Zapak

A case presentation by:Shreekanth Dangi

Introduction Zapak Digital Entertainment Limited, part of Reliance-

ADAG is India’s leading Gaming Company.

In a span of 3 years Zapak has emerged as the largest gaming company in India in terms of Revenues, Brand Recall and User Base. Today in India, Gaming is synonymous with Zapak.

It has a strong team of over 350 professionals competent in all aspects of Digital space, be it product, applications, online marketing, mobile applications, social media applications and marketing. Most of the key members have been in the Digital/Online industry for more than 6-8 years and have very strong domain knowledge of all aspects of the Digital industry.

Be it content publishing of online games, shared access through gaming cafes, retail distribution of Gaming CDs and Mobile games & applications.

People behind Zapak

Rohit Sharma is presently the Chief Executive Officer of Zapak Digital Entertainment Limited, gaming division of Reliance – ADA Group.

He joined as the Business Head of Zapak.com (India’s Largest Causal Gaming Portal) in March 2006 and has built the entire team and business from scratch.

In a span of three years he has built Zapak.com India’s No. 1 Casual gaming portal with almost 7 million registered users.

Prior to this, he has worked for indiatimes.com (6 years) and Cyber Media India Limited (2 years).

Rohit has also been voted amongst the top 25 young executives in India by Business Today.

People behind Zapak

Arun Mehra is presently the Chief Operating Officer of Zapak Digital Entertainment Limited, gaming division of Reliance – ADA Group.

He joined as the Marketing Head of Zapak.com (India’s Largest Causal Gaming Portal) in November 2005.

Arun is an Entertainment Industry veteran with 15 years experience in the industry. After starting his career with O&M Arun moved to MTV where he played a vital role in building Brand MTV and leveraged its equity for consumer & trade initiatives. Post which in his stint at Indiatimes.com; he was the man behind the conceptualization and implementation of Promo Power.

People behind Zapak

An Industrial engineer with over 13 years of experience, Sanjay started his career with Mastek Singapore and Mastek Scotland along with a stint at L & T Infotech.

Recruited into Bennett, Coleman & co after undergoing SAP certification, he has worked at Indiatimes since inception as part of the team creating cutting edge technologies on the portal side besides being responsible for the ERP implementation as a Technology Head.

Home page.

User profile

Who is Indian gamer?

As per I-cube 2007, there are about 2.8 Million online gamers in India, and about 75% of these gamers are males.

I-cube analyzed Indian population in two category.According to wealth. (section A, B, C, D, E) according to township. (metro, cities, towns etc)

Casual Gamers: This genre of gamers constitutes of those who play for the sake of having fun or for a quick break. When in office, they find time in short intervals to play for 10-15 minutes, when in Café, based on the time left for their session to complete, they get on to gaming. They play games such as Chess, Poker, Sudoku etc.

Core or Serious Gamers: Core gamers spend at least 4-6 hours a week gaming and play LAN based, MMOGs & MMORPG’s. There may be many reasons which drive this genre of gamers to game online. They are community based gamers, who generally have a peer group into gaming; they prefer multi-player games over single-player games; and are not as easy to understand as the Casual Gamers.

Who is Indian gamer?

Business model

Localization of games/content. Zapak has created games of local concept and themes. Example: Meter down.

Zapak provide e-mail facility as Zapakmail.com and shopping at Zapakshop.com

Zapak buddy, add you friend, play games with them and stay connected.

Value proposition

Zapak.com is the only portal in the world that offers games across all genres be it single-player, multi-player, downloadable games, kids games, girl games and cricket games.

Gamers can earn LOYALTY POINTS, which can be used to bid to win stuffs at Zapakshop.com

Gamers can win free time by playing online to play at ZapakGamePlex.

Strong content partnerships in the mobile space with Cartoon Network, Playboy, Virgin Comics and Universal Studios.

Registering and opening of account keep the old scores recorded in the account.

Live cricket score keep flashing on the home page.

Business model

Value proposition

Revenue model Primary revenue sources is game downloads.

Retail of Gaming CDs and MerchandiseZapak Games is the licensing and merchandising arm of Zapak which is a leading retailer of Gaming CDs and merchandise in India. With a massive distribution network of over 5000 Retail Outlets in more than 100 cities, Zapak has the largest network in the country.

Advertisements is other sources for revenue for Zakak. It has a unique way of advertising by creating games related to the product. Eg, Parle-G cricket.

ZapakGamePlex are present in major cities are gaming café.

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Market strategy Connecting Zapak to networking sites like Facebook, Orkut, Twitter etc.


Creation of gaming zones/ Organized cyber café chains.

Mainstream Advertising. Like TV, newspaper, banners etc.

Enabling payment mechanisms: Most of the users are school and college students. There is very bad penetration of credit card. One of the initiative being experimented with are Pre-paid gaming cards. These cards would enable both subscription for the gaming service and purchase of in-game addons.B

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Strength Company is part of Reliance-ADAG, which also Big Flix, Big Adda, Big Entertainment etc.

Brand image.


Strong technology team for porting games and applications across multiple Mobile devices.

Strong Content partnerships in the PC Gaming space with EA, Microsoft, Sony Online, Activision, PopCap, Cartoon Network, Disney, Valve, Shanda etc.

Zapak GamePlex. These are first of its kind, high speed gaming cafes that offer world class gaming content to the Indian user. Presently there are over 100 cafes in more that 40 cities in India.

Retail of Gaming CDs and Merchandise. A massive distribution network of over 5000 Retail Outlets in more than 100 cities, Zapak has the largest network in the country.

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Weakness Poor networking and loyalty of users. Behind in social networking, as huge competition is from Facebook and Orkut.

Heavy game pages. Takes time in loading.

There is very less renewal and adding of new games in the website.

Zapak is not been successful in creating a social networking or get afflicted with any social networking site. As in case of Zynga Game Network Inc. on Facebook.

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Opportunity Size of youth segment- The youth segment, which is the biggest segment on the Internet, is driving the demand for games on multiple platforms like PC, mobile handsets and consoles. The gaming market in India comprise mainly of young men and college going students falling within the age group of 17–25 years.

Increasing broadband penetration in Indian households will drive usage of online gaming and vice-versa as the gaming experience is enhanced due to higher speed and bandwidth.

Entertainment seeking behavior on the rise: Entertainment appeals to internet users of all age, gender and richness. As a genre, entertainment related applications are accessed by 54% active internet users (Source: I-Cube 2006).

Increase in Mobile gamers: Mobile gaming has grown many-fold in India and downloads of mobile games is a fast growing component in the overall Mobile VAS pie. Mobile gaming is serving to introduce a large base to gaming.

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Threat Growing popularity of games on Facebook and Orkut. These sites are under Google.

Zynga Game Network Inc. opened base at Banglore. Farmville.

Currently several Indian companies are starting to focus on customizing content for the Indian market using local themes, icons & games. It would also include spicing-up the available international content/ idea to appeal to a larger audience. A special mention needs to be made of Kreeda.com & Games2win.com both of which are focused on customizing the online gaming experience for the Indian users.

Creation of gaming zones/ Organized cyber café chains: They play a critical role in development of the online gaming ecosystem and various companies are doing different things to maximize this opportunity. Some are opening their own gaming zones while others are tying up with existing café and helping them upgrade to gaming zones by providing marketing support.

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Games are the “crack cocaine” of new media and the darling of cyberspace. No media in history is more interactive, engaging, reconsumable, or influential on the next generation of consumers than video games.

Video games will be the dominant media consumed by virtually all ages and demographics

Thank You.