San Francisco - March 21, 2007- Exent Technologies, the leading global market solutions provider for broadband-based monetization of PC and video games, and Indiagames, India’s leading mobile and online games company, recently finalized a deal to bring games-on-demand to the fast-growing Indian economy.
The Internet market in India is growing at a pace of more than 50 percent a year and reached 39 million users in 2005. Pearl Research, a San Francisco-based analyst firm, predicts the online games market in India will top $200 million by the end of the decade.
Exent and Indiagames first partnered in April 2006 to launch games-on-demand services with leading broadband service providers such as Airtel, BSNL, MTNL, Tata VSNL and YOU Telecom. The new deal expands the service to target more than 100,000 private Internet cafes across India. The service offers unlimited access to a rich catalogue of PC games from leading global publishers for an affordable monthly subscription fee.
The games-on-demand service features games from Microsoft, Atari, Codemasters, PlayFirst, Alawar, Merscomm, Cenega, Meridian, Techland and more. Popular titles include Age of Empires II, Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider series, Toca Race Driver 3 and Flight Simulator. The service provides a legal alternative to the pirated games that deprive publishers and developers of consumer loyalty, brand equity and legitimate sales.
"India’s game market is saturated with pirated titles," said Vishal Gondal, CEO, Indiagames. "Our service will expand the legitimate online games market and increase broadband market penetration by offering a first-class user experience and a high-quality package of games at an unparalleled price. This is a first of its kind service in India and is bound to expand the games category beyond its limited traditional audience."
"Our partnership with Indiagames is an opportunity to align with an experienced company in a region where we expect to see tremendous growth in the coming years," said Zvi Levgoren, CEO, Exent. "India represents a compelling opportunity and is part of our strategy to expand into the Asian market with a combined free ad-supported and attractively priced premium subscription offering. We believe such a combined offer could become an attractive, legal usage model in contrast to the rampant piracy."
Indiagames has also launched the world’s largest loyalty program for gamers – Club IG – where gamers can collect points for every minute they spend on the games-on-demand service and redeem them for offerings ranging from being flown on a fighter plane in Russia to driving race cars in the UK amongst others. This would further enhance the value proposition and encourage the growth of gaming in India.
About Exent Technologies
Exent is the leading global market solutions provider for broadband-based monetization of PC and video games. Exent delivers technologies and products for game publishers, broadband service providers, media companies, advertising agencies, brand owners, consumer portals, retailers, consumer electronics manufacturers and others.
Exent's product line supports multiple solutions, including digital distribution of video games, cross-platform enablers, in-game advertising and community building solutions. Exent's EXEtender™ digital distribution solution support both 2' and 10' environments and all standard business models – ad-based, purchase, subscription, rental, and try-before-you-buy – utilizing its leading streaming and DRM platform. Exent’s AdMuse™ in-game advertising product allows the incorporation of ads at any stage of the game life cycle, without having to change the game’s source code.
Among the companies using Exent's technologies and services are Comcast, Verizon, Intel, Turner Broadcasting, Bell Canada, Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Portugal Telecom, Telecom Italy, Telenor, TM Net, MTNL, VSNL, BSNL, Telstra and others.
Exent's major shareholders include Intel, Cisco, Time Warner, Comcast, New Enterprise Associates, Concord Ventures, Avansis and Geyser.
For more information please visit us at: www.exent.com.
About Indiagames
With over 270 professionals based in Mumbai and Los Angeles, Indiagames led by Founder, CEO Vishal Gondal, is primarily engaged in publishing and developing games across Mobile, PC, Consoles and the Internet on various platforms including Java™, BREW™, I-Mode™, Flash Lite™ Symbian™ and OpenGLES.
As the No.1 game developer and publisher in India, Indiagames controls around 50% of India’s game-related wireless value-added services market and is a global top 20 wireless VAS brand (Source: IGN Survey 2005). The Company has long standing licensing deals with major Hollywood studios like Universal, Fox and New Line Cinema amongst others and direct partnerships with about 80 mobile operators globally spanning 67 countries and 150 channel partners.
Major licenses include Bruce Lee, Jurassic Park and "The Office" while key global distribution channels include Verizon, Vodafone, Hutch and Airtel to name a few. The Games on Demand service launched by the company in India is an industry first offering consumers a portfolio of PC games which inter-alia include Age of Empires, Toca Racing, Lara Croft Tomb Raider and Brian Lara Cricket.
