It is no more only ?time? that Indians are investing in gaming, now it is money too. Be it the famous ?FarmVille? on Facebook or the ?T20 Fever? of Indiagames?the culture of spending real currency in online games is picking up.
Facebook has encouraged social gaming culture globally with games like ?FarmVille?, ?Poker?, ?Mafia Wars?, ?FishVille? and ?Cafeworld?. From its total population of 400 million users on Facebook, about 200 million are hooked on to ?FarmVille?. Any developer can build their applications on Facebook.
?Applications and games in particular have grown rapidly over the past two years. Today, 70% of our users engage with platform applications, and more than a million developers from more than 180 countries have created applications on Facebook,? says Elizabeth Linder, who handles international communications and public policy at Facebook.
Zynga, a San Francisco-based social gaming company which is very popular on Facebook is the developer behind the game ?FarmVille?. The game is like a guilty pleasure where the user has the option to spend money to make his farm more attractive than other neighbours on Facebook. He spends money on seeds, trees, animals, buildings, decorations, vehicles, and more land using ?farm coins?, the generic money of FarmVille (which is earned by selling crops) or ?farm cash? (which the player earns at a rate of one dollar per experience level). All these start from costing Rs 5. Though the western countries remain the major spend thrifts here, Indians too are setting their pace.
Shan Kadavil, country manager, Zynga India believes that the potential of India?s online community towards virtual currency is very high. ?India?s consumer spending patterns are increasing, making the potential for the sale of virtual goods in social games, very high. We are very excited to offer Zynga games to Indian users given this rapid growth and market potential,? he says. The company informs that 90% of its revenue comes from the sale of virtual goods. However, only 1-5 % of its users engage in direct pay of virtual goods, it says.
Simultaneously, large gaming companies have launched different games across all genres to boost the involvement of 85 million PC literate users in India, of which 41% actively play games. With the recent IPL fever and T20 series underway, Indiagames has entered into a multi-year contract with IPL and launched a game ?T20 Fever?. This game allowed players to make their own IPL team by buying cricket players virtually and gain higher scores. They could spend money through credit cards, debit cards or SMS and enter into micro transactions. For example, they could buy Sachin Tendulkar virtually for Rs 500 to have a strong virtual cricket team. The highest money spent by a gamer in this IPL season was Rs 5,000.
Vishal Gondal, CEO, Indiagames believes that cricket and IPL have acted as a game changer in virtual money spent and it was surprising to see the participation of Indians. The age group of such gamers ranges between 16 to 35 years. Though achieving a higher score in ?T20 Fever? gave its users prizes like Xbox, Gondal stresses that the real time experience of playing cricket and owning a cricket team is a greater motivation for players to spend money.
On the other hand, Zapak Digital Entertainment also launched games like ?Crazykart? and ?Runescape? over the past two years. Users need to pay Rs 100 for 2,000 cash points to start CrazyKart. The game today has 2,50,000 users and they have engaged in 1,00,000 transactions. Zapak COO Arun Mehra says, ?The potential of these games is huge and with broadband entering the Indian market to its full potential in the next 18-24 months, we will see a huge surge in such games which include online transactions.?
It is obvious that Indians are comfortable with spending virtual money to enjoy the excitement of gaming, even as companies continue to innovate this new trend in the gaming world.