EA India to focus on expanding Indian market

New Delhi, Sept 9 (UNI) Global gaming giant Electronic Arts (EA)'s Indian arm today said it will focus on expanding the 40-million-dollar gaming industry in the country and will launch content relevant to this market.

''The focus will remain on increasing the market base in the country than on increasing our market share. The gaming indsutry is still in its nascent stages in India,'' EA India General Manager Ajay Khanna told reporters here.

We will bring out content that have done well globally and develop content that is relevant here, he added.

The company estimates its market share to be about 40 per cent currently.

EA India today launched its new game ''Spore'', which has been developed by Will Wright and EA's Maxis studio. It has been priced at Rs 999 for the PC version and Rs 99 for the mobile version.

''The falling prices of the consoles and games have lent to the growth of the segment in the country but a lot still remains,'' he said.

He added that the growth will come from all the segments of gaming -- consoles, online, PCs and mobile.

The company has set up a game studio in Hyderabad recently, which houses over 200 employees working on mobile game development online and game services for The Sims, art development for PC and online titles. It is also working on game automation tools and technologies at this studio.

Although EA has been in India for nearly 10 years, its presence has been limited to marketing and distribution of its products.

Due to the nascent nature of the gaming industry in India, barring a handful, most developers are engaged in outsourced services to major game publishers like EA, UBSoft and Microsoft.

Although developers including the likes of Dhruv Interactive, Jumpgames, Indiagames among others have been developing their content, the company is also focussing on developing its content.

The US-based 4.02 billion dollar company is credited with games like Road Rash, Need for Speed, Medal of Honor, The Sims, Battlefield, Burnout and Command and Conquer, FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL, Fight Night, NBA Live, NCAA Football, NCAA March Madness, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, NHL Hockey, NASCAR and Rugby.

Nasscom figures estimate the global gaming market to be worth 21 billion dollars in 2006. Growing at a CAGR of nearly 18 per cent over 2006-2010, this number is expected to touch 42 billion dollars by 2010.

The Indian gaming industry is estimated to be worth about 48 million dollars in 2006 and is expected to cross 424 million dollars by 2010, representing a CAGR of 72 per cent over 2006-2010.

Currently, the mobile and console gaming together contribute nearly 77 per cent of the total gaming market in the country.

The increasing mobile and broadband penetration along with the introduction of new generation consoles is expected to lead to the shares of online and console-gaming in the total Indian gaming market increasing significantly by 2010.

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