‘Gaming as career still a far cry’

But Alok Kejriwal vows to bring massive multi-player online games (MMOG) to India Alok Kejriwal, the man behind contests2win, is busy putting his heart and soul into games2win.

The young entrepreneur spoke to DNA Money’s Tanvi Shukla about the current trends and his future plans for the Indian gaming industry.

Which is the next big format in gaming in India?

An interesting development in online gaming has been the popularity of MMOG (massive multi-player online games) and MMORPG (massive multi-player online role playing games) especially in South-East Asia.

There are several reasons for this: consumers don’t have the money to invest in technologically advanced computers and so they prefer going to cyber cafes to play. For the gamers, the whole idea of competition is very important. We at games2win think it is time to get MMOG to India.

Popular games like Counter Strike and Need For Speed run on LAN network where there is a group of 25-30 users who come and play every day. None of them have played outside that clan. They are not experienced on how to play with the best from rest of the world.

On MMOG, one can have city or national leagues and competitions between these leagues. We intend to create a culture where consumers like to play together and gaming becomes a kind of a national entertainment option.

How do you plan to rope in gamers into this?

Gamers playing MMOG are up against players in other cities. So guys from Chennai can interact, chat and become friends with guys in Delhi. The whole phenomenon of social networking has spilt on to the gaming side.

That adds to the fun and excitement and will be a huge crowd puller. We are also making an effort to corporatise the event and give away prizes to players.

We even sponsor a gang of people called ‘Temple Of Seven’, best seven gamers in India, who are right now in Seattle representing India at World Cyber Games.

What is the new MMOG game that you are going to introduce?

CT Racer is a game developed by SEGA Corporation of Japan and we will bring it to India. In one year, our strategy is to activate the game in major cities and be present in all cyber cafes.

There are about 2000-3000 cafés in major cities that could support a game like this. By the end of March 2008, we want to be in at least 500 of them with the game.

A lot of effort will be made into establishing ground manpower, hiring and training people, investing in creating a customer relationship management model, and use that knowledge to go forward.

We will be investing $1 million in infrastructure and distribution business for CT Racer which will come from the $5 million that we have raised from Clearstone last March.

How will you be earning revenues through CT Racer?

Consumers don’t like to be tied down with the subscription model in which they are charged monthly. The new version to earn revenues is that the game is free but the elements in the game are charged for.

For example, In CT Racer, the engine, stickers, tyres and other add on are priced. You can drive a basic car but soon you will want to make it more competitive and even make it look good.

For this model, we will launch our own currency like a CT Racer card that you can order to be delivered to your house, or buy from cyber café. You can even pay by credit card. 

Which type of games are popular on your website?

A lot of boy and girl kissing games are popular on games2win. Young boys, especially in the west, familiarise themselves with the other sex, getting ready for a relationship, through gaming before they move on to the real thing.

There is a game where you need to kiss your girlfriend in a classroom, car and your own house while ensuring that the teachers, cops and parents respectively don’t catch you in action. In another game, you can dress up girls in different avatars with clothes and jewellery.

Games with an Indian touch are fast becoming popular. For example, the game Bombay Taxi challenges the player to tackle cops with pot bellies and sticks, beggars sleeping on road side, rains and flying kites and find a place to park a taxi in Mumbai, which is so close to reality. 

Then there is this game ‘Thapa ka Thappad’ where you have to slap someone really hard. Initially, people use to slap Bush but it became more popular when we got characters like Alistair Pareira, the Noida Killers and Jane Goody to be slapped.

How are you planning to manage to talent shortage in game developing industry?

A year ago, when we started off, we needed a lot of people and are still pulling our hair out searching for the right kind of talent. There is no conviction in youngsters to get into this business.

To deal with this, game sites like ours have starting asking our people that if they have a game, they can sell it to us. What we are beginning to see now are small developers and hobbyists who work in offices the whole day, develop games at night and sell them to us.

Maybe this will turn the tide a little if people start thinking that “this can get me some extra cash so why not”. Gradually that money can become as good as their regular salary.

That’s when it becomes a business. We will start creating a parallel job opportunity and that’s when people will switch over.

Many experts are talking about gaming as a profession and a full-fledged sport or career very soon in the future. Would you agree?

A career as a gamer may not really work because of the psychographics. Parents in India still have a negative outlook towards online gaming and will start fussing if their children spend 5-6 hours on the machine playing games.

Exceptions like ‘Temple of Seven’ will exist but it’ll still be in a small way.

But gaming as a career is going to very important. For instance, we offer gamers to join Games2Win as a player, grow up playing games in big leagues, be a part of Temple of Seven and once they feel they want to move on, they can get absorbed in the company and start helping us make games.

They could then become a game master or start helping our ERP team to help understand the game better or become a game jockey and help rolling out games in other cafes.

So they could make gaming a career. That’s how I earn my salary now.