MOBILE GAMING: The Game is on

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Mobile gaming services have made a small beginning in India with the introduction of gaming services by most of the operators, both GSM and CDMA. This has been possible largely due to introduction of gaming-enabled handsets. Apart from service providers and handset vendors, it is the mobile application developers who have played an important role in making mobile gaming a reality in India. According to one estimate, the number of downloads of mobile games have grown more than 400 percent. Games are being offered under various categories, such as arcade, sports, puzzles, adventure etc. Reliance Infocomm offers more than 20 games to its subscribers as part of its R World offerings.

Hutch, Tata Teleservices, Bharti, and Reliance Infocomm have either entered into alliance with game developers or have set up in-house teams. Hutch has tied up with Mauj, Indiagames, and Mobile2Win. Reliance Infocomm has signed up about ten companies under Dhirubhai Ambani Developers Programme (DADP) for providing Java gaming applications. It even has a specialized game-development studio-Paradox (a 100 percent Reliance subsidiary). In June 2004, Tata Indicom launched its mobile gaming collections of 1,000 downloadable games. It has also partnered with Nokia for JAVA Application Download Platform, besides entering into agreement with gaming providers such as Indiagames, Indiatimes, Mauj, Mobile2win, Phoneytunes, Tinfo Mobile and Yahoo. Airtel and Spice have also launched Java-based games. Even BSNL, has come out with a number of mobile games including some premium games under CellOne Safari and CellOne Galaxy brand.

V&D estimates

CyberMedia Research

Mobile application developer companies are also offering gaming downloads to subscribers directly through its website. Handset vendors are also focusing on mobile gaming. Nokia recently organized India's first ever mobile-gaming championship with a prize money of one million rupees. The N-Gage Championship saw 30,000 participants from 47 cities across the country. PC gaming through broadband has also caught up in India. Reliance Infocomm has taken a lead in aggressively marketing its gaming offerings at WebWorlds located across the country. The company also organized an on-line PC multiplayer gaming event which witnessed the participation of over 14,500 participants from across 104 cities at 230 Reliance WebWorlds.

A recent report by In-Stat/MDR said mobile gaming is emerging as one of the fastest-growing and most popular applications in India's digital consumer economy. It expects the Indian mobile gaming market to grow from $26 million in 2004 to $336 million by 2009.

In-Stat/MDR says that India is now one of the key markets in the next big wave of growth in mobile multimedia, and is a multi-million dollar market both in terms of software development and end-user consumption. The study estimates that Indian operators clock on an average 220,000 downloads per month. Currently, the Indian mobile gaming business represents approximately five percent of the world's mobile gaming market.

Internationally, Japan and Korea together represent 60 percent of the Mobile Games market. Global revenues from mobile games are forecast to increase from USD 2.6 billion in 2005 to USD 11.2 billion by 2010, according to Mobile Games, a new strategic research report from Informa Telecoms and Media.

However, compatibility of handset remains an important issue. For example, all mobile gaming offered by Tata Indicom are available only on Nokia 3105. As of now, most of the operators offer single player game wherein the subscriber needs to download the game onto the handset and play. The speed of download depends on connectivity. Hutch claims to offer downloads three times faster on its EDGE network. Online gaming on handset has not taken off. With operators gearing up for 3G services, one hopes the mobile gaming will gather more momentum.

Sudesh Prasad