Indiagames.Com Seeks Buyouts In Us

Indiagames.com a gaming company is scouting for acquisitions in the United States in the area of gaming technology. It also plans to set up a content development site in India that will undertake offshore development of games for US and Japanese gaming majors.

Indiagames.com has been financed by venture capital firms Infinity, IL&FS Venture and a strategic investor in the United States.

"We are currently talking to several big gaming companies and we are close to signing up with an American company to develop games for it," said Vishal Gondal, CEO, Indiagames.com.

The American gaming market is valued at approximately $4 billion. International games majors include Sega and Nintendo of Japan and Electronic Arts of America.

 

"We are also interested in acquiring medium sized technology companies in the US. We are confident we can develop content on our own but we would like to outsource some of the technology" There are no such technology companies in India which is why the company was looking in the US where the games industry is thriving, he said.

For its content development site, the company has begun a recruiting campaign and will soon advertise its job requirements. In all, the company should hire another 30 people, Gondal said.

"The Internet is a medium to deliver our games. We have also been present through touch-screen kiosks for instance before we went on the web. Our interest goes beyond the web to other media including CD-ROMs. These should hit the market sometime in April," Gondal said.

Gondal said there was no organised gaming industry here as most games were imported from the US or Japan. Indiagames.com therefore filled a gap providing Indian content taking off on mythology or politics or cricket.

"The Indian gaming market could easily be Rs 100-200 crore over the next

few years as more players enter the market."

The company wants to even replace the hand-held video games with indiagames' CD-ROMs or games over the net.

"We will also venture into broadband for which to are talking to a variety of cable network companies that will be providing Internet access over cable," Gondal said.

Indiagames.com's revenues flow through branding exercises that it plans with its advertisers.

It has a cricket game co-branded with ICICI bank and a cards game with IBP, for instance.