The argument on the PC penetration Vs Broadband availability in India will continue.
If you have played a online game called Second Life, you will notice that each computer running Second Life will need an average of 80 kbps downstream, spiking at about 400 kbps on initial connect and during teleports. Upstream is much lower, requiring 30 kbps on average.
Is India ready for MMOG type games? with mere PC penetration of 5 million (majority of this is contributed by EGovernance initiative) with less than 121 million active internet users 80% of application being email, text-chat and other educational information access. Looks like India will take some more time to catch up the broadband bandwagon.
Other part of the story: If you go to Cyber Café’s you will realize that young guys are mastering skills in FPS, strategy type online and RPG games for the sake of entertainment. In next couple of years they will start realizing that, they can make money by playing games online. The bandwidth issue may restrain our MMO developers making money (subscription) by releasing games in India. But I believe India will overcome the bandwidth problem soon. Before that happens, is there any opportunities for the Indian ITES companies in MMO. Before looking into the business models, let’s look at what MNCs are doing in SL.
Many Companies are building virtual headquarters for interaction among employees. IBM has created a separate team called “digital convergence” this team looks for customer in digital world apart from real world. IBM has now acquired 24 Second Life "islands." Other companies who have presence in SL are General Motors, (GM) Toyota Motor, Dell, Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems and Reuters Group.
"In Second Life you are limited only by your imagination” companies are using online world to advertise, test products and market ideas. They also might make some sales, mostly by linking Second Life visitors to their real-world e-commerce Web sites. Companies like Alchemic Dream Inc provide to MMOG management, support and localization services to above listed requirements.
This is definitely good news for innovative companies who want to capture this market, and provide services such as back office support, writing scripts, creating 3-D designs, customer support, application development and maintenance services. As far as back office is considered we need guys who have blend of online gaming + good communication skills + gaming as carrier. Not that easy to find.
As discussed in one of the NASSCOM’s conferences “Animation and Gaming Industry in India 2007” Hyderabad, it was made clear that over a period of time gaming will be a serious business in India. Here is the summary
1. There are more than 400 companies participated in this event
2. The conference had more than 10 panel discussion on Gaming industry on various topics such as Market Size, Challenges, Government polices, trends, resource shortage, new technologies, Training issues and discussion on mobile vs console vs PC vs online games
3. The online Gaming was not the key discussion in the conference (hope to be a separate event in 2008), from the different types of companies that have come, it looks like very few companies know about MMOG as a market and a potential
a. There are reasons/facts quoted as to why the online gaming growth will be at a slower pace compared to mobile gaming. This is purely based on the subscriber base of (200 million mobile users to 40 million broadband users in India) and growing VAS Market
b. Also, Broadband in India refers to connectivity starting from 250 kbps, which is not true in other developed countries.
c. Currently active Internet users in India are 21 million (8.4% of the total urban population in India 250 million)
I would like to say one thing to the guys playing games in the Café, you will reap what you MMOg now.
A comprehensive NASSCOM report on NASSCOM Study on Animation and Gaming Industry in India is available at http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.aspx?id=50768'
Reference links
Canada’s Alchemic Dream In JV With Bangalore’s Comat For Back-office Support To Online Gaming Cos
