats. It will start with 50-seater signature cafes in the metros by April. Franchisee models will be introduced later. These gaming cafes will charge a 40-50 per cent premium over the ordinary cyber cafes.

They won't offer LAN gaming. Multiplayer gaming will be online. The cafes are to have a 14-hour occupancy rate.

Zapak has over 2 lakh registrations and over 2 million visitors to its gaming site every month.

Indiagames has also voiced its interest in smaller towns and Tier 2 cities. "They are key potential markets and we wish to leverage on broadband networks to reach them," says Sameer Bangara, COO, Indiagames.

However, it is primarily going via the home broadband path and believes that it's the end of the road for cyber cafes that don't add gaming to their list of services.

"Cyber cafes will become like STD booths. People may still go out and use them, but most will have a PC and Internet at home to access services," believes Bangara. Indiagames has test-launched its gaming bouquet in 15 cyber cafes.

Too outmoded for gaming?

Service providers and gaming firms realise that the average PC in India is a basic one, with outdated operating systems and almost no security in place.

A BSNL executive says that in his recent rounds of the country, he found many using Windows 98 OS, on a clearly outdated motherboard.

"Yes, we have also noticed a significant lag in Indian PC infrastructure," agrees Rohit Sharma of Zapak. This gaming firm has a team that visited towns to learn about the specifications of PCs in use there. The team then returned and modified (toned-down) the games so they could be played on these PCs.

The testing lab at Zapak is working on simplifying all its casual games so every town owning a basic PC can play them. Indiagames-BSNL also offers a quick test of your PC's specifications to ensure the game will run. You need a minimum of 512 MB RAM and an 8MB graphics card, and IE 5.5 to play most of the games.

Interiors perking up

"We have noticed that rural India is not far behind when it comes to gaming," is the surprising revelation by Bangara. According to him, non-metros account for 40 per cent of the gaming population. The firm is seeing interest from the interiors of India such as Bihar, Jharkhand and Jabalpur.

Serious about kid's play

Zapak is also launching ZAPAK kids — a gaming site for those below 12 years. The game will be launched in two months' time. "Now, six-year-olds are embracing the PC and the Internet. We have designed simple games that will appeal to them and interest them in computers," says Sharma.

Zapak is also bringing out games targeted at women. Currently, there is a huge latent demand in cities that Zapak wants to fill up. It will move later to B&C class cities, where there are fewer entertainment options. The Internet usage will be driven by the fact that "gaming is all about community." The gaming community here is hungry for more, says Sharma. This comprehensive ecosystem will drive the uptake of Internet across the country. A recent report by PwC estimates that by 2008, the gaming industry will become a $53-billion market, bigger than Hollywood and the music industry. Online gaming is predicted to be $7 billion by 2008. When gaming is the stuff of serious business, there's no stopping the fun - or the bucks.

preethij@thehindu.co.in

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