Vishal Gondal is not your archetypal Indian entrepreneur. His office in suburban Mumbai is a riot of colours and his collection of soft toys could put any toddler to shame. But he quickly assures you that the toys aren't for entertainment. "It's just part of the work we do here," he says. Gondal, 26, belongs to a nascent breed of entrepreneurs that has done what the software icons didn't-create and market software products for the global market.

As mobile telephony witnesses exponential growth both in India and abroad, companies like the Gondal-promoted Indiagames, Dhruva Interactive, Mobile2Win, Paradox Studios and Mauj are rushing in to develop games for mobile phones. The numbers show why these companies are so excited about this opportunity. The global mobile gaming market is estimated at $520 million (Rs 2,340 crore) and is expected to grow to $2 billion (Rs 9,000 crore) by 2006. India too has seen a surge. On an average, GSM subscribers in India download 2,00,000 games a month, while Reliance India Mobile claims some 7,50,000 downloads.

PICTURE SPEAK
Ace Tennis DHRUVA INTERACTIVE COST $30,000 REVENUES $50,000 GLOBAL RELEASE: December 2003	Sholay MOBILE2WIN COST Rs 2 lakh REVENUES Rs 50-60 lakh* GLOBAL RELEASE: November 2004

Computer gaming and game development arrived in India two decades later than it did in developed markets. The high costs of computers and of developing pc games had kept both developers and game players out. But developing a mobile game is simpler and far cheaper. Says Rajesh Rao of Dhruva Interactive, a gaming content provider: "The opportunity is big given that the indulgence value is as low Rs 50 in India and $3 overseas. So, in time this market will only boom."

Not only developers and operators are excited, even handset companies are pushing mobile gaming. Nokia and Qualcomm, for instance, are aggressively promoting Indian developers to foreign operators, who normally don't strike deals with lesser-known companies. For instance, Siemens Mobile Acceleration Corp and Softbank have invested in Mobile2Win to develop applications. Dhruva had a godfather in Intel and now has an investment from Incube, a company headed by gaming veteran Eric Mottet.

"The business is booming because it is only now that technology, demand and content have come together." VISHAL GONDAL, COO, INDIAGAMES

Since the deck life-the positioning of a game on the WAP site which determines the number of downloads-of such games is short, companies have to develop games with a high brand recall and universal appeal. The best way to do this is to create branded games which are based on movies, characters or sports personalities. Though companies won't divulge the sum they cough up for brand licenses, fees typically range between $5,00,000 and $2 million.

Indiagames got the Spiderman license exclusively from Marvel Studios, the owner of the brand globally, for five months. This also means that the company had just five months to recover the development costs of $1,50,000, which excludes the licence fee because it works on a revenue share agreement. But a minimum guarantee money is paid upfront to the owner. At $3 a download, around 50,000 downloads are needed-10,000 a month-just to recover costs.

Gondal, who bagged many Hollywood titles like Garfield, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bruce Lee, Day After Tomorrow and Spiderman, says, "If an Indian company seeks global rights to a brand, it must prove to the owners that the quality of the game will translate into revenues." This is also why some game developers are not making branded games their focus, unlike Indiagames which plans to release 18 branded games this year.

PICTURE SPEAK
Alaskan Holiday MAUJ COST Rs 2 lakh REVENUES Rs 6.5 lakh GLOBAL RELEASE: December 2003	Spiderman INDIAGAMES COST $1,50,000 REVENUES $8,50,000 GLOBAL RELEASE: November 2003

Indiagames has one of the highest development costs as it develops games that are compatible on multiple handsets and localises them for different countries. This can mean extensive reprogramming and at times re-coding in a different language. At present, games are developed on two platforms, Java and Brew. Most GSM handsets are Java-enabled while Qualcomm ones are Brew-enabled. Testing these games on different handsets and technologies by third parties can add another $30,000 to the development costs, says Gondal. Each game does at least 20,000 downloads which translates into $30,000 revenues if the game is priced at $3. However, superhit games can boast of five lakh downloads and revenues of $1 million.

The high costs of branded games does not excite everyone though. Mobile2Win and the Reliance-promoted Paradox Studios have different strategies. M2W works like a factory shop floor and develops around 24 original games a month. Last month, it acquired exclusive rights from Sholay Media and Entertainment to create a mobile game based on Ramesh Sippy's Sholay. Bollywood content can help generate Rs 20-40 lakh per film. Sholay being an all-time hit, it is expected to rake in Rs 50-60 lakh.

"Given that a download costs only around Rs 50 the mobile gaming market is poised to boom." RAJESH RAO, MD, DHRUV INTERACTIVE

To distribute its games overseas, M2W has tied up with aggregators who collect games from developers and distribute them. Under such an arrangement, the revenues are split three ways between the carrier, the aggregator and the developer. So if a game sells for $3 per download, the developer may get only $1. In India, however, M2W has directly tied up with operators like Idea, Hutch and Airtel. Says Rajiv Hiranandani, country head, M2W, "Not all our games will be hits. But we bank on that one becoming a superhit."

Reliance, which spotted the opportunity way back in 2001, seeded Paradox Studios under Anurag Khurana, its chief executive.

The company's mandate is clear-it has to develop games for R-World which will be played on rim phones and Reliance Web Worlds. After meeting the gaming requirements of R-World, Paradox is also targeting the pc gaming market and has developed a game called Battle Dust for the US market.

The gaming business can sometimes turn rough though. Some months ago, Indiagames sued Mauj, a rival game developer, for copyright infringement. Indiagames has alleged that Mauj's Rahul Dravid XI and Ricky Ponting game uses the same source code as one of its cricket games. Mobile service provider Hutch, which was running the ad blitz for Mauj's branded cricket game in India, has also been named in the case. However, Mauj CEO Arjun Gupta feels Indiagames is getting jittery because it lost marketshare in recent months.

The lax intellectual property laws in India is, in fact, a big stumbling block. Many brand owners are worried about letting an Indian game developer franchise their brand title as there is little protection for intellectual property here. Till such time the court gives its verdict, developers will continue with their games.

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