Last week, Reliance Entertainment signed up with Manchester United for an exclusive, global three-year game development deal, which reports estimated at $100 million.
Rajesh Sawhney, president, Reliance Entertainment, talked to
Business Standard about the company's plans in the gaming, animation and home entertainment space.
How important is the tie-up with Manchester United Club? What is the deal value?
While I cannot divulge the exact amount of the deal, I can certainly say that the revenue potential from this deal is much higher than the value of the Indian Premier League franchisee because it is a global deal.
The exclusive tie-up between Jump Games (a Reliance Entertainment subsidiary) and Manchester United is path-breaking and important in many ways. This is the first time that an Indian gaming company has tied up with the world's largest soccer club.
Manchester has a fan following of 100 million people across the globe. Second, with this deal Manchester United is going global as well as developing an India market. India today has a fan base of about 11.3 million. Besides China, Korea, Japan, Latin America and Australia have a huge fan following.
We also see opportunity in West Asia and South Africa. We are in the process of building a brand globally and this tie-up will help us explore the overseas market. As a part of our globalisation strategy we want Jump Games to be among the top five gaming developers in the world in two years.
How does the company plan to take forward the two gaming companies -- Zapak.com (online portal) and Jump Games (mobile gaming)?
We
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were clear from the very beginning that Jump Games would operate on a global framework. Our tie-ups with Manchester United, Virgin Comics and Fido reflect this. Nearly 75 per cent of Jump Games' revenue comes from the overseas market and the remaining is contributed by India. On the other hand, Zapak.com has been an India focused online gaming portal which aims to develop a market for gaming in the country. In the first phase, we launched the portal and opened 20 gameplexes.
By next year, we will increase this to 200 gameplexes. Through the franchise model we intend to scale up to 500 gameplexes. We will take Zapak to the China, Russia and West Asia markets through joint ventures with local players this year.
We are in the process of signing some India specific deals with global players and will announce these before the end of this quarter. We plan to introduce at least three to four MMOG games in the next two years.
We have recently acquired animation studio AniRights (based in Pune). We will release two animated flicks in 2008, while the animated film Sultan - The Warrior will release next year under the Adlabs Films banner.
Both entities are doing well. By March we will roll out 50 stores in 10 cities. In 2009 our target is to open one store a day and have 500 stores for which we are making significant investments. We will adopt a franchise model for the rental stores to achieve the target.
