India's Gaming Market grows up

Just five per cent of India's 42 million Internet users are active gamers, but the cybercaf, craze is catching on, particularly among teenagers.

In India's cybercafes', teenagers bitten by the video-gaming bug huddle before rows of PCs. INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images

How Indians love to drive in Bombay. But navigating the city's streets isn't for the faint of heart, and takes a mix of patience and lightning-fast reflexes. One moment, you're swerving around the man asleep on the pavement with his dog; the next, you're inching around the block looking for a parking spot.

It's just the kind of thrill and lull that you'd expect in a video game. That explains why Bombay Taxi and Raju Driver are two of the most popular titles on Games2win.com's site. Other games on the site let users have a crush on a teacher in class, get a makeover, and direct Bombay's intrepid police force to stop a band of terrorists.

Indians have been bitten by the video-gaming bug. Go to cybercafes and you will find teenagers huddled before rows of PCs, playing virtual opponents who might be down the road or in another city. "They're transformed into another world," says Alok Kejriwal, the founder of Games2win, one of India's top three gaming sites.

Just 5 per cent of India's 42 million Internet users are active gamers, according to a 2007 report by market researcher ICube. And the shortage of broadband Internet services and cybercaf,s remains an obstacle. But at $30 million in revenues per year, and doubling annually, it's becoming a sizable business.

The playing field for young Indians is a PC at the office or an Internet cafe, or a mobile phone. Playing games on the site is free. Gamers can also trade game cards, which work like debit cards and are used to buy in-game items.

Games heavy on local content drive sales. They can draw on Bollywood movies and professional cricket to local celebrities' gaffes and national news. And here, Games2win excels. Its content is 90 per cent Indian, 10 per cent foreign.

Filling Games2win's site with new content is Cyrus Oshidar, the former creative head for MTV India (VIA). When popular Bollywood idol Salman Khan, for instance, was hauled up in court for shooting the protected black buck deer on a hunting holiday, Oshidar's team released Bollywood Buck-was, a game that mocked the incident and whose title in Hindi means "Bollywood nonsense"

The games are so novel, users are logging on to play from around the world. Viacom site addictinggames.com has featured some Games2win titles, and have Web sites in Poland and Germany.