EVEN as the nascent Indian gaming industry is yet to make its mark in the global arena — with companies struggling to monetise their offerings and come out with any gaming title worth a reckoning, and most users unwilling to pay for the games they play — two leading lights of the business are now offering a ray of hope. Dhruva Interactive led by CEO Rajesh Rao and Nazara Technologies led by Nitish Mittersain have joined hands to launch India’s first seed fund, Nazara Game Fund, for gaming companies.
Simply put, fund-starved early-stage gaming outfits, which struggle to survive — with venture funds unwilling to back them — will now have a shot at the exploding gaming market.
Globally, only the top 20 companies make 80% of the revenues. And the rest are always on the lookout for revenues; majority of them don’t survive. One big missing piece of the ecosystem was funding along with mentoring support for the gaming companies that was so easily available to other startups. The scene, it seems, is set for a change now.
Apart from the seed fund, Dhruva Interactive’s Rao, a gaming industry veteran, has set up the country’s first incubator for gaming startups, called Game Tantra, in Bangalore. Rao is also the chair of the Nasscom Gaming Council and has been spearheading many gaming industry initiatives. So, while the funding will come from the Nazara Game Fund launched by Nazara Technologies, a mobile game developer and publisher, Game Tantra will bring in the mentoring.
The Nazara Game Fund is a R10-crore fund for supporting young mobile gaming startups and providing them funding in the range of R25 lakh to R2 crore. Nazara made its first funding with a Series A round of investment in HashCube, a gaming company based in Bangalore.
Rao soft-launched Game Tantra recently and has shortlisted a few for incubation. These are startups from small towns and cities, which have found it challenging to move to incubators as they did not have the resources to survive in a city like Bangalore. “They needed ‘Vitamin M’. We launched the fund so that money is not a constraint anymore,” says Rao.
He hopes more youngsters will now be encouraged to start their studios. Rao’s incubator can house seven companies at a time and they change every six months. Selected companies will get R12.5 lakh to start off. Game Tantra has got 40 to 50 applications for the six month incubation programme. The fund was formally launched at the Nasscom Game Developer Conference 2014 in Pune on November 14.
Reliance Games, the gaming division of Reliance Entertainment, is also launching a incubator for startups and game developers, offers its CEO Manish Agarwal. Reliance Games operates four studios which have come out with popular games such as Real Steel, Pacific Rim, Robot Boxing and Hunger Games. Reliance Games would be operating the incubation centre out of its Pune gaming studio. “The incubation centre will spur game developers and also bring in some fresh independent thinking into the business. We are looking at incubating companies that have products reaching at least the beta-testing stage,” adds Agarwal.
Reliance has the reach and muscle to take these games across the globe, something which small-time game developers struggle to do. Apart from developing its own games at its studio in Pune, Reliance Games is also looking at publishing the games by other companies and startups to expand its offerings. Reliance Games is present on almost all app stores and has a presence across 40 countries through 80 mobile networks.
“Up to 90% of the games flop. Around 1% may see success, up to 6% do average business, while the rest eventually die,” adds Agarwal.
Another boost to the gaming ecosystem has come from Nasscom under its ‘10,000 startups’ programme, for which it has tied up with Game Tantra. All gaming companies that come to Nasscom for the programme will be funneled to Game Tantra. Software company AutoDesk has come forward with special pricing for Indian gaming companies for their products and are making some of the tools available on a subscription model to improve access to technology. “The gaming industry in India has now arrived at an inflection point with explosive growth,” says R Chandrashekhar, president, Nasscom, adding: “Gaming studios are growing at 40% in India and now employs close to 90,000 people.” As per Chandrashekhar, there are 200 gaming studios in India currently and the industry revenues are pegged at $230 million. “However, India is still at number 21 on the list, and the US at number one with gaming revenues pegged at $20 billion in the country. Apart from entertainment, gaming is now getting serious with ‘gamification’ of everything from education, training and healthcare to e-governance,” adds Chandrashekhar.