Games couples play

Hiding the shoes, fishing the ring, unknotting the knotted string — the quintessence of a wedding tradition, which (generally) happens once in a lifetime. But now, couples get a chance to re-live their romance and riffs, virtually anytime, courtesy Indian gaming companies that have found a new genre in such marriage traditions — matrimony games.

“Matrimony games now have a new set of audience — gamers from abroad — who are showing interest in the traditional Indian marriage and the unique way it is organised.

“We have been receiving enquiries from overseas gamers for such games, reflecting their own cultures and traditions. Keeping this demand in view, we are in the process of developing three games, one for the Indian audience and two for Asian markets each with an investment of Rs 6 lakh. These will be released in the second half of this year,” says L Maruti Sanker, managing director, 7Seas Technologies.

7Seas Technologies, which has two matrimony games ‘Wed Dress Match’ and ‘Indian Matrimony’ on its gaming portal onlinerealgames.com, forecasts 20 per cent of the audience, most of them foreign gamers, playing on a daily basis.

The founder and chief executive officer of Mumbai-based game development company Games2win, Alok Kejriwal, reckons that matrimony games currently are not ‘category’ games that will rule the market. “These are tactical games that will add to the revenues of the overall online gaming space,” he says.

Games2win created ‘The Great Indian Arranged Marriage’ and ‘The Bridal Dress Up’ just before the marriage season in India. The idea was to make both Indian and foreign visitors to its website enjoy the concept of the Indian marriage through the lens of an interactive proposition. Both games clocked over one million game plays each, Kejriwal claims.

“Matrimony games are enjoyed all through the year, by someone or the other, across the globe. We will be launching Chinese, Malay, Korean and Arab wedding games in 2009 with a cost of approximately Rs 5 lakh each. We expect to recover our investments in a year’s time,” Kejriwal says.

Mauj Mobile, which brought matchmaking onto the mobile phone by providing access to online matrimonial portal Shaadi.com through Vodafone, is also part of the game. Mauj has created a game called ‘Marital Combat’, which centres around a wife-and-husband tussle when the husband returns late at home. Besides, it has created games on the lines of traditional marital customs such as ‘finding the ring’ and ‘finding the bridegroom’s shoe’.

“Marriage games have no season. If the concept is around the various ceremonies of marriage, then the launch is targeted during the marriage season. Otherwise, if it is a generic game about the husband-wife relationship, then it is not time-bound. There are no definite plans to explicitly create marriage-based games as part of our project cycle. However, as matrimony is an evergreen theme, we will periodically create games around matrimony, assessing market demands,” says Mauj Mobile’s chief executive officer Manoj Dawane.