GOD: You're based mainly in India and Shanghai. Why
these markets?
RSB: For us it is very important to tap into
the Chinese and the Indian market. China is the largest mobile
market in the world and India is the fastest growing mobile market
in the world. So the market opportunity is probably larger than
anywhere else in the world.
We have already spent seven
years in China, looking into the telecom sector. So we knew the
market and were comfortable working in these two countries.
The second reason is the access to vast number of highly
skilled development professionals in these two countries. Besides
setting up operations and development costs are much more
economical here.
GOD: How have you found developing and distributing
games in these countries to be?
RSB: We have found the Chinese developers to
be extremely fast and efficient in development and the Indian
developers to be very good in R&D projects. So we use a
strategy where most of our games are developed out of China and
when it comes to new technologies and innovative solutions, they
come out of our R&D center in India.
On distribution,
Indian operators are probably faster in deploying games than the
Chinese operators. However a new platform is now being implemented
by China Mobile, which will change things in the very near future.
Overall our experience in distributing games has been good with
the telecom operators in these two countries and the operators are
willing to be flexible in implementing new models which will be
beneficial to both consumers and game providers.
GOD: What difference do you note between the different
markets you work in? For example, between carriers?
RSB: We have found the carriers in Asia to be
more flexible and a willingness to try new innovative things than
the European and the US carriers. We have had the experience of
trying out things like tournaments, flexible pricing policies like
Buy 1 get 1 free, session based payments, mini-game packages
etc.
On the consumer side, the preferences for the
different countries are different. European consumers prefer
action and adventure oriented games, Americans prefer puzzle based
games and Asian consumers prefer RPG related games. We try and
cater to all these consumers with our games.
GOD: Tell us about recent Fugumobile titles that you
consider particular successes.
RSB: With the Olympics coming up in a year, we
are powering up our portfolio with sports games. We already
released Superstar Diving (China being a strong contender
for the diving medals, it was logical for us to come out with a
diving title first up), Ironmax Triathlon, Knockout Boxing,
Soccer Challenge and Hoopstar Basketball. Besides
another title called Rugby Nation is sure to be hit with
the upcoming Rugby World Cup in France.
Terrorlympics 2
GOD: You have some pretty crazy titles under the "fun"
category on your website. What's the deal with titles like
Terrorlympics 2 and Marijuana
Bush?
RSB: That's exactly the reason why we
do these titles. Whoever sees these titles, they always react -
calling them the craziest and wackiest titles they have ever seen.
We are committed to bring in an offbeat alternate genre of games
for the MTV generation of youth. These are going to be very high
on humor and on topical themes. For example, apart from the
Marijuana Bush, Terrorlympics titles, we have titles like
Chicken Lethal (based on bird flu outbreak) and
Delivery Doc (based on celebrities like Tom Cruise and
Katie Holmes, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, and Britney Spears
having babies).
GOD: What does the future hold for
Fugumobile?
RSB: In the next 2 years, we want to
establish ourselves as a leading mobile gaming and mobile
marketing company in Asia. We are also actively looking at tapping
into the European and the American market with our mobile
marketing solution. We have already done some work in Europe with
brands which have been fairly successful and we see a good
opportunity for the market there. The next logical steps would be
to set up base in these markets and offer our solution there.
By Mathew
Kumar
2007-09-13 10:50:00 
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