Cyber Media enters gaming software, invests in Indiagames

NEW DELHI: South Asia’s largest ICT publishing company, Cyber Media (India) Ltd (CYBERMEDIA), has consolidated its multimedia business by moving into the new frontier --games software-- by investing in the country’s largest developer in this field, Indiagames Ltd.

Indiagames delivers interactive entertainment content on the Internet, broadband, wireless and kiosk-based platforms. The company has produced some of India’s most advanced games, including India’s first 3-D game, Yoddha. Over the past couple of years, Indiagames has established itself in the mobile gaming space as one of the leading mobile games developers thanks to its innovative and award-winning games like Chopper Rescue, Cricket 1 Day Series 2003 etc.

The investment firmly establishes the Cyber Media Group’s multimedia business —through its wholly owned subsidiary, Cyber Multi Media Ltd-- in the top league in this field. Cyber Multi Media is currently India’s largest distributor of CD-ROMs and also has a slew of major multimedia titles to its credit.

The investment in Indiagames —with options to go upto 30 per cent of the paid-up equity--will be Cyber Multi Media’s first foray into the high-growth gaming software arena.

"Our entry into gaming software signifies further consolidation in the non-print segment for the Cyber Media Group, which has dominated the Information Technology and telecoms content dissemination area for the last 20 years", says Pradeep Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, Cyber Media. The Group pioneered IT and telecoms media in India with market leaders such as Dataquest, PC Quest, Living Digital (previously Computers@Home), Voice & Data, DQ Week, DQ Channels India, IDC India, Cyber Multimedia, Cyber Expo and www.ciol.com and had also recently entered the biotech publication business with the launch of BioSpectrum magazine.

Says Vishal Gondal, Founder and Director, Indiagames Ltd, "The alliance of Cyber Media and Indiagames Ltd. is a huge leap ahead for the gaming industry in India. Cyber Media, with its stronghold in the distribution and publishing space and Indiagames with its leadership in the development arena, will together strive to establish India on the global gaming map."

As per a recent Nasscom survey, India appears well positioned to play an important role in the global animation production market, which is expected to generate revenues worth $50-70 billion by 2005. While the global entertainment market is expected to generate a demand for animation production services of the order of $37 billion by 2003, demand in the non-entertainment sector would touch $15 billion by 2005. According to the survey, while the global film/TV programme production market would create a $17.5 billion market opportunity for animation production services, the gaming sector would provide a $5 billion market.