Insights success the 10 fastest growing gaming companies compressed

The way of business solutions www.insightssuccess.in SEPTEMBER 2016

THE

10

Chief Perspectives

Fastest Fastest Growing Growing

CEO Insights from

Gaming Companies

Ashish Dalia (I Knowledge Factory Pvt. Ltd.)

22 00 11 66

Vaibhav Chauhan (underDOGS Gaming Studio)

Venkat Prasad (Culture Machine)

Badri Sanjeevi Co-founder & CEO

Mauj M obile: Creating the Waves of Entertainment On the Move

Pep Talk

Editor’s Pick

The Promising Future of Gaming ArenaAugmented Reality

Evolution of Gaming Consoles

Mobile Games, the Summum Bonum of the Well Anchored Gaming Dome

Editorial

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ndian gaming industry is propelling ahead with the fastest rate ever since the competition became tighter. Earlier, hit games were only been produced by large companies, but now the trend has changed and start-ups to mid-level companies are proving their skills in producing super addictive games. Whether it is a simple 2D game or 3D battle game or the now prevailing Augmented Reality games, smaller companies are contributing much to the development of gaming industry in India.

Indian Games at the Apex of Gaming Industry

This era of gaming will certainly see a gargantuan opening for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality games which are now the gamer’s mania. Last year, many companies showcased and released their first generation VR sets. The arrival of Oculus Rift, HTC, and OSVR (Open Source Virtual Reality) has cooked up a storm in the dome. More and more angel investors and venture capitalists are stepping into research and studies in this niche since 2010, which accounted for a total investment of $5 billion.

Hit games happen once in a while, and holding them on the top list for months requires experience and talents. One recent survey publicized that gaming industry is expected to show a record growth rate, which will be closer to $82 billion by the year 2017. It is now crystal clear that Indian gaming industry is growing by leaps and bounds, and within a few years, India will touch the top notch of success along with many other developed countries.

The competitive spirit of techie vanguards took the mobile games sector to the pole position of the gaming industry. Before planning a game, developers need to analyse the market trends and the factors which satisfy the players. Not all games created based on films, cartoons or sports may not be a hit. The game yearning players look for avant-garde games that can suppress their hunger for the ultimate playoffs.

The maleficent games are thrown in the backyard forever since the players started picking up the spick-and-span games for themselves, kids, family or friends. The modern folks understand well the necessity of fruitful games that help in utilizing the time spend on playing. This positive approach towards picking games alarms the game developers to put their efforts in creating what people need, rather than running after the trends. So far, we have received marvellous games from them. Today and forever, let them continue it and take our nation to the zenith of excellence.

Musna Mony

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Musna Mony Co-Editors Sonal Burghate Pooja Jain Art & Design Director Amol Kamble Co-designer Harmeet Sigh Picture Editor Alex Noel Art Editor Shaila Visualiser Shweta Shinde Business Development Manager Manisha Priya Marketing Manager Karishma Joshi Business Development Executive Savitri, Pooja, Ketan, Gopi, Urvi, Monika Research Analyst David Circulation Manager Swapnil Database Management Sharad Technology Consultant Vishal More sales@insightssuccess.com

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Content Page 8 Mauj Mobile: Creating the Waves of Entertainment

34 All about Effective Game Publishing

26 Shifting towards The New Age of Distribution and Personalization Platforms

The world of Augmented reality

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Mobile Games, the Summum Bonum of the Well Anchored Gaming Dome

Evolution of Gaming Consoles

The Promising Future of Gaming ArenaAugmented Reality

16 Nautilus Mobile: The Epitome of Mobile Gaming

24 Nazara Technologies: Apotheosizing Mobile Games

30 Nilee Games and Future Technologies: Working Towards the Never Ending Future Technologies

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Games, a Quantum Leap in the Entertainment World!

G

ames are in our veins since ages. It is that niche of entertainment world that thrive enthusiasm, bond relationships, relieve boredom and so on. A new generation folk would not pass a day without playing at least one game. The Indian gaming industry got recognition in the global market with remarkable contributions from their part.

The last quarter of the year 2016 is witnessing as well as going to witness the release of fabulous games such as The Silver Case, Warhammer: The End Times - Vermintide, Paper Mario Color Splash, World of Final Fantasy, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Special Edition, Titanfall 2, Yomawari: Night Alone, etc. PlayStation and Xbox have taken our living rooms' full control and the free times we spend on those mind-boggling games enhance our intellectual skills and rejuvenate our inner child drastically.

Men’s yearning for getting something better have always lead to the development of novel games, which resulted in the radical outburst of gaming revolution globally. This issue of Insights Success Magazine focuses on new gen games that are trendy, innovative, as well as informative. You can read and enjoy the fresh articles included in this exciting issue.

In this issue of Insights Success Magazine, after an in-depth market study, we have crowned Mauj Mobile as the Cover Story. Mauj serves customers in over 100 countries who download millions of applications, games and content on their mobile phones. Mauj Mobile is the pioneer in mobile internet, having been one of the earliest entrants in this ďŹ eld.

They have billing integration with all major operators in India, providing premium content and services to millions of consumers through these operators. Mauj Mobile reaches over 10 million consumers globally with over 7 million of them registered with them.

The preceding pages order Nazara Technologies, the leading world-wide mobile games developer and publisher; Nilee Games, who provides game development, art development, and future technology services to global leading companies; Nautlius Mobile, the prominent mobile game developer focused on the large smartphone and tablet market in India and worldwide. Also, Daphnis Labs, Robosoft Technologies, Roosh Interactive Pvt. Ltd., Sankraman Productions, SuperSike Games and Virtualmaze enthrone the issue. Hope you are ready to start-off!

Cover Story

Badri Badri Sanjeevi Sanjeevi Co-founder Co-founder & & CEO CEO

Mauj Mauj Mobile Mobile

Cover Story

Mauj Mobile: Creating the Waves of Entertainment

M

auj Mobile, the part of People Group, is a company engrossed on building great customer destinations on Mobile Internet. The company was incorporated in 2003 with a vision to empower consumers by providing entertainment and information via mobile phone, and specifically on Mobile Internet Platforms.

providing great monetisation of premium content for content owners to customers in India. Mauj brings together their expertise in user engagement and technology to bring innovative entertainment and information to the end user on mobile. They take these products to market both through the operator channel as well as through Direct to Consumer models.

The Application Store vertical, through Mauj Mobile has its offices in Mumbai, mobango.com, is one of the world’s Milan, London and New York. The largest free mobile application and worldwide business serves the content stores. Mobango is the customers in over 100 countries As a publisher world's first Social Application who download millions of store and offers over 1 million applications, games and and distributor, pieces of apps, games and content on their mobile we ensure efficiencies content for free download to phones. Mauj Mobile is the for a whole lot of “Indie” end users in over 150 pioneer in mobile internet, game developers by providing countries. It delivers over 1 having been one of the them a great platform to get million downloads a day earliest entrants in this traction in India and also and is a proven distribution field. They have billing platform for all major help them by funding their integration with all major application owners in the operators in India, next games by occasional world. providing premium content advance royalties and services to millions of that we pay The key capabilities that consumers through these support both the above business operators. Mauj Mobile reaches areas are Mauj’s core technology over 10 million consumers platforms that they have built over the globally with over 7 million of them last few years, which include a robust registered with them.

Applications Discovery and Deployment Platform (ADDM), the Billing and subscription Striking Services Propounded management engines, and tools to rapidly build and Mauj Mobile focuses on two main businesses, Premium manage scaled destinations and store fronts on mobile Content Distribution and Application Store. internet platforms.

The Premium Content Distribution vertical focuses on

“

“

Cover Story

The Gaming Ecosystem According to team Mauj, the gaming ecosystem mainly consists of five key players and each of them offers a distinct value to the gaming ecosystem as a whole.

Game developers: They could be local or international groups.

Publishers: This group could also be both local and international players.

The key role they play is to support the developer(s) and drive volumes. In some cases, they can be akin to the developers.

Distribution platforms: This is the supreme players in the gaming domain who act as the consumer-facing platforms where the actual discovery happens.

Monetization/ Payment channels: The key platforms that facilitate game monetization, either via in-game purchases through multiple payment mechanisms like direct consumer billing using credit/ debit cards, carrier billing, etc. and ad platforms that can offer the developers the opportunity to monetize their game engagement.

The gamer or the end consumer: They are the group who determines the success and failure of a game. Merely

focussing on the demands of gamers, all the games are developed and marketed. In a relatively nascent gaming market like India, the ‘key challenges’ are Content Discovery and Monetization, the most impacted by the challenges of course are the game developers.

The role that Mauj plays in this ecosystem is quite unique and specifically addressed towards solving both the developer and consumer problems. Given the unique and nascent nature of the ecosystem in India, Mauj acts as an effective conduit between the gaming consumers, developers and payment channels, thereby playing the role of a Scaled up distribution platform for both free and premium games, a game publisher for selected, great quality games and offers a great monetization platform for game developers through their monetization APIs. On the other hand, they have millions of engaged gaming consumers across platforms that see tremendous value in the curated gaming content that Mauj offers.

Expertise Proffered Given the role that Mauj plays pans across the ecosystem, being a publisher and a distribution and monetization platform, there are multiple areas of technical and content expertise that

come into the picture.

One of the key responsibilities that they have is from a content standpoint, the goal being to ensure their gaming consumers not only have access to the best gaming content on their platforms, but also the content is sanitized, updated, tested and supported by the appropriate meta-data, collaterals to ensure discovery of the same and provide consumers with enough decision-making tools like reviews and ratings, expert opinions, videos, etc.

From the technology perspective, Mauj ensures that they operate the most stable and scalable platforms both for their consumers and developers. Their distribution and monetization platforms and APIs are powered by highly scalable infrastructure that can manage very high peak loads at any time. They constantly keep innovating on the distribution and content delivery side to strive for higher download completion rates for all their content.

Apart from that, the platforms have a strong layer of analytics that powers the business insights, consumer understanding algorithms and developer dashboards. These also empower their reporting, billing and

Cover Story

collection systems across Mauj’s billing partners and drive their further pay-outs, etc.

Apart from this, since the Android ecosystem does not extend certain privileges to alternate app stores like the ones that Google Play Store has, there are significant technology challenges on download delivery and completion that they are continuously trying to address. Mauj has worked on

Top-notch Projects Team Mauj says that their most challenging project on the gaming side is the on-going development of their gaming focused distribution platform in Gamesbond, which would exist in both a free and premium mode. As an alternate game downloads and distribution platform, it directly competes with the Google Play Store which is the We have built de-facto download strong relationships with destination for all Android devices. major application owners

+ “

in the world and

Given the fulfilled their app backdrop of the distribution objectives Google Play Store, they have the challenge of continuously innovating on content discovery and personalization to ensure that they new features like download manager are able to offer the most relevant and and multi-threaded download delivery personalized gaming content to their to solve some of these issues. gaming consumers. This also means development and implementation of The Exuberant Leader of Mauj complex content discovery algorithms The trailblazer behind Mauj Mobile is and recommendations that will aid Badri Sanjeevi who is the discovery for their users.

Co-Founder and CEO of Mauj

Mobile. Mr. Sanjeevi, having more than two decades of experience leads the Mauj Mobile and Mobango teams on their success path working closely with telecom operators, media companies and mobile app developers.

Mr. Sanjeevi has acquired his bachelor’s degree from Madras University in 1994, where he was awarded the Best Student title. He is a Chartered Accountant, having cleared all exams in All India rank-holders list and a Cost Accountant (equivalent of CIMA - UK). He has also completed his MBA from INSEAD Business School, France in 2001. He started his career with Arthur Andersen in India and went on to work with leading organizations like Deutsche Bank Telecoms Investment Banking in London, TMobile with their Strategy team and Deloitte Media Strategy Consulting in London.

He returned to India in 2008 to join the People Group.

“

He is the winner of the prominent award, “Top 100 CFO in India for Impact on Strategy” “Red under his leadership, Mauj has won “Red Herring European Innovation Award, 2012” for innovative products and

“mBillionth Award” for innovative products for developing countries.

Mr. Sanjeevi opines, “Our efficiencies stem from our ability to unlock a significant amount of value in the gaming ecosystem.”

Unique Approach towards Problems Aside of the strong platforms that they’ve built for their gaming consumers and developers, they believe their key strength is the passion that the people have for gaming and their processes geared towards surfacing only the best games for their consumers.

As a distribution platform, one of the key consumer problems that Mauj is constantly trying to solve for the users is “Discovery”, which requires them to have a twin-pronged approach: An automated/algorithm driven content matching/discovery mechanisms which ensure the best and appropriate content surfaces for a specific gamer.

A strong curation process that ensures that even the algorithms are constantly fed with the strong tacit knowledge that lies within their strong editorial teams who understand what makes a great game.

Dazzling Future Outlook From a future standpoint, a couple of focus areas where Mauj is aggressively building capability are: International operations: The key international geographies that they are entering, and will drive the overall top line and profitability. Some of the potential markets in this context would be some countries in South East Asia & Latin America that are already evolved gaming markets.

Publishing capabilities: Mauj is working towards building comprehensive publishing capabilities for selected games, across platforms like Google Play and all other 3rd party platforms, OEMs, etc. This will strategically help them expand their network of games both from the demand and supply standpoint. This will also help them have a closer working relationship with a set of developers, help them improve their games and market them better.

Gargantuan Base of Clientele For the clientele is largely the 20,000+ base of game developers, big and small, that are associated with Mauj and value them for the benefits they offer as a monetization, distribution and publishing partner.

In the recent times, there have been very good game developers like Super Sike games, Zabuza labs, Moonfrog games, Gpimports, Madras games and UnderDOGs gaming studios, to name a few, who have found tremendous value in working with Mauj’s platforms. There have been developers who have voluntarily come out and complimented Mauj on their ability to deliver even better results in the Google Play Store for their games.

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Corporate Office Insights Success Media and Technology Pvt. Ltd. Office No. 513, 5th Floor, Rainbow Plaza, Shivar Chowk, Pimple Saudagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411017 Phone - India: 020-69400110 | USA: 302-319-9947 Email: info@insightssuccess.com

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FASTEST GROWING

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Company Name

Management

Brief

Daphnis Labs daphnislabs.com

Samanyu Chopra Founder

Daphnis Labs excels in delivering a sublimatic gaming experience and envisaging a perfect marketing plan to ensure its delivery and distribution.

Mauj Mobile mauj.com, mobango.com, gamesbond.com

Badri Sanjeevi Co-founder & CEO

Mauj Mobile is a global mobile media company with app marketplaces, who has over 20mn monthly unique users.

Nautilus Mobile nautilusmobile.com

Anuj Mankar, CEO & Creative Director

Nautilus Mobile is a leading mobile game developer focused on the large smartphone and tablet market in India and worldwide.

Nazara Technologies nazara.com

Manish Agarwal CEO

Nazara is a leading mobile games developer and publisher focused on the large mobile consumer base in India and worldwide.

Nilee Games and Future Technologies nileegames.com

Anand Jha Founder & CEO

Nilee games is one of the leading game and gaming technology companies, providing game development, art development, and future technology services to global leading companies.

Robosoft Technologies robosoftin.com

Rohith Bhat MD & CEO

Robosoft helps businesses plan, design and build mobile apps.

Roosh Interactive Pvt. Ltd. rooshinteractive.com

Deepak Ail Co-founder & CEO

Roosh is a game development team with a combined experience of over a 100 years.

Sanket Gupta CEO & Founder

Sankraman Productions is a dedicated and ambitious team of highly experienced and skilled industry veterans working on core values of professionalism and craftsmanship.

SuperSike Games supersikegames.com

Amit Ghoyal Co-founder

SuperSike Games is an independent game development studio from New Delhi, with the intent of making video games.

Virtualmaze virtualmaze.co.in

Madan Kandula Director

Virtualmaze specializes in 3D real time graphics for a broad range of devices and video game consoles.

Sankraman Productions sankramanproductions.com

Nautilus Mobile: The Epitome of Mobile Gaming

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autilus Mobile is an independent mobile gaming studio founded in March, 2013 in Hyderabad, India.

Their operations studio is currently based in Pune. At Nautilus, they have a small but efficient team, which allows them to be nimble, action-oriented, and decisive.

Passion and Creativity are the most important characteristics that made them to be amongst the best in the country in the mobile gaming industry.

The primary concern of any gaming company should be the targeted audience and its users, and this is exactly how things are at Nautilus. The users of the company’s products are of utmost importance to them and they strive in order to deliver the products and features which they crave for.

At Nautilus, they offer the very best in terms of design, creativity, and efficiency.

They are skilled with most modern game engines such as Cocos2d and Unity. The art team at Nautilus boasts excellent creative vision.

Award Winning Games Nautilus’ very first project was a casual action RPG game called Song of Swords this was greatly appreciated by the critics and won them the NASSCOM Game Developer Forum’s 2013 Indie Game of

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Anuj Mankar CEO & Creative Director Nautilus Mobile App Pvt. Ltd.

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Their next title is so far their biggest title Real Cricket™ which is the world’s biggest cricket title on the mobile platform. The franchise has grossed over 16 million downloads and they are still counting. Real Cricket™ 16 is Editor’s Choice on the Apple iTunes Store, and the title on the Google Play Store has individually breached the 10 million downloads. Real Cricket™ won them the NASSCOM's 2014 People’s Choice Game of the Year award.

The True Trailblazer Anuj Mankar, the CEO & Creative Director of Nautilus, is a passionate gamer and has been since the age of 4. What initially started as a hobby and his favourite pastime eventually came into being a possible career option when he accidently stumbled upon an opportunity to work as a game tester in Mumbai at the age of 18.

Anuj worked with the company for a year and a half and recognized the scope in the Games industry when it comes to taking it up as a profession. To better equip himself, he decided to pick up a gaming related bachelors course and eventually graduated with a BSc. (Hons) degree in Computer Games Production from the University of Lincoln, UK in 2009.

Anuj was a producer of Gameloft, which won great fame in the Gaming industry and adding more feathers to his cap, he has also developed 2D titles such as N.O.V.A. and UNO for Amazon Kindle. Anuj is the one who designed the Premier Feature Phone Cricket title - Ultimate Cricket for Synqua Games along with over 10 other titles. He has led teams on projects from companies like NAMCO, Empire Interactive and worked on several other titles on handheld devices such as Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, etc.

According to Anuj’s opinion, to ensure efficiency in gaming, one must first equip themselves with a high calibre, passionate, and trustworthy team, which allows executing the projects thoroughly and decisively. Understanding the demands and dreams of the users is also of the utmost importance. Anuj always go by the saying- “make not what you want, make only what your users want.” It is very easy for independent gaming studios to get tangled up in their own ideas and their own desires, but I would always first focus on the needs of the target audience.

The Epic Chronicle Started with a team of six, they have fast grown to a team of 17 budding and passionate members. The success of the

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“

We have the

notorious reputation of being the No. 1 Studio when it comes to making cricket games on the mobile and tablet platform

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Song of Swords, in 2013, kick started Nautilus’ voyage towards a victorious profile.

The Real Cricket™ 14 which quickly captured the imagination of cricket fans across the world and went on to be a huge commercial blockbuster. Real Cricket™ soon became and endures to be the most successful mobile cricket gaming franchise in the world. Along the way they have had significant branding partnerships with the likes of Royal Stag, Basking Robbins, MedPlus and more. Apart from these, they have also benefitted from development partnerships with industry’s big names such as Microsoft, Intel and Blackberry.

Nautilus Mobile is thereby one of the most notable mobile gaming studios in India, and is a household name on the Google Play and iTunes Store.

Moving Ahead With a Great Vision…

Nautilus has really never ever tried to be a service oriented business and hence they have not gone out and done projects for anyone else apart from themselves. They however, have had strategic development partnership with powerhouses such as Intel, Blackberry, and Microsoft.

“I think we have a great vision. Nobody can tell for sure if a game is going to make it big or not, that said having the correct understanding and vision can greatly eliminate risks to some extent and lead to more educated assumptions,” asserts Anuj.

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On the Move

The Promising Future of Gaming Arena- Augmented Reality

T

he first video game is thought to be a very simple tennis game which was invented in October 1958

by Physicist William Higinbotham. As technology grew, gaming industry also grew. Now, we can term it “a torrent” for what has happened in the entertainment world.

When the phases are filmed on a celluloid- the 1958 black and white simple 2D video game to the 3D Monster Maze in 1981, then to the first-person shooters like Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 to complex, realistic shooters like Battlefield 3D in 2011, and now in 2016, multifarious video games such as Hover Junkers, Fantastic Contraption, Chronos etc. (all in VR) tickle both the hard-core and moderate gamers. Not to stop there! Yet another wowing technology is here to take the die-hard gamers to a greater level of enthusiasm and raise the spirit of gaming- Augmented Reality.

Bill Gates once said, “We’re changing the world with technology.” But now, technology is changing our world.

Both Augmented and Virtual Reality have established its foothold in the gaming arena, by showcasing its irresistible appeal to get addicted to the modes. Geeks are much enthusiastic to select games from both high-end and mobile games, that too, with the arrival of HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. The soon launch of PlayStation VR fire up the spirit of diehard gamers.

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Augmented Reality over Virtual Reality….

Augmented Reality is the technology which shoots up the essence of games by taking it one step ahead than VR games by capturing the real world of the present and projects the digital imagery and adds sound effects to it. It usually refers to a more sophisticated, interactive, and spatially aware implementation of the idea. AR projects the digital objects like 3D models onto our view, to bring a false perception of reality so that we feel the objects are really right in front of us. Without describing more, we can clarify the concept- the technology behind “Pokémon Go.” Although everyone is after the VR games now, the massive hit of Pokémon Go by Niantic, Inc. predicts that the future of video gaming is AR. VR is capable of immersing the gamers into the game by strap a screen to face approach, but the gaming controls remain the same. The indoor VR games still require a motion control, which means VR has not replaced any peripheral input devices that already existed, and the gamer needs to be indoors or at a safe place to play the VR games. These explanations are not intended to say that VR gaming is not exciting or engaging instead, it is not a standalone platform. This technology is particularly developed upon prior input tactics and has long term limitations.

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On the Move The newly arrived AR game, Clandestine: Anomaly is a location based AR game that turns the gamer’s surroundings into ground zero for an alien crash landing. The game starts with a warning- “Your phone has been hacked!” The amusing game developed by Zenfri, Inc. immerses the player cent per cent into the gaming milieu. The game throws players into the middle of an inter-galactic conflict.

They have to fight the aliens and using the clues found in the immediate area, move forward the levels.

The Augmented Reality is novel and innovative in its approach on how the gamers can interact with the world around them, playing games of their choice out of the four walls. This technology brings multiple benefits along with jovial experiences for an enthusiastic gamer.

From Ingress To….

Ingress website welcomes us with these words, “The world around you is not what it seems.” Ingress is developed by Niantic, Inc. and Google, and introduced in the market on November 15, 2012. The locationbased, AR, Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) was a great hit of the time, although it was only available for Android devices at the outset. Afterward, in 2014 Ingress was made available for Apple’s iOS too.

The science fiction back story attracts players to get engaged with it.

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As a matter of act, when we get to this world, a lot of things that we think about as physical objects today, like a TV for displaying an image, will actually just be $1 apps in an AR app store. So it’9s going to take a long time to make this work. But this is the vision, and this is what we're trying to get to over the next 10 years.”

Reality is Future….

Facebook is also contemplating on Augmented Reality. CEO Mark Zuckerberg asserts at Facebook F8 conference keynote about the plan, “Over the next 10 years, the form factors just going to keep on getting smaller and smaller, and eventually we’re going to have what looks like normal-looking glasses that can do both virtual and augmented reality.

And augmented reality gives you the ability to see the world but also to be able to overlay digital objects on top of that.

So that means that today, if I want to show my friends a photo, I pull out my phone and I have a small version of the photo. In the future, you’ll be able to snap your fingers and pull out a photo and make it as big as you want, and with your AR glasses you’ll be able to show it to people and they’ll be able to see it.

This move is a leap in the technology that adds more features to the upcoming games. With more tech giants being interested in VR and AR gaming, players can expect a dramatic twist in the dome during the upcoming decades. Let us wait patiently and monitor the actions that change the things around us.

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CXO Standpoint

The world of Augmented reality

I

am living in a world where technology is really very fast paced. There are so many awesome and amazing things that keep on happening every single day or I can say even minutes. Changes are faster than I or you all can think of.

‘Augmented reality’ is something very different. When I started this digital agency I never had a clue that we will come such a far way.

Here are some of my thoughts over what Augmented reality is all about.

Imagine you find a parking spot in the hottest restaurant in town within seconds and all this is done today with the magic of augmented reality.

Augmented reality is the ability to insert overlay digital and virtual information into the real world track.

There are augmented browsers which allow the user to see the world in a whole new way. These browsers basically help you to recognize and see the things immediately which in turn provide you information on an immediate basis. The browsers can be accessed by using your smart phones.

Just imagine how awesome it can be to browse real life just like browsing the web.

This technology was created way back

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in 1962 by cinematographer called Morton Healy by the concept of the simulator which had visuals and some sound effects added to it. It was not too advanced back then as it is now.

The first real world application of augmented reality heads up display in fighter jets where the symbols are projected on the transparent glass.

This helped the pilots to take away the distraction looking at gauges and allows pilots to aim their weapons better.

Now-a-days we get to see the heads up displays in BMW which displays all the information about speed, navigation. It projects from a console on the dashboard and onto the glass where only the driver can see it.

Augmented reality eases the activities such as travel, shopping and can even be applied to medicine & education for rapid development.

It can also be used as a marketing medium. Using augmented reality in advertising we can engage users.

Many brands are opting for it like IKEA. In 2013, IKEA came up with a catalogue where they used the augmented reality application which was designed in such a way that

various pages of the catalogue were recognized in different ways. They used 3D animation for showing the furniture. Instead of looking at the video you can have a look at the catalogue with your camera in the app and it will visualize the bed right there on the page. The drawers can be opened and closed which actually helps us in seeing how all the work is being done. There is even an app which will tell you how the furniture may look at your home.

Mitsubishi also has an app which allows the customer to see the products and their actual size inside their home.

Augmented reality has helped in replacing the old manuals and shows the real-time instructions.

One other place where it is used is the art museum where your smart phone replace the long audio tours where you can point your device at each painting and you can get its information in realtime.

But this technology is not only limited to the mobile phones but also has huge deployments in the commercial space.

One of the best examples of it was ‘LEGO’. Wherein you could walk into every ‘LEGO’ store in the world and grab a box off the shelf hold it up the

|September 2016

CXO Standpoint flat screen that has a camera on the top and the entire model We can expect to see things differently what we can call the could be visualized which was animated on top of the Augmented city in the near future block. It was a huge hit and Lego internally calls it as NAG factor because once a kid sees the model on top of the box Augmented reality also faces some hurdles. there is no way the parents will not buy it for them.

1. Banned by law.

The main point is that augmented reality is not that it’s 2. Unless the manufactures get serious we may not get mobile but its further interaction using the vision. Reality is proper and good quality hardware and softwares. all about vision.

At the end, I would conclude by saying “As we cannot Google glasses are running in the forefront of this race. change the reality let us change the vision which sees the They allow us to take pictures, videos, navigate, send reality.” messages and get information simply by talking to the glasses.

Ashish Dalia, Entrepreneur, Chairman & Chief Business Strategist at I Knowledge Factory Pvt. Ltd. has spent 16 years helping brands with online marketing strategies and brand building. His specialized areas include Marketing, Business Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Internet Marketing, Digital Advertising, Brand Management, SEM (search engine marketing), SEO (search engine optimization), ORM (Object-relational mapping), SMM (social media marketing).

As an Entrepreneur, Ashish’s goal is focused on taking the organization to a greater scale, utilizing and optimizing resources, manpower and taking them to a higher level of productivity, drive growth and profit, he believes one of his key responsibilities is “to create an environment which motivates and inspires individuals to contribute their part in executing the company’s goals.

Ashish Dalia Entrepreneur, Chairman & Chief Business Strategist, I Knowledge Factory Pvt. Ltd.

|September 2016

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Nazara Technologies: Apotheosizing Mobile Games

M

obile games are on the top list of the gaming industry as well as people’s choice. The die-hard gamers crave for classic games that can gratify their longing for realistic events. Nazara Games is a leading mobile game publisher in India, which was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Mumbai. Nazara is a consumer-centric company which understands the ďŹ rst time mobile internet user and mobile gamer very astutely across emerging markets.

The team at Nazara believes in offering games which are relevant, keeping the overall consumer target base in mind instead of basing them on individual and personal preferences. This is evident in the case of a space like gaming where it is easy for individuals to get carried away based on personal likes and dislikes. Nazara also thrives on data-driven decision making and hence the entire company has a strong pulse on numbers and it becomes easy for the teams to have fact based debates and arrive at logical conclusions without spending too much time on discussing and dissecting subjective opinions.

The Textbook Tactics to Triumph 'Nazara’ in the local Hindi dialect means Vision.

They have the vision of a beautiful sight and that is to bring smiles to billions of gamers across emerging markets. They make this happen through their home grown tech platform which allows them to offer gaming subscription services across 51 countries spanning the Indian Subcontinent, Africa, Middle East and South East Asia via carrier billing through 95 telecom operators.

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Manish Agarwal, CEO Nazara Technologies Pvt. Ltd. |September 2016

The

FASTEST GROWING

ING

Companies

Nazara strategizes the customer relation through Comprehensive Customer Acquisition Channels that includes, Direct-to-Consumer (more than 90% users through this channel), i.e. reaching/acquiring the end consumers through digital marketing.

Dedicated in-house digital marketing team actively monitors the channel efficiency.

The Pre-Installation strategizes cooperation with OEMs to pre-install the games. The team works in close collaboration with many handset manufacturers. And last but not the least, Strategic Partnership works for cumulative agreements with major domestic and international carriers to market Nazara’s games.

The Essence of Grant Feats Nazara is a game publisher and creates easy to pick up and play games which are seemingly easy to play but difficult to master. Nazara has consciously taken a call not to limit itself to being a game developer. The team at Nazara loves working with multiple developers across the globe including India to create games which players love.

One of the biggest challenges for Nazara is to cater to a wide varied base of gamers in India ranging from hardcore players playing RPG games at one extreme to super casual players playing simple arcade games. They have created separate teams to cater to different gamer segments having different expertise and a mindset to ensure that the thoughts do not get mixed up. |September 2016

Team Nazara says that game selection as a publisher is still a precarious business and in spite of all the datadriven green lighting process, they could end up getting it wrong. But that's what makes gaming challenging, exciting and super fun!!!

The Connoisseur of Gaming Manish Agarwal, CEO of Nazara Games is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and NIT Warangal.

Manish has been a leading figure in the Indian gaming ecosystem and has been the biggest proponent of the quality of the Indian mobile game developers across the various mobile gaming conferences around the globe. Manish has led various gaming companies like Zapak and Reliance Games before joining Nazara.

As a CEO, Manish focuses on a datadriven decision-making process with complete empowerment to the team, ‘to make mistakes and learn from them’ is what he truly believes and that's how he encourages his team members.

Manish asserts, “If we believe that we know everything in gaming, we are fooling no one but ourselves.”

Manish believes that while working within the ecosystem as publishers, their developers are the key to their growth. His responsibility is not limited to a specific arena. Manish has expertise in building tools and platforms to engage and retain more users on Nazara network from time to time.

Most importantly, Manish stays abreast of happenings via an efficient MIS system which keeps him in

“

While working within the

ecosystem as publishers, we believe our developers are the key to our growth

“

GA

synchronized with ground realities and numbers making it easier to have discussions with the teams.

Breathtaking Games “If Nazara were a student, it would be humble, grounded and super hungry for learning. We would like to stay like this forever and let our work do the talking.” –Team Nazara Nazara is not into servicing business and does not take work for hire projects. Nazara publishes games on Google Play/iTunes/9Games and runs its own direct to consumer gaming subscription services.

So far Nazara Games has created aweinspiring games like Nazara Cricket, Virat Cricket Challenge, Googly Cricket, Chhota Bheem Maths Vs Aliens, Cut the Rope Magic, Chhota Bheem Race, Bang Bang, Bombay Velvet, Seven Stars, and so on. It is not a surprise that all the games are massive hits and they all have won the hearts of players. Hard work never goes in vain!

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CXO Standpoint

SHIFTING TOWARDS THE

NEW AGE

OF

DISTRIBUTION AND

PERSONALIZATION

PLATFORMS T

he global entertainment media landscape is undergoing a major change primarily due to shift in consumer behaviour driven by technology. This is highly evident in the online video industry where viewership is shifting from linear (such as TV) to ondemand (YouTube, Netix) consumption with social networks like YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter etc. are becoming the new age distribution and personalization platforms. Today, smartphone has become the new personalized TV with primetime becoming anytime. Video consumption is on multiple screens (TV, phone, tablet, game consoles etc.) and content types such as short, long, live, 360 degrees & VR videos supported by shifting biz models (OTT, inventory, subscription, branded content etc.)

These trends are rapidly fragmenting and shaking up existing media business models based on traditional cable and broadcast networks. In this new world content success

26

requires not only the right insight, but also an ability to create content scalable for these platforms in a low cost fashion. This is where technology comes as the enabler and plays a key role in determining the relevant content for the right audience. Content was the king in an era of linear television with limited distribution. In today’s on-demand, hyper connected, personalized world, it is not just content, but data about the content is equally important. Technology not only enables global distribution, but also helps to curate and personalize content tailored for audience interest and engagement.

The key to engage audience successfully on digital platforms, is to show them relevant content that is personalized. Platforms like YouTube and Facebook use algorithmic curation and machine learning to show relevant and personalized content to audience.

|September 2016

CXO Standpoint In this new era of unlimited distribution outlets and personalized content consumption the key to success is to know what ‘content to create’ for the target consumers and to ‘create it at scale’.

Culture Machine’s intelligence platforms helps to identify the right content to create & Video Machine platforms help to ‘create at scale’. As new types of short form content such as silent videos, listicle, how-to, cover songs, recipes or curated news, are becoming increasingly popular in the social video world, technologies such as Video Machine is an attempt to solve the scalability problem. At Culture Machine, analytics and scalable video creation is a core part of our DNA.

VENKAT PRASAD Co-founder COO/ CTO- Culture Machine

Venkat is an entrepreneur with deep interest in business incubation, new ventures, operational scaling, emerging business finance, product and technology commercialization in new media, digital video, consumer internet, Saas, enterprise software, emerging markets and analytics space.

His Specialties include Executive Management, Product Development & Commercialization, Consumer Internet Business Launch, Scale, Finance, Fund Raise, Online Media, Network and Content Syndication, Distribution, Analytics, Information Engineering/Architecture, Enterprise and Cloud Technologies.

|September 2016

An intrinsic study of the exponentially growing Virtual Reality (VR) world showed that Facebook is the preferred choice for content creators with very high viewership and engagement in sports and video games categories. It’s a powerful insight for sports creators to go bullish on 360-degree content and create content which provides a richer experience to their viewers or for fitness brands to launch a whole new format of 360-degree commercials to showcase their products, gain multi-fold reach and engagement using this popular format.

Personalisation has to be prioritized from the moment content is created. It must be created with the ability for consumers to navigate, explore and customize it to their personal preferences and interests. Emerging content technology is the key to creating a new kind of customer-centric experience that also allows marketers to glean deep analytics from the content, understand its effectiveness, and optimize it for better performance.

In the next 5 years, it won’t be strange to see the marketing’s function becoming more integral with technology teams giving birth to marketing-tech teams. CMOs and CIOs will collaborate on greater projects. We are in the early phase of this major tech driven revolution and not long from now we may see a world with personalized 1:1 media for every consumer.

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Pep Talk

GAMING

EVOLUTION of

CONSOLES

W

hat to do in spare time? What would be a guy’s answer is, play a video game and we females always wonder why so, and what scientists say is, it boosts self-esteem, it’s a stress reliever, gives dopamine rush and its interesting to solve a problem to many. When you come across its advantages you are also thinking which game you should play and on which game console you want to play it on.

Consoles are mainly for gaming purpose, but now-a-days it has become a source of entertainment by which you can watch movies, browse the web, record and broadcast gaming sessions, use Skype and much more.

Gone are the days when you have a single piece of hardware for consoles, with the growing demand of better graphics and faster processor, Microsoft and Sony drastically updating current systems, PS4 Pro is all set to be launched in November10, 2016 while Project Scorpio-a new and improved Xbox One is also coming in 2017 winters.

Both companies have stressed that all games should run on both new and old hardware. Both companies have tried to create powerful consoles because of virtual reality and have ensured your game looks better and run smoother.

What Will You Prefer: PS4 or Xbox ?

Xbox One S changed the game a little, it has emerged with new attributes, and the highlights are its smaller size, support for HDR TVs and a bigger storage option- 2TB, and has 4K video playback although these SKUs are scarce now with 500GB and 1TB units the standard contributions.

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The superior performance of Multi-format games could be more seen on the current PS4. But at the same time Xbox One giving competition, as you will get the access to the games like Halo, Gears of War, Forza, and other exclusives, Microsoft deals has a plus point as its console gets DLC for certain titles before Ps4.

Xbox One's unique interface based on Windows 10 which targets to club altogether a multitude of media connections into a single channel and this is most useful if you want a console for your entertainment world.

Sony also has its own set of exclusive games which Xbox One ain't gonna offer. Uncharted, Gran Turismo Sport, God of War, Death Stranding, Ratchet and Clank, Street Fighter V and The Last Guardian.

The Xbox One S is superior in terms of size, as we all know its irony that smaller the device, considered better it is, and it is 40 percent smaller than the Xbox One and it comes with an incorporated power brick, which seeks all attention when we talk about design. That makes the design of the two consoles a much more level playing field.

Xbox One Vs PS4- Price As we all know it’s always a choice of an individual to buy a thing, but one of the important factors that affect the purchasing is the price of the product. So, the Xbox One initially retailed at EUR429 with Kinect and no games, but the RRP of the entry-level 500GB system is now EUR299.99. Xbox One S prices have dropped further, with approx EUR200 mark, including and without including software. The PS4’s UK RRP is too EUR299.99. |September 2016

NILEE GAMES AND FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES: Working Towards the Never Ending Future Technologies technologies. They have three core verticals within the company which makes Nilee Games and Future Technologies a 3600 service provider, those are Gaming, Future Technologies, and Animation & VFX and each vertical has its own expertise in their core area of working.

Striking Services Propounded Gaming Gaming itself is an ocean in B2B segment. Nilee Games provides game and application development solutions for Online, Offline, Android, iOS, Gaming consoles, Handheld and Desktop to game publishers and Studios, e-Learning companies, Advertising companies, Film & Series production houses, and Corporate companies around the world.

In the past few years, Nilee Games has seen corporate companies being more interested in using gamification as a learning tool for their employees and marketing tool for their customers. Gamification basically is a process of seeding important information and mapping competencies psychologically into user’s mind, which results in the change of their behaviour and thereby increases the productivity within the company and sales from customers, which can be achieved through specially designed Mobile or PC games. Gamification for employees and customers work differently and require a deep understanding of their market segment and consumer behaviour.

Anand Jha Founder & CEO Nilee Games And Future Technologies

G

ames have influenced human life from ages. It is the means of entertainment where wisdom and tactics amalgamate to break the obstacles to win the goal. Modern day video games have grown beyond the limits with numerous games emerging in the market day by day. Not only the gamers get appreciated, but also the master brains behind the gamification need a great round of applause.

Nilee Games and Future Technologies itself signifies that they are working towards the never ending future

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Nilee Games has successfully gamified many brands and companies, few companies even reported some excellent growth with gamification in their business.

Future Technologies “Future is Technology” said by Mr. Narendra Modi our Prime Minister, and this is 100% true as per the current trend. Nilee Games’ technology team work on product and services in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Simulation, Motion Sensing, Embedded Systems, Robotics, and Custom Made Technologies, which can be used in various sectors like Entertainment, Media, Publishing, Pharmaceutical Companies, Housing Company, Manufacturing Companies, Consumer Goods, Education, Retail Market, Banking,

|September 2016

The

FASTEST GROWING

ING

Companies

Engineering and Construction, HiTech, Automobile Industries, Health Care, Theme Parks, etc.

Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer technology that replicates an environment, real or imagined, and simulates a user’s physical presence and environment to allow for user interaction. Many giant gaming companies have already entered into this segment of future gaming whereas other industries are accepting it as learning, entertainment, and marketing tool.

they undertake, along with this they also work on other Animation and VFX projects and provide services all over the world.

Success Saga Nilee Games has already created thousands of successful stories in Gaming and Future Technology services. Their engineers are constantly working on Future Technology products and they have already developed some products like Arcade Cricket Simulator, Motion Sensing Football, Golf, Cricket, VR 9D Cinema, VR Sitting and Standing Roller Coaster, VR Arcade Shooting Game, VR Flying Simulator, ARbased Educational Games, AR Virtual Fitting Room, and few others are under development.

Nilee Games has worked with many corporate companies and game publishers. They think all projects are great but as time changes the team looks possibilities of creativity. One of the best projects they did with “Wipro”, which was actually a Virtual Shopping Centre for Samsung Gear VR, where users can experience Virtual Shopping now, which might be possible in the near future, it gained good response in “Retail's Big Show 2016 - NRF” in the U.S.

Augmented Reality (AR) is using technology to superimpose information on the real world we see. AR is one of the cutting edge technologies which are changing the world rapidly.

“Pokemon Go” already has shown us how gaming trends are changing towards the future gaming.

In other sectors AR shares equal importance, Augmented Reality is changing the world of Education, Retail, Medical, and all other industries.

Animation and VFX Nilee Games has a talented team of Animation and VFX, who plays a very important role in providing quality graphics and VFX for all the projects

|September 2016

Unprecedented Products Commercialization of some products already started in B2B segment on which AR Educational Games and AR Virtual Fitting Room would be their next product which will be sold under Nilee Games and Future Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Virtual Fitting Room is a revolutionary product based on Augmented Reality, this is the future of Clothing and Apparel Industry, and this is a unisex product and works as a fitting Room.

It’s a very good product for cloth retail chain to avoid the fitting room queue and women feel safe using it. The best thing about this project is, it can be

customized as per requirement.

Head Honcho of Nilee Games Anand Jha, Founder and CEO of Nilee Games and Future Technologies, has more than 10 years of experience in Gaming. He founded Nilee Games in 2009 with the aim to become one of the top gaming companies in Gaming Technology Service sector. In 2016, Nilee Games on its vision emerged with the name, “Nilee Games and Future Technologies Private Limited.”

As the founder and CEO of Nilee Games And Future Technologies Private Limited, Anand foresees that a player will get the best gaming experience on VR arcade games, and

“We think 3 years ahead in Future Technology and deliver Future Technologies Today

“

GA

they are working towards VR arcade games along with other technology products.

Clientele in the Foreground Nilee Games works for all industries, gamification is what the current trend in the corporate world and which 100% result oriented experience. Other than gamification, they work for Online game publishers, Mobile game publishers, e-Learning companies, Smart TV & Set-Top boxes owner companies, Theme Park Owners, Film & Media companies, and Advertising Companies which provide ATL and BTL activities to their clients and Startups. www.nileegames.com

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Editor’s Pick

Mobile Games, The

Summum bonum

of the Well Anchored

Gaming Dome

M

obile Phones have changed the ethics and lifestyle of people of this generation. From the old black and white display mobile phones to the latest iPhones, not only the appearance of these devices changed, but the functions and features have also changed a lot. Likewise, in older days, games like Snake and Tetris were the ones which reigned over the mobile games world.

Snake, the 1997 arcade classic game by Gremlin Industries, is the first mobile game. The storyboard of the game is too simple and people from any age group could play easily and engagingly. The player needs to move the snake around the screen, eat the prey and move without hitting the walls or its own tail. The level of difficulty increases as the snake eats food, its body length increases and this causes the snake’s body to hit the wall or its own body and the game ends!

Best thing since sliced bread is the vast pool of gaming applications available for the players now. Whenever the Play Store or App Store is opened, a list of novel games appears. The game from King, CandyCrush Saga is one of the most popular games, which has been prevailing in the minds of gamers and so far, it is an addictive game.

Nowadays, Pokemon Go is

32

the gamer’s fever, and this one popular game from Nintendo Inc. got the credits due to its fresh storyboard and the incorporation of Augmented Reality into the game, which made it more addictive as well as entertaining.

Everyday Games for an Easy Life Games are not only intended for entertainment but for brain exercise also. People prefer games like Brain Yoga regardless of their age since such games are a good option for brain storming, which thereby upsurges brain’s productivity. By playing such games for a few days, a person can experience an increase in the cognitive performance in memory, numeracy, spatial ability, vocabulary, and pattern matching. It is especially beneficial for school going children. Parents are now keen in choosing the best expedient games available in the dashboard.

Recent studies also prove the necessity of puzzle games. As ‘competition’ is the driving factor for humans to thrive, parents spend their time on researching and picking up the |September 2016

Editor’s Pick Simulator, etc. are some of the examples. As sure as eggs is eggs, we can say that the serious games contribute to the human development, maturation, learning new skills, and thereby building up a better tomorrow.

appropriate games for their growing kids. “Survival of the fittest”, the age old phrase by Charles Darwin stays true still in this century. In contrast, this mentality of humankind is beneficial for the game developers. From their part, they must develop creative, innovative as well as informative games in order to get accepted by the new generation folks.

No hard work will go in otiose, if complete dedication is put in.

Everyday activities of a person's life can be synchronized with a gaming app, which makes everything goes in a harmonized way. Task Hammer, Zombies Run, Epic Win, etc. are some of the examples of such games. FuelGood is another game that helps in monitoring the driving of a vehicle and provides tips on how to reduce the carbon emission from the vehicle. Not limited to these, numerous games have influenced human life in a mind-boggling way.

The outburst of the gaming revolution is certainly due to the way in which man has welcomed them.

Serious Games for Human Welfare Serious Games, also known as Applied Games is the recent trend in the gaming world. Serious games are meant for edutainment, i.e., education with entertainment. Games have crawled into the entrenched educational dome since a long ago and hence it is of utmost importance to access them. These games are generally used in the recruitment processes, emergency response training or practicing of skills ranging from driving to conducting a surgery. Close Combat: Marines, IBM CityOne, Microsoft Flight |September 2016

Games are Gifts…

Awe-inspiring games are the gifts from not only gaming giants like Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft or Warner Bros., but from smaller companies also. All it requires is ideas and creativity to please the crowd. Indian gaming industry attracts a lot of foreign investors and is playing as the best outsourcing platform. The genetic code that drives Indians to turn whatever things they touch into gold make them the genies in the arena.

Mobile games are the all-time favourite and popular game among Indians. The ease of handheld gaming and portability of the devices are the foremost reasons for the inclination towards mobile games. In a market like India, Android being the leading player, more developers focuses

on games that run on Android operating system. On the contrary, surveys reveal that iOS users tend to purchase 2.5x more than the Android users. Although many of the Indians step back when it comes to the case of a paid game, for the ones that are worthy to be bought, they never show any qualms. Besides everything else, we can avow that the mobile games are the present’s and will be the future’s most preferred games.

33

CXO Standpoint

All about Effective Game Publishing I

am Vaibhav Chauhan, Founder of underDOGS Gaming Studio, a game development and publishing company I started back in 2011. Over the period of 5 years of entrepreneurship and a total of more than a decade in game industry, I have learnt innumerable lessons on my journey to build a sustainable gaming business. So I decided to pen down few of my learning, thoughts and experiences to help the community and aspiring developers. Here’s my first post.

We were almost at the completion stage of our game Skatelander back in early 2015 when a thought just crossed over about the difference the publisher can make to the game if they come onboard. We initially decided to selfpublish the game, but calculating the risks and game’s future based on our incapability of marketing the game, we decided to go with a publisher. Here are few thoughts for aspiring game developers looking for a publisher.

Game Publisher: A game company that publishes (puts the game on appstores under their name) either developed internally or developed by game developers (indies or other small gamedev companies) along with a great marketing strategy and budget

34

that helps the game grow at a much bigger level.

Broadly, there are 2 major ways to find a game publisher - Direct Mailing and Showcasing at events.

Let's talk about few very important ‘Things to do’ while finding a publisher for your game:

(zen style) endless casual game. A simple way is to search for the same on Google where you can find a lot of already prepared list of publishers, for your reference here’s one: 30 Mobile game publishers.

Writing the perfect mail: Introduction - Start with an interesting introduction (2-3 lines) presenting your studio/company which can quickly educate the publisher about your existence. Avoid adding links to website etc. here.

1) Carpet bombing (Direct mailing): One of the most effective ways is writing to publishers directly about your game. For that you need to have a list of publishers in place, to which you Game Overview - A nice and short can write. Identify the possible publishers based on the game genre you’re building.

For example, a company like Kongrega te will be more intereste d in Action and adventure games rather than casual ones or Vaibhav Chauhan Founder of underDOGS Gaming Studio a Ketchapp will publish minimalistic

|September 2016

CXO Standpoint

description of your game that explains the top line game concept and the gameplay.

Cover Pic - One visually appealing cover pic of your game (like the banner on appstore) that shows the game and possibly the title of the game on it.

Trailer Video* - Spend a lot of time and put in most of your efforts in making an amazing video for your game that can showcase almost every aspect of your game along with the gameplay. This is one of the critical selling aspects, so iterate unless you are satisfied with the quality.

USP features - List down at least 6 unique selling points of your game that you think makes your game stand out among thousands of other games out there.

Monetization* - One of the critical aspect in which publishers are most interested is to understand how exactly is the game going to make money for them. Be sure to have your monetization research done very well and incorporated in your game.

Screenshots - Lastly, have at least 3 screenshots of your game attached with the mail. Remember screenshots are very important so make sure they’re stunning.

|September 2016

Tip - Don’t send the game build (apk or via testflight) at this stage. Once you get a positive revert from the publisher, only then you should take it ahead.

Draft down a nice mail including all the above mentioned things and send it to all the possible filtered publishers from your list. Almost 80% of the time a revert should be in whether they like it or not, but even if they won't the brighter side is you have already connected for your future games.

2) Showcasing at events: This is something every game developer with a gameready-to-publish should definitely do. There are a handful of important events/conferences happening every year and it makes a huge difference being out there in these events.

Have your game’s latest version installed on more than 2 devices and make an effort to attend these events. The plus here is, you get to meet the publishers in person and share your vision about the game which you can't over mails.

Also, having a list of publisher meetings set beforehand will double the results without wasting much time on finding the publisher at the event as there will be lot of game devs trying to do the same along with you. On the brighter side, even if the publisher doesn’t like the game, exchange cards and stay connected for future games.

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Hello Tomorrow

Dubai inspires a whole new look

www.emirates.com