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A spike in demand for mobile gaming in India is pushing Reliance Entertainment to re-focus on the Indian market, after exiting it three years ago. It now aims to become India’s largest gaming company through investment in at least 20 start-ups this year, coupled with aggressive in-house development.
“When we exited India three years ago, the market was not mature; there was not enough Internet bandwidth for users to play mobile games. But now with 4G coming in and gaming becoming the fastest growing segment in mobile apps, we decided to focus on being the largest gaming company in India,” Amit Khanduja, CEO of Reliance Entertainment (Digital), told BusinessLine .
To give itself a headstart, Reliance is now eyeing innovative Indian gaming start-ups, which could help the company build India-focused games.
“We invested in two start-ups last year, but this year we will invest in at least 20. We’ll help these companies launch global games and provide them with not just cash, but also technology capabilities,” Khanduja said.
Reliance Games is holding a gaming conference in Bengaluru next week, where 200 Indian start-ups will showcase their talent and the top teams will be given $50,000 worth of rewards by Reliance.
Regional languagesApart from taking external help, Reliance has set up a team of 200 coders in Pune, which is developing India-specific games for the company.
“We have started games in multiple languages; they are already showing great results on our website Zapak. We now look forward to developing more local language content – even for mobile – and work on adding more than the seven languages we currently support,” Khanduja said.
Reliance Games, a division of Reliance Entertainment, typically builds games on behalf of other gaming companies and Hollywood Studios, such as DreamWorks, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros.
Khanduja said Reliance is talking to Bollywood production houses as well, to partner for branded games.
“We recently partnered with Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Wazir to build a game by the same name, which received a tremendous response. We are looking for many such brand partnerships that may go beyond Bollywood and also include cricket and other sports,” Khanduja said.
However, Khanduja acknowledged the challenges in making money from gaming business in India. “Globally, about 99 per cent of people don’t pay for games. In India that figure is 99.99 per cent. That creates a challenge in building a profitable gaming company.”
In-game advertisingReliance is now building games from scratch that’ll have brand placements within the gameplay itself, similar to what is seen in movies where an actor is seen drinking a specific brand of cola, trying to subtly endorse the brand.
“Banner ads in games spoil the entire experience. We are instead focusing on brand placements within the game as well as using advertising videos as an incentive for gamers to advance to next levels,” Khanduja said.
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