Mango Games to launch offerings for Indian Facebook users

Social game developer Mango Games will launch two online games — Rummy and Don — built especially for Indian Facebook users.

“India is one of the fastest growing markets for Facebook but there are no games that are built specifically for gamers in India. This will be first time Facebook users will get to play games built specifically for Indian market,” Mango Games Founder and CEO, Mr D. Richard De Silva said.

He said these games will be launched on the social network site in July. Mr De Silva said there are companies in China worth $5 billion that focus on creating games for the China market but the same eco-system is missing in India.

“We see India to be among top three markets in the world for gaming, after the US and China, but the drive to develop games to suit the Indian environment is missing,” Mr De Silva said.

He cited a report from Inside Social Games, which says India will be the second largest geography for Facebook by the end of 2012, with nearly 70 million Facebook users, while Indonesia will be third, with more than 60 million on Faceboook. Facebook had earlier said that as on December 31, 2011, it had 46 million monthly active users in India, an increase of 132 per cent from the previous year.

“The growth potential of India has made us set up office here. In ‘Don’ we have used images of Bollywood actors and provided a 3D map of Mumbai to give a feel of the Indian environment,” Mr De Silva said.