Bengaluru based game development studio Mayhem Studios has launched its first ‘made in India’ Battle Royale game called ‘Underworld Gang Wars.’ In conversation with Financial Express, Ojas Vipat, CEO, Mayhem Studios, talks about the launch, the company’s revenue model, and how the gaming market has evolved in India. (Edited Excerpts)
It’s a Battle Royale set in India which is going to be very unique. We’ve been working hard for a long time and we’ll continue working even after the pre-registrations go live before this comes out so yeah pumped about this.
What were some of the challenges the developer economy faced in India when it comes to building game?
I think the first and foremost is talent for building games like this. It’s not an easy job. A lot of technology and science is involved. Add to that a lot of art, as building any game requires imagination besides managing matchmaking for millions of players – including managing live sessions. Talent I think is the first area of focus. Hence, we are continuously building and hiring more and more people on our rocket ship to make sure that we can deliver the promise to our users. In terms of infrastructure, the market has completely evolved in the past four to five year post the roll-out of PubG and AAA. There are tailwinds which are very very strong right now for games like this. There’s a lot of demand in the market and also from a monetisation perspective, India is coming in the foreground now.
What kind of uptick do you expect in the revenue?
I would say for the game itself in-app purchase is going to be the dominant revenue model. There are other models coming up also, which we are evaluating and if they are feasible in the market, we will try those as well. As far as Esports is concerned, sponsorships is the way to go. Everyone is equal in the game, everyone has no advantage so we will never sell assets which are functional in nature. We will only sell cosmetic assets and we are hoping to produce some really interesting stuff which you will see over the course of time.
How do you make sure that you acquire users and earn revenue at the same time?
Gaming has been a tough market as you know, so what we know for sure with the kind of infrastructure, the kind of backing we have with our parent company, among others, we have been able to acquire users. We’ve been able to generate the buzz. Our launch event is an example of that. When it comes to monetisation, that’s a game of patience especially for games like this, unlike the casual category where you have to really entice users, engage them, retain them and then you talk about monetization so our focus in the initial time would be to make sure that people have fun. If they have fun, they will pay.
How do you foresee the Indian gaming infrastructure going forward from this?
India is on the world map. It will be a $5 billion industry in a few years from now. That’s huge in terms of even monetisation right, so I think a lot more companies will come up, a lot of people will get interested in not just playing as a gamer but also in terms of creating games and especially with the kind of content and the richness of stories we have in India, I believe that we are a very very big hub for global games to come out from here.