Live2own Blogs

Zapak Ltd.

Zapak is among the premier gaming companies in the country right now. In this article I have tried to understand Zapak's way of business and the various gaming segments they are working currently in.

Zapak Ltd is an Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group of companies. The head office of Zapak is located in the city which has the biggest gaming population in India Mumbai. Zapak has been around in the gaming industry for the last couple of years, grabbing attention in the start through their advertisements and now through their tournaments. Let us take a closer look at how the company has tried to make a space for itself in the Indian gaming market.

Segments:

1. Website
2. Online Flash Games
3. Forums
4. MMORPG's
5. Tournaments
6. IGS (Indian Gaming Summit)
7. Zapak Gameplex
8. Tie-ups with Razor, Microsoft, Seinheiser
9. Game Titles on shelf

Website:

The website is a platform for casual gamers as well as hardcore gamers to interact with each other and play games online varying from Flash Games to Hardcore online games such as CounterStrike, Warcraft, MMORPG's (for e.g. Crazy Kart). (The hardcore games are server based, so they don't necessarily need to be through the site.)

The website features online competitions on a regular basis. Which draws a lot of attention from the casual gamers since online casual gaming is much feasible for these individuals. It also gives them a mode of earning money through these competitions fairly quickly if they are good at the game.

Forums:

Forums are one of the basic necessities of any online website. Since a forum is a platform through which users on a website can interact with other users on the site in discussions. Its a good way of building an online community. A good forum environment makes the website much more fun and interesting for the user to come back and visit. It makes a different impression on the users mind.

Zapak forums have sections ranging from normal general discussions to more in-depth ones regarding professional and hardcore games to special tournaments happening around in India as well as on the international stage.

Thus the discussions range on a variety of topics. Thus giving the gamer another reason to come back to the site.

Online Flash Games:

Flash games have been among the most favourite games among all individuals since they are very interesting and at the same time challenging. Moreover it doesn't take space either on the Web Server thus keeping the web server much lighter and the amount of traffic manageable.

Having flash games on a website is among the easiest way of generating interest since they are not time consuming usually. It takes a maximum of 5-10 min's for an individual to finish one flash game online at the most. Thus if an individual is looking for just relaxing and refreshing about by playing a game then flash games is an ideal option for him.

On the other hand, these users can again return or keep on playing since their mindset is usually like "Lets play one more I have some time left on me." This creates more user activity for the site which is ideally required by any site to be interesting enough for advertisers to advertise through it. Thus flash games on the site are an integral part of Zapak's strategy for giving individuals hands on experience of how and what gaming is like, even if this type of gaming is just casual. This is the starting step for these individuals to then step into proper hardcore gaming streams like MMORPG's (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game's), CounterStrike, QuakeLive, Warcraft and Dota (Defence of the Ancients).

MMORPG's:

Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games or more commonly called as MMORPG's is among the most popular segments of gaming right now internationally as well as in India. The first MMORPG which came down in India was Ragnarok by Level Up Games. Ragnarok came into India as a F2P game. An F2P game is basically a Free to play game which allows gamers to play games for free online in an online virtual world, thus giving the player a completely new identity. Ragnarok had a built up a massive online community in India. The makers launched the game in India under the impression that they would make it P2P (i.e. Pay to Play) game later on. Unfortunately since it was the first game to be released in the country, gamers couldn't catch up on the concept that fast. They were still skeptical about the whole thing of paying to play and the likes. However right now there are quite a lot of MMORPG's in India. Take a look at the list below:

1. Ragnarok

2. A3 India (By far the most popular right now)

3. Knights Online

4. Crazy Kart

5. WarRock

The above list just gives us the games which already have servers located in India or have India dedicated Servers. There are numerous other MMORPG's where Indian players are plenty. The internationally famous World of Warcraft from Blizzard is an example. A lot of Indian gamers are active players on WoW which is at this point of time among the best online games in the world.

Usually the developers of an MMORPG keep the game a F2P initially. Once the popularity level or the activity level on the server reaches the desired point they start charging money or they start selling exclusive items for cash. This is the method of revenue generation for these games. Zapak with it's Crazy Kart game would probably be looking forward to do that. Also Zapak would be introducing more MMORPG's in the country to boost their online activity and revenue generation looking at a longer business perspective.

Tournaments:

Tournaments are an integral part of any gaming company. Unless and until a company holds a tournament gamers don't take the company seriously. Zapak has been intelligent enough to understand this mindset of gamers. Zapak holds tournaments on a weekly basis or a monthly basis online as well as offline events. This gives the company as well as the gamers to interact with each other in a much better fashion and thus giving valuable data to the company on how to improve their business model as well as understanding what the gamers want. This helps Zapak to tweak the already present events which it conducts in a little better fashion so that the gamers won't be having a bad impression.

Indian Gaming Summit:

The Indian Gaming Summit is an expo which has been started by Zapak to get all the companies together related to the gaming field to showcase their products to the audience. Also IGS is seen as a event were a big tournament would be held. IGS is platform where executives from different companies come together and share views and opinions as well as ideas in the field of Gaming. For companies such a platform is very valuable since that gives them an opportunity to understand the market in which they are based in a much better way. It also gives the executives an opportunity to interact with executives from other such companies and learn from them. Such a valuable platform is required in any market. Especially in markets like India where the industry is still nascent.

Gameplexes:

Zapak has also ventured out in the gaming cafe business with the brand Gameplex. The Zapak Gameplex is very well thought out idea in a business sense. The Gameplex has the best computers which is one of the main criteria's to have a good gaming café and to attract gamers. At the same time the net connection speed offered at these gaming café's is much better than the speed's offered by any other gaming café's at present. Which adds again to it's plus points. In the start Zapak made a bad move by overcharging gamers for the game time. It was almost Rs 50 for 1 Hour. Such pricing is too expensive for gamers since most of the gamers are in the college going youth bracket. They cannot afford to pay such high prices for playing games.

Zapak now have corrected their mistake. Even though their one hour pricing is a little higher at this point of time, they have made their combo packs much cheaper which is more affordable to gamers. In the end Zapak is making a good amount of profit through these combo's since they are making much more profit by selling more game time at a single point of time rather than selling one hour every time.

Also the Gameplex helps Zapak in organizing tournaments in both the fields (i.e. offline and online) thus the additional cost of arranging a venue for these events gets cut.

GAMING EQUIPMENTS AND GAME TITLES: (RAZOR, STEEL SERIES, SEINHEISER, Etc)

In any sport there are always equipments for the participating players to improve their performances. Similarly in gaming also the gamers can enhance their performances and gameplay through use of good gaming equipments. Zapak provides gamers a chance to use these equipments and then buy them if they feel that it improves their performance.

What Zapak does is it gives a particular set of mouse, mouse pad, keyboards, headphones, etc for the gamers to use and experience. Afterwards once the gamer is used to playing on these gaming specialized equipment he can also buy these equipments from the Gameplex cafes.

Thus Zapak gains more amount of revenue from selling these products to the gamers as well as earns brownie points for giving them a chance to be able to experience these products.

Another area where Zapak earns money from is selling game titles from different studios through the Zapak Gameplexes. Thus making the Gameplex a complete destination for a gamer to visit and enjoy.

Uptil now Zapak has done a very good job of understanding the market conditions and accordingly taking actions. But even then i think Zapak could do a lot more in the industry. It has still not come out completely that's what i feel and pretty soon we'll get to see more things. But until then i would give Zapak 7/10 points.