Mumbai-based mobile gaming company Nazara Games has signed a three-year contract with IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore to launch an IPL cricket mobile game that will feature Virat Kohli, among other cricketers from the team. The game, which will focus on monetisation through in-app purchases, is targeting 5 million downloads in the first one year.
“Deftouch Design is the external developer that we headhunted, around the same time RCB wanted to get into a gaming partnership plan. There are 60 levels in the game. We have taken 10 celebrations of RCB in IPL and we have selected six innings of Virat from each IPL and created 60 levels which is the career progression mode,” said Manish Agarwal, CEO of Nazara Games.
In the game there are two main modes -a tournament mode where the end user competes with other gamers and the objective is to aim for the top ranks on the leaderboard to win official RCB merchandise. The second mode is a career mode which celebrates 10 years of RCB in IPL. The game will consist of a full IPL tournament and weekly tournaments. The top 1,000 winners on the leaderboard will win exclusive merchandise from RCB that is signed by cricketers.
“We will start by introducing Virat Kohli, after which we will bring in Chris Gayle and other personas into the game,” said Agarwal.
According to Sridhar B, Chief Digital Marketing Officer at United Spirits and a core leadership member of Royal Challengers Sports, they expect to monetise in the long run largely from Indians abroad.
“We want to ensure it is a self-funded model and doesn’t burn our cash reserves but gives us some kind of monetisation through ad networks. While Indian markets will be the catchment area, from the ad monetisation point of view, cost per thousand impression rates are higher in the international markets,” said Sridhar B.
“The roadmap for a three-year contract has been chalked out. After the player profiles, there will be a version where you can challenge somebody and then in the third version, two gamers will be able to play together and so on,” said Sridhar B.
In the long run, RCB is also eyeing esports tournaments through their partnership with Nazara.
Source: The Economic Times
