Q. You were heading Contests2win earlier, but now you have moved to Games2win. What is the reason for the move?

A. Contests2win is now an eight-year-old brand and a lot of people know about it. It is quite popular with advertisers, brand owners and even consumers. Games2win is a very new business and requires entrepreneurial experience and it requires that we build a team from scratch. Also, raising capital requires an entrepreneur to be dedicated to the business. We raised $5 million from Clearstone in March, and it was because I had moved in. Basically, I like to keep moving on.

Q. For online contests and gaming in general, what do you see as the next level?

A. I think within our own age, we have seen it migrate from print to online. It's all over the mobile phone and on television. 'Indian Idol' and 'KBC' ('Kaun Banega Crorepati') are also contests. I see a lot of consumers getting involved in user-generated contesting now. And that's the next wave that's coming. So far, consumers have been at the receiving end and brands have been creating contests. Now, consumers will start creating contests.

I think gaming is a new kind of idea in India. We know that a lot of Indians are into mobile gaming. The console and XBox type of gaming remain the privilege of the rich. So, it's not a mass product. Unfortunately, in India, there are also piracy problems. PC games are not popular because the minute a PC game is launched, it gets pirated. Online gaming, where there's no piracy and no question of IP (intellectual property) getting stolen, is to me a very big frontier. Exploiting that is going to be a really interesting story.

Companies like Games2win are making games which have Indian themes, which are topical and have our culture and vibrancy

Q. And what is it like now? Where would you place gaming among the activities Indians do online?

A. I think it's very low on the radar right now. A lot of people think it's only for kids. We are seeing a lot of armchair gamers. People are sitting in their offices in lunch breaks and playing a quick 20-minute casual game. We are also seeing some women coming on board because the games are interesting. For a cyber user, it's still very low on priority, but it's going to shoot up very high.

Q. Why do think that it will?

A. Statistically, gaming has become one of the most favourite activities on the web - around the world. One out of every four Internet users on the planet goes to a flash games website. That's proven. So, it's natural that you gravitate to it. It's not embarrassing, it's fun and it's interactive. It's a source of entertainment. Secondly, companies like Games2win are making games which have Indian themes, which are topical and have our culture and vibrancy. You can go and play a Bush whacking game, but you don't really care about that. Today, if I make a Laloo game, you will feel more funny about it. I think our job is to create the right content. Having said so, there are 30 million Indians on the Internet, and they better be interested! That's where we see the numbers coming in.

Q. As far as entertainment goes, people have a lot of options online. They have YouTube, social media and instant messenger. How do you intend to counter that?

A. You know, each activity is pretty much in its place. It's like eating, drinking and working. When you are in the mood for social networking, you are not thinking about anything else. I think Barista would be more in trouble because of the Orkuts and Facebooks of the world! We believe that our core proposition is winning and gaming, which is very competitive. When you are in a competitive frame of mind, friends are fine, but you want to compete. We don't feel like we are cannibalised by the big guys. I like what Martin Sorrell said about YouTube. He said YouTube is like watching television on a PC. So, the TV guys should watch out. That's what we feel. If the activity is very niche, there's no harm.

Q. With gaming, there is another perception that it is too casual. Some organisations permit social networking, but gaming is considered too casual. What do you feel about that?

A. We are not saying that we want gamers to come out of the McKinsey office. We want gamers to come out of BPOs and agencies - where the environment is casual. We are not looking at lawyers playing casual games. We are very comfortable with the fact that the bulk of the youth is in casual jobs. Look at BPOs and IT companies.

We are not saying that we want gamers to come out of the McKinsey office. We want gamers to come out of BPOs and agencies

Q. How would you describe an average gamer on a site like Games2win?

A. There are typically three kinds of gamers. The first gamer is between the age of 12 and 20 years, typically male, playing at his local cyber cafe or maybe at home and playing very hardcore games. The second gamer is our gamer, who plays on Games2win. Typically 22-28 years, the guy who's just got out of college and has his first job, and used to play games and does not have the time to play four-five hours and now wants to play a couple of half-hours everyday, and has access to an online machine. They play casual games. The third (which is again not us) are fringe gamers who are of the Baby Boomer generation and have been on the Internet in India for eight-nine years. These are people who were 22 or 23 when the Internet came into India. They adapted to the Internet and they play games like poker, backgammon and scrabble. We are catering to the second chunk.

Q. In terms of interface and animation, how has gaming developed over the years?

A. It's been a huge learning. All the assumptions that we had for the Indian market have been almost turned on their head. The Indian consumer is not that crazy about Indian content. He likes a touch of Indianness, but it's not like everything has to be dipped in Indian oil. Secondly, the theme has to be international. It has to be universal. It has to work everywhere. And most importantly, the game has to have a lot of challenge in it. They are not coming on the site to see cute animation - then they will go to an animation site for that. If they are coming to my site to play games, animation is just a way to make a game come alive. But, finally, the game play has to be powerful.

Q. That's surprising because Games2win does a lot of 'Indian' games...

A. The reason I am saying this is that if you look at our mix, we started off with a heavily topical game site. If you look at the way we have gone in the last six months, we have really reduced that and we have made it more Indian theme-based. Let me give you an example - 'Bombay Taxi 2'. The black and yellow taxi is symbolic of Bombay. Parking is a big problem in Bombay. So, the game is about parking the taxi, and all these elephants and carts come in the way. It's very difficult to park the taxi there, so the game play is very tight and that is the trick.

The theme has to be international. It has to be universal. It has to work everywhere

Q. So, now you are concentrating on universal themes?

A. Right - universal game ideas with an Indian touch, so that our identity is preserved. We like to stay in touch with our roots...There is so much richness around us. You don't want to lose that.

Q. But are you also looking at international audiences?

A. As we stand today, Games2win is five times more popular abroad than it is in India. This has just happened over the last three-four months and this has caught us totally by surprise. We were not prepared for it, neither did we plan for it, to be honest. We were distributing our games to see what would happen. The response is phenomenal. People are not seeing these kind of games anywhere else.

Q. Where is the (global) traffic coming from?

A. You would be surprised. It comes from close to 180 countries a day. Europe and America are the biggest traffic drivers. There is also a lot of China, and a little bit of Korea and Japan.

Q. So, are you looking at expanding your content?

A. Yes, absolutely. I think the content would now try to adapt to the universal audience. We will not play down the Indian part, but we will not play it up either. We can't ignore these audiences any more.

We will not play down the Indian part, but we will not play it up either. We can't ignore these audiences any more

Q. You develop the games in-house, but what about the advertising element? You tied up with Zee for a game. What's happening on the branding and advertising front?

A. We tied up with Zee for the 'Prince of Kurukshetra' game. Lots of FMCGs are running on to the Internet. Game sites are an ideal advertising platform because their content is very suited for a young audience and it's Indian. And it has the right ad units to serve and it's not interruptive. It's not as if it's coming into the content. It's standalone and outside the game.

Q. So that's display advertising. Have you experimented with in-game advertising?

A. We did some experiments with in-game. The consumer reactions were not so pleasant. The consumers started switching off the game faster than we thought. I also believe in-game advertising in India will still take maybe a few months to evolve because the consumer has to appreciate that the content is coming free to him because of the advertising. That concept is well understood worldwide, but in India, everything is anyway free. That will take time, but I am sure they will learn and we will start doing it.

Q. Does display advertising on a gaming site really offer value to an advertiser, because a gamer may not look at it? How do you intend to make it more innovative?

A. Display ads have their own purpose. It's the same whether it's served on a highway or a games site. So, there's an advertising market for that. There's another ad market for more intrusive advertising like pre-roll and post-roll. Once we feel that the consumer has become comfortable with that, we will start adding it, of course at much higher prices. There are brand owners who are ready to get involved in that. But that is more or less a learning curve for publishers like us.

Q. What about tie-ups like that with Zee?

A. Rather than doing specific tie-ups that are very onerous and difficult to manage, we want to just make sure that our game pipeline comes out without a problem, and then sell the site to advertisers.

Q. What would you estimate the gaming market to be?

A. I am not too sure. Across the country, I think cyber cafes collect about Rs 100 crore a year. Then, you have these pirated CD markets. Maybe you have Rs 10-20 crore there. So, I don't think it's more than a $50 million market right now. But once MMOGs (mass multiplayer online games) launch and all the cafes launch, I think the market will expand and I think it will grow by 10 times at least.

When Reliance comes into an industry, it is blessed. With the kind of foresight they have to develop a category, people like us will benefit

Q. How will the entry of Reliance Entertainment affect the market?

A. I think it's brilliant. When Reliance comes into an industry, it is blessed. With the kind of foresight they have to develop a category, and to put their money behind it, people like us - who don't have the capacity - also benefit because they build the category and the awareness.

Q. Where will you utilize the $5 million funding?

A. That investment will be used in creating games, licensing costs for games - we are planning to get into the MMOG business in a very big way - infrastructure (servers and bandwidth) and operating costs. These businesses are not going to break even in the next three-four years so easily and we have to sustain ourselves till then.

Q. The MMOG bit is interesting. How do you think it will catch on in India?

A. It's a tricky one. It's caught on in markets so far where entertainment has been very shallow and youngsters have nothing else to do. In India, there is a lot of entertainment - Bollywood is my biggest competitor! But as we have seen, youth are homogeneous. The iPod is popular around the world. Nobody is giving them MMOG here, so they haven't been able to sample it. But I am sure it will fly.

Q. Coming to Contests2win again, what is the advertising model there?

A. Contests2win is doing a lot of advergames, which is customised games for brands. We did Web Charades for Logitech - it was almost like an ad film. Contests2win will experiment with that model as well as the advertising model. The property also needs to flourish because it's become large

We will now be purely for the consumer and offer them contests. Brands will come as part of that collaboration

Q. You've redesigned it, too...

A. Yes, and we are redesigning it again. Lots of stuff is going to happen.

Q. What are you planning there, broadly?

A. I think a complete relaunch of the site focused on the consumer rather than the brand. The brand will be there, but we will not just become an agency for brands. We will now be purely for the consumer and offer them contests. Brands will come as part of that collaboration and enjoy the consumer presence there. But it's not going to be the tailor-made site for brands that it is now.

Q. So, you are going to add more content there to attract consumers?

A. Absolutely right. We are going to add more contesting content, which may not be brand-centric.

Thank you, Alok

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