Branded gaming on mobile phones

The placement of brands in mobile games "� termed as branded gaming or advergaming -- is expected to witness a jump in India with the number of gamers estimated to touch two million in 2007.

Advergaming is a win-win-win situation for all -- customers, content providers and brands. Customers can get to download free games. Second, the cost of developing a game -- which varies from Rs 7-20 lakh -- gets covered by the brand. The investment, otherwise, would have taken close to two years to recover.

Third, brands also get a new platform to interact with consumers. For instance, if you've played the mobile game version of the movie Don, you can't help but notice the prominent 'O' displayed all along on Shahrukh Khan's glares. It stands for the brand `Oakley'.

Rajiv Hiranandani, co-founder and country head, Mobile2Win, says: "In 2007, advergaming will increase 300-350 per cent as brands are looking at this medium (mobiles) to reach customers." There are nearly 160 million mobile subscribers and almost 6 million are being added every month.

"During the course of the year, we see at least 10 brands come on board contributing to 10 per cent of our overall revenues in financial year 2007-08 contributing 20 per cent of our overall revenues," said Salil Bhargava, CEO, Jump Games.

The gaming market, though, is still nascent market in the country and the mobile gaming market is largely a loss-making industry. Salim Mobani, chief operating officer, Hungama Mobile, (made mobile games like Don) notes that branded games have more chances of success.

However, while there are over 150 mobile games that are launched every month, only the Top 10 receive 80 per cent of the two million hits (downloads) that a game receives on an average per month.

Vishal Gondol, CEO, Indiagames, (recently acquired by UTV) predicts, "The trend is definitely moving towards branded content where the margins are better."

But it is not just about placement of brands within a game. Hungama recently had announced a tie-up with Provogue, where on buying Provogue shirts, consumers won a one month tie-up with Hungama.