Enter the digital playground

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: Late last year, it was an ecstatic moment for tech marketers when Halo 3, a video game developed for Microsoft Xbox 360 console, grossed $300 million worldwide in its first week of launch. Even a big Hollywood movie will struggle to do that kind of business. Computer video gaming is a new-generation craze that has its own blockbusters.

Recent big global hits include Enemy Territory, Spider Man: Friend or Foe, Guitar Hero III, Heavenly Sword, and Fracture: Terrain Demolition. These are produced by players such as Microsoft, Activision, LucasArts, Sony, Nintendo and Disney. According to DFC Intelligence, a global digital games market tracker, the worldwide video game market will reach $47 billion in 2009. This includes revenue from video game hardware and software, dedicated portable system hardware and software, PC games, and online PC and console games. And the combined cumulative worldwide sales for Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii systems are expected to be 180-210 million units by 2012.

But these figures hardly make any sense for the Indian market that has mostly relied on low-cost PCs, which are not capable of running high-end games because of their weak graphics/multimedia performance. Of nearly 600,000 home PCs sold annually in India, barely one-tenth can handle processor-burning video games. And sales of gaming consoles can be counted on your fingers.

In India, services like Zapak, Yahoo! Games, and Indiagames are offering digital games—some free, some paid—mostly targeting young consumers. However, the market is in its infancy, as most consumers are interested only in “casual” games like car racing, crossword, sudoku and so on. But global markets are fast moving up the value chain by offering “epic games” (like Halo 3 and Heavenly Sword) that use high-end technology for development.