Tinsel Town goes gaming & networking

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: se tez hai and is currently creating games for a couple of shows like Big Boss and Nach Baliye. “Outside the UTV portfolio, we are keenly looking forward to launching a surprise package for the forthcoming film of Aamir Khan, Ghajini,” says Samir Bangara, COO, Indiagames. The company, which operates in 65 countries, has also developed games for Hollywood films like Rush Hour 3, Mummy, Spiderman, Jurassic Park and others. These games are developed in 2D as well as 3D formats depending on the markets that they are developed in.

Are advertisers taking gaming seriously? “We are working on it,” says Bangara. “Ads can support it but we do not think a quality game will be given away free in lieu of watching an advertisement—it is like watching an ad in a theatre before a movie which you buy tickets for. Going forward, our strategy is to operate on a ‘Play3’ model where we licence and create content for all three screens: namely, mobile, broadband and interactive TV,” he adds.

The gaming industry has thrown a challenge to the budding animation industry as well. Says Manohar Shetty, MD of Q-Lab, a post-production facility that caters to the film industry: “Animation films are yet to arrive at its peak of popularity in the country. At the moment it is not encouraging to be aggressive on animation. Barring Hanuman, there is no example of any other animation film getting commensurate returns on investment.” Q-Lab is planning to develop a few animated version of mythological short stories for general marketing purposes, each of them with a length of 30 minutes.In certain cases, production houses are directly entering into the gaming space. Take the example of the recently released Hari Puttar comedy of terrors. Says Gautam Jain, project manager of Mirchi Movies, which is the distributor of the film: “We have developed three games as of now based on the film, each 4.5 minute long. Interestingly, the animated character is the sutradhar in the movie itself, who narrates the story to the audience.”

After having developed 10 games for films like Bal Ganesha, Manorama six feet under and Naya Daur (post colorisation), Shemaroo has plans to join the gaming industry in a big way, though Hiren Gada, director, Shemaroo, doesn’t want to divulge details yet.