The Reliance ADA group has launched its online casual gaming portal, Zapak.com, with an initial line up of 150 casual games, most of which are exclusive to the site. The portal also offers celebrity based games, international titles in single player and multiplayer formats, free of charge.
Zapak offers games across genres such as Action, Racing, Puzzles, strategy and sports in the single player category, while cricket, chess and Soduku war are some of the multiplayer games in roster. The portal also has a ‘Score Capture’ facility, to compare scores and initiate contests online. The portal is in talks with gaming companies in China, Korea, and the US for licensing their content, especially in the Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) category.
Zapak is looking to initially consolidate its position as a popular gaming portal, and eventually roll out exclusive gaming cafes Zapak Zones.Reliance ADA group has plans to invest $100 million over the next three years in people, technology, content, and distribution. Sudipto Majumdar, chief technology officer of Zapak said, “We have set-up operations of the portal on 100 servers and can today support upto six million users. We intend to increase the number to 1000 servers in the next three years. Our biggest strength has been the fact that we have developed the games platform, user management systems and other applications in-house. This will help us provide instant and comprehensive support to the portal at all times.”
According to Reliance ADA group, the online gaming market in India is expected to grow to USD 200 million by 2009.