Online gaming app developers in India should feel encouraged by the news that the homegrown NextWave Multimedia has just seen a majority of its shares being bought over by another gaming major Nazara Technologies.
Though technically Nazara is also an Indian venture, with its headquarters in Mumbai, with its operations spread over 61 countries across the world, it is seen more as a multi-national enterprise.
The Chennai based NextWave Multimedia has been in the online gaming business for long and its most popular property, World Cricket Championship (WCC), is definitely one of the most popular online games in India with over 100 million downloads over the past seven years and around 15 million monthly active gamers engaged on the site.
From the perspective of Nazara Technologies, its portfolio of online games, is already popular in a lot of countries across Africa, Middle East, South East Asia, Latin America and the Indian subcontinent.
With the addition of WCC franchise, it will get a fillip since the game of cricket is followed in large numbers in countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan, apart from some of the emerging markets like Afghanistan and Nepal. The craze for the game in India is well known.
NextWave Multimedia also hopes to cash in on the expertise that Nazara will bring to the table in successfully commercialising gaming concepts.
They may even build on the current games on WCC to introduce more variations and immersive gameplay. It is to the credit of NextWave that WCC 2 is already ranked among the top online gaming apps worldwide according to AppAnne. It has also been consistently scoring high on Google Play’s top listings.
Among Nazara’s popular licensed mobile gaming IPs, are Virat Kohli, Hrithik Roshan, Chhota Bheem, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Motu Patlu, Mighty Raju, Tinkle Characters and Chacha Choudhary. Nazara also enjoys a volume of over 10 million active gamers on its site.