Just recently we heard of the somewhat earthshaking revelation that Reliance Big Entertainment would acquire a 50 percent shareholding in renowned British video game developer and publisher Codemasters. Zapak is the gaming division of RBEL and one of India’s largest gaming companies. It will oversee RBEL’s Codemasters investment.
So how will this deal affect Zapak and what implications will it have on the Indian gaming industry? Will we see more insurgence of Codemasters’ properties in India? Will this push cricket simulation games to the forefront in the country? GameGuru (GG) got the chance to speak to Rohit Sharma (RS), CEO of Zapak, and found out all that, learned some interesting little details and more.
Here is the full interview with Mr. Rohit Sharma of Zapak:
GG: Reliance Big Entertainment has agreed to acquire a 50% shareholding in Codemasters. What do you think gamers can expect from this?
RS: In India or globally?
GG: Both actually.
RS: See, what gamers can expect is that with Reliance coming in and we kind of backing the company and their products and their IPs, I think if you look at their 3 to 4 key franchises which is Dirt and Grid, Flash Point, Ashes and now they have their Formula 1 title. So I think they have a very, very good development team. They are coming out with new versions of all their games. And globally in the next 12 to 18 months we are going to launch all their new versions and new titles and (these will) be available for gamers all over the globe.
GG: Will there be any exchange of expertise? Will there be people coming over here or any plan to borrow their expertise for making games from here?
RS: Yeah obviously. Now in that sense we also own a studio, so it helps us give development capabilities. They are also very strong in online games. They are creating an online version of cricket. Because we have Jump Games as our company, it also helps us take their IPs onto mobile. So yes there are a lot of synergies.
GG: So how does this deal this affect Zapak then?
RS: It only affects (Zapak) positively because while we focus on online and mobile, they focus on console and PC. So therefore we compliment each other. They have very strong IPs. It puts us into the console and PC business straight away for distribution not only globally but also in India. And then we have online and mobile strengths and we take their IPs on digital platforms.
GG: So will this deal boost the presence of Codemasters in India?
RS: Yes, undoubtedly.
GG: In India everyone likes cricket and cricket-based game. So does Zapak plan to have any more games based on Cricket?
RS: See right now if you look at the cricket games on Zapak, we anyway are the largest destination for cricket games in India. But the games are typically either single player or multiplayer and very basic casual games. With this we believe that in two areas, one is MMOs and browser-based MMOs, and secondly in social gaming, because these guys have strong engines and understand cricket product development very well. I think it gives us a huge opportunity to launch cricket games in India, in the online space, in the browser based MMO space and in the casual gaming space. Plus, we will also retail their box titles in India.
GG: So will you be distributing Codemasters games in India?
RS: Yes we will.
GG: How important is this Codemasters deal for the Indian gaming industry?
RS: I think it is very important because it kind of tells the whole world that a group like Reliance believes in the global gaming market. It is big for the Indian gaming industry because we are going to create more and more content from their studios for the Indian market. It also is good for the Indian market because as I’m once again saying that we would aggressively distribute their titles across online, mobile and the physical distribution space.
GG: So are there going to be India-specific games, something like Sony’s Hanuman?
RS: We have not thought about it. See we have been trying to acquire the studio for a long time because we all know India still doesn’t have the game development capability. The game production and game design capabilities are not there. So it immediately gives us those capabilities and in the long run any company would want to own an IP. The business is about owning IPs and not about licensing and distribution. So it helps us to create IPs.
GG: How did the Codemasters deal happen? What made you chose Codemasters?
RS: See deals don’t happen like that, “What made you chose Codemasters?” We have been looking for studios for the last 2-3 years and Codemasters was up for an acquisition and we found the team, their studios, their content, their IPs, their distribution strengths, their relationships, extremely good. Therefore we invested.
GG: Do you plan on hosting any virtual cricket tournaments for the Wii?
RS: I don’t know, it’s too early to comment. We have to first get their content popularized in India.
GG: Do you have any plans to partner with other firms like Razer?
RS: We worked with Razer and Steel because we distribute their products in our gaming cafes. So we work with those guys closely anyways to distribute the products in our cafes.
GG: Nothing specific for Zapak like some merchandise or something like that?
RS: In what sense?
GG: They also have a deal with Blizzard for Starcraft? So is there anything specific?
RS: I don’t have that kind of content right now. They have a deal with Starcraft because it is Blizzard and Starcraft. Right now, Indian users, how many people play World of Warcraft or Starcraft and all that stuff? So Blizzard and Razer’s relationship is a different level. We are working with Razer because we have distribution touch points and we are able to very successfully sell their products in our cafes.
GG: Recently you had announced about Runescape. How is it doing now?
RS: See we just launched the game formally some three months ago. But we kind of started pushing it about four weeks back. So it’s doing well. It is catching up fast. We have about, I think, 60-70 thousand people who have started playing the game. We are now trying to push the people to pay, and the idea is to get more and more CCUs and more and more active users paying. It is a bit too early, but I think it is a very low hanging fruit for Indian audiences to start playing MMOs. So I think it will be a successful game in India. We will now start pushing some marketing activities behind it and all that stuff.
GG: Anything similar to Runescape. Any other games you’re planning to bring here?
RS: Yeah we are talking to all the big publishers and developers all across the world. And whenever deals happen, you’ll come to know. We are talking to everybody.
GG: Does this entail Blizzard also for World of Warcraft in India or something like that?
RS: We are talking to everyone.
GG: We had spoken two years ago to Mr. Majumdar and he was also very bullish on the MMO market. So where do you think the MMO market in India is going?
RS: I think two years ago we were very bullish, but it has not spanned out the way we were bullish, primarily because broadband has not happened. So I think that (in) 2006 when we started Zapak we had thought that the broadband inflection point will come by 2008. It did not happen. (In) 2008 we thought it would come by 2010; it did not happen. So but now if you look at the broadband ecosystem, the infrastructure, the way operators are kind of pushing it, my feel is that (within) the next 24 months, we will realistically see broadband growth happening. And I think that’s when MMOs will take place. If you have 25 – 30 million users, more users. There is no content. Who’s getting the MMO content in the country? There is no content. So we can get all the content. But the problem is the infrastructure and the ecosystem is not there, which everything has to grow together. I think 18 months to 24 months is when we’ll see MMOs becoming big in the country.
GG: Do you have any MMOs planned in-house?
RS: No. No MMOs planned in-house. We can’t play casual games, (how are we going to) make MMOs? No. It’s a tough one. India unfortunately doesn’t have the skill sets. Those high-end game designers and producers are not there. You can do a lot of backhand work in art and all, but the high-end game design skill sets are not there. And it makes sense to outsource, because ‘Why spend 3, 4, 5 billion dollars in building an MMO when there are hundreds of MMOs available in the market for licensing? Maybe 3 years, 4 years, 5 years down the line, once we have these studios like Codemasters, we build online capabilities, that’s when we look at an IP. Obviously, at longer term having your own IP, your right, is the way. Shanda owns most of the IPs on their own. So if you don’t own IP there is no differential advantage, anybody can take a license. But not in the short term.
GG: What about making casual kind of games for the XBLA and PSN? Any plans on that?
RS: Well, Microsoft had approached us a couple of years back. If you look at the casual game business, although we own a lot of IPs, we still work with studios outside of India to build the games. What is the reason of Zapak’s success as compared to some other small portals which are there? We have spent heavily on content, got better quality world-class content for the users and I think today that’s why, in terms of the quality of content, we are as good as (something like) Miniclip.com, if you look at a casual gaming site. The reason for that is we actually outsource most of the content. We work with studios who work with Miniclip, who work with Yahoo! Games. So we work with best studios in the world outside of India to create games. So therefore we don’t have the strategy to be a games provider for Xbox Live. We want everybody to come to Zapak as a destination. That’s our strategy. So (all the) content that we create is meant for Zapak.
GG: What about content or Apps targeting the iPad and similar platforms?
RS: As I earlier said, we know that platforms are changing, technologies are changing. You know, the iPhone has changed the rule of game in mobile gaming, I believe the iPad is the most low-hanging portable gaming device. Actually the iPad for me is a gaming device (at the) end of the day because it is most user-friendly for gaming. But obviously India is not developing that kind of content. So we obviously do it through international partnerships. We are talking to companies all across the world. So either through partnerships or whatever we’ll have to get into those business models like that.
GG: So does that mean that you have plans for iPad games and iPad apps?
RS: Yeah, why not. If we are in the gaming space then we better have plans for that. But I’m saying plans meaning that if we want to be in that space we will have to look at right content acquisition, right partnership to be in that space. For example, Jump Games has very strong capabilities to create (content). We are the only Indian company which has today, apps which are amongst the top 30 apps on the Apple app store. And we have the capabilities there so… But we have to look at partnerships which are right.