IPL games on mobiles too

Not only on television, now mobile screens too will become the turf for Twenty20 format cricket matches soon as some of the leading mobile game developers gear up to launch games based on the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Soon, there will be games based on Kolkata Knight Riders, Delhi Daredevils and Hyderabad Deccan Chargers. Also, IPL-based games on cricketers Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar are also in the offing.

This move, according to mobile game experts, will help the Rs 200 crore mobile games indusry (based on end-user pricing) further grow by 40 per cent in next few months. Overall, experts say that within 2009-10, the mobile gaming business may almost double to Rs 380 to Rs 400 crore mainly due to availability of high-end phones and increased downloads from users.

Consider this. Nazara Technologies, which has about 25 per cent market share in the domestic mobile gaming business, is set to launch games based on IPL league teams Delhi Daredevils and Deccan Chargers. The market leader lndiagames Ltd. (with nearly 60 per cent market share) will launch a game on Shahrukh Khan’s Kolkata Knight Riders in a few days.

Indiagames has already launched a 3-dimensional Twenty20 cricket games for the iphones. “Our IPL games based on teams of Delhi and Hyderabad are ready. Additionally, we will also launched some new cricket-based games on Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar,” says Nitish Mittersain, CEO, Nazara Technologies. “Our games will be available for Rs 10 (only three downloads), Rs 50 and Rs 99 (unlimited downloads),” he adds.

Indiagames, however, sees big global opportunity in the Twenty20 format mobile games released on Apple-iphones. “We see heavy transition towards the iphones therefore we recently released a 3-D Twentry20 games in which the user can hit sixes and fours. However, we are also releasing a Knight Rider game in association with Nokia and KKR Sports,” says Samir Bangara, COO, Indiagames.

But why cricket-based games only? “It’s simple! Mobile games based on cricket sees the maximum downloads. Then there are the Bollywood-based games that comes next in popularity,” says Bangara. Overall, during the IPL months of April and May, there will be at least two-dozen IPL-based mobile games available to the users.

Typical ‘successful’ mobile games, say experts, are downloaded in the region of 400,000 to 500,000 while a typical good games can witness over 100,000 downloads. The game developers, typically, tend to earn 30-35 per cent per download while the service providers keep the rest. A cricket-based mobile game costs about Rs 2 lakhs to develop, says Mittersain.

Currently, of the about 450 active mobile games available with various mobile service providers, a lion’s share comes from cricket and Bollywood based games. Post IPL, the game developers are looking at going back to Bollywood-based games. But for now on, its all about cashing in on the popularity of IPL Twenty20 that begins in South Africa from April 18.