500 Gameplexes and China, Russia & West Asia Markets On Zapak.com’s To Do List!
Just last week Reliance Entertainment was in news with regards to tying up with Manchester United for the Mobile Gaming Company Jump Games. Reliance Entertainment President Mr.Rajesh Sawhney has disclosed to agencyfaqs the BIG (They do everything Big dont they.. think bigadda, bigflicks, bigfm and many more bigs to come!) plans when it comes to their online gaming portal.
Here is an excerpt from the interview:
How does the company plan to take forward the two gaming companies – Zapak.com (online portal) and Jump Games (mobile gaming)?
We were clear from the very beginning that Jump Games would operate on a global framework. Our tie-ups with Manchester United, Virgin Comics and Fido reflect this. Nearly 75 per cent of Jump Games’ revenue comes from the overseas market and the remaining is contributed by India.
On the other hand, Zapak.com has been an India focused online gaming portal which aims to develop a market for gaming in the country. In the first phase, we launched the portal and opened 20 gameplexes.
By next year we will increase this to 200 gameplexes. Through the franchise model we intend to scale up to 500 gameplexes. We will take Zapak to the China, Russia and West Asia markets through joint ventures with local players this year.
What about the massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) segment?
We are in the process of signing some India specific deals with global players and will announce these before the end of this quarter. We plan to introduce at least three to four MMOG games in the next two years.
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And thats not all Reliance Entertainment Chief also mentioned that BigFlicks their Movie downloads and DVD rental service would also open 500 stores by 2009 thats almost 1 store a day through 2009!!
On the whole it does seem that Reliance’s faith in the digital entertainment space be it gaming or movies has increased multifold and as they are famously known for creating markets (Like they did with telecom) I suspect the same strategy is being followed here. Though telecom was completely transaction based and need based (the need to communicate can be classified as a basic necessity in today’s times) im not sure gaming is in the same bracket of need just yet. But what the hell they got tonnes of money to pump till they make it a necessity of sorts (maybe even an addiction!). More power to reliance i say after all we need someone to take the risk and establish markets and distribution and customer engagement. In the long run the company with the better product and not necessarily with a lot of money might take the cake!
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