For analyst Raj Verma, gaming is possibly the best source of entertainment at the moment. With economic slowdown creating an insecure job market scenario, stress levels among employees is on the rise. Verma and his colleagues often end up playing at the end of the day to reduce work stress. Gaming may sometimes prove to be an innovative solution to beat stress for most professionals. Many gaming companies have identified corporate men and women as a potential target group and have specially designed games that are best suited to meet their tastes.

Mauj mobile has a plethora of games spanning across various genres, which young executives can use as stress busters. An average Mauj gamer is 25-35 years old, implying an audience comprising largely of office goers and executives. Manoj Dawane, CEO, Mauj Mobile says, ?Today?s hectic lifestyles and stressful work schedules make corporate executives look out for some innovative options to unwind. Corporate games are a perfect blend of fun and intelligence that executives can play while they take a short break from work. Although this is a niche target group, there are surely takers for such games.?

For the ardent player

A risk free trading experience with no investment. That?s possible a panacea for the moment, something rediff.com has cashed into by building a game called Share Bazaar. Players will deal with real time market quotes and live Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) updates. Gamers can virtually try their hands at buying and selling mock stocks at the BSE. The gamer that acquires the maximum amount wins the game. Rediff.com has also devised monthly winners for the same, where new rounds of games are started every month with multi-player options.

Zaki Ansari, Vice President, Product Development, Rediff.com says, ?This game acts as a great tool to practice strategies related to ordinary transactions and stock trading. This game is a testing ground for people to tactfully venture into high risk transactions without having to actually burn their fingers at the stock market.? Trade analysts who deal with the stock exchange on a regular basis are also regular patrons of the game.

Online gaming company, Zapak Digital Entertainment has a user base of 6.5 million and hosts two major corporate gaming properties, annually ? The ?Corporate Gamer? tournament in March and the Zapak Corporate Gaming Championship during December held across Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Zapak plans to take the championship to Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata this year.

The winner of the Need for Speed (NFS) game at the Zapak Corporate Gaming Championship 08? in Mumbai ? Rahul Raj, Senior Manager, ICICI Prudential says, ?New age companies consist of young employees who have been exposed to the gaming culture. As the average age of the working population has come down, initiatives like gaming championships have a lot of business potential.?

Atindriya Bose, Country Manager, Playstation, Sony Computer Entertainment explains, ?Corporates are a lucrative target audience for most gaming companies. Though as per the tenets of our positioning, gaming is for all age groups. The scope of this industry is not just restricted to gamers but people who are interested in having fun. For this purpose we have identified college-going youth as well as corporates as our primary target group.? Playstation has experienced 300% growth over the last fiscal year and a 250% growth through software sales.

Growing industry

The console gaming industry is estimated between $50 to $60 million, the PC games industry, which includes mobile and Internet gaming is expected to grow to $ 175 million by the end of 2010. According to an IT analyst, ?With companies like Microsoft starting operations and Nintendo making an entry in the Indian market in a big way, the figures are likely to rise. India is perhaps one of the largest untapped gaming markets so the growth rate is expected to escalate in another two to three years.?

Corporates form a large number of takers in certain games like racing, sports, and quiz based as well as social party games. Games that are easy to comprehend with various levels of difficulty are the most popular. Hardcore gamers swear by the higher levels. There is a certain learning curve for the game because of which occasional gamers may not find it enjoyable.

Diverse players

Most gaming companies try to tap office canteens, restaurants and other hangouts frequented by office goers to determine genre preferences for corporates. ?When we set up gaming events for corporates at IT parks and BPOs, we experienced that games like party starters and racing games went down well with the audiences. We also approached restaurants and invited ad agency professionals to be a part of gaming initiatives. These activities garner huge response with increased footfalls,? says Bose.

International gamers have a playing backdrop of 15-20 years, where a person, who is now in his late 20s, may have played PC or console games since the age of 12. But the gaming industry and gamers? acceptance in India is a recent phenomenon.

Despite this recent affiliation towards gaming, the level and the quality of games sought by the Indian gamers is of a distinctly superior quality. They are not ready to compromise on the quality and standards of games that are being made available to them by gaming companies. There is an array of games in the Indian market like football or FIFA, the NBA games and various shooting and racing games. Besides these other genres like action adventure and games based on detective novels, mythology based games, role playing games that are popular in the PC games category and platformer games that are popular among youngsters.