Games of a different league

MUMBAI, INDIA: Games are an integral part of not only children but also those who still pamper the childhood within! Of course, it plays a pivotal role in the human development, though there are criticisms that certain types of games breed violence too.

Whatever be the argument it is a fact that video games have become part and parcel of our life and in the past three decades, games have evolved and transformed into digital avatars in the virtual world too.

Harsh Jain, a Mumbai-based young entrepreneur, was highly inspired by fantasy football games while he was studying in the US, and when he returned back home he formed Dream11 Gaming Private Ltd with his friends, which is claims to be India’s first online fantasy cricket game.

Dream11.com follows the International Cricket Council (ICC)’s cricketing calendar and allows users to form their own team based on the choice of players and their performance during international tournaments and tours.

“With this game, any user or cricket fans can pick best performing players from various countries and fulfill their zeal of owning a dream team,” says Jain, Dream11’s founder chairman and managing director.

Asked why any user would play the game of cricket online, Jain replied, “In India, every cricket fan has his or her views on the game, teams, players, how the players should play. And they want to share their views on, discuss and analyze the games and players with friends, groups and other people.”

“And hence Dream11 offers that unique platform to share, discuss, interact as well as play cricket games; earn virtual points and rewards,” Jain adds.

The game has the social media element of online chats, scraps, emails and users can also create cricket communities.

The fantasy cricket game was launched last year at the time of Indian Premier League (IPL) and got a fabulous response with over 4.5 lakh registered users. And with the upcoming third edition of IPL, Jain expects to increase the user base and considers India to be a booming market for fantasy and online games with increase in the Internet growth.

“New features and interactive tools such as blogs, forums and live score cards will be added to the game,” Jain informs. He points out that the fantasy games should have right blend of new technologies and visual graphics that provides simplicity and great user experience to users.

While, Amit Tripathi, Id8labs’ managing director and founder of Indiavoting.com, which had experimented with education-based games such as Snake and Ladder, Politicking and other games using politics as a game theme during 2009 elections, is now exploring new business opportunities and growth in the gaming business.

Presently, the interactive ad agency is in talks with venture capitalists and investors and eying USD 40-50 million as capital investments of which Rs.10 crore is earmarked for its edutainment business.

The company will be launching Doozyworld.com, an edutainment gaming channel that will be available on mobile via value-added service (VAS) providers as well as online. Dozzy, a patented character, will be part of the 12 game collection which is designed on subjects such finance sector, automobiles, and others.

“For instance a game based on finance will help educate users with general knowledge and understanding in the area of finance, similarly automobile brand for road safety education. Not many people get a chance to develop general knowledge via leisurely activities. So if you are able to create a platform that offers education and entertainment, it makes learning more fun and easy,” Tripathi says.

Though Indiavoting.com portal was pulled back after three months of its launch, Tripath explains that it was an experiment that provided great experience and learning in the edutainment business.

“But now we are enhancing and continuing the Indiavoting.com platform for new games and will be launching new initiative for Facebook,” he informs.

Moreover Tripathi hopes to add around 50 games in the next 3-4 years and points that fantasy games like Mafia Wars, Hero World, Castle Age, Farmville, etc. are ruling the users at the moment. He also opines that social media will increase its presence in the next 2-3 years and will be an alternative to Google.