Mobile games are on the top list of the gaming industry as well as people’s choice. The die-hard gamers crave for classic games that can gratify their longing for realistic events. Nazara Games is a leading mobile game publisher in India, which was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in Mumbai. Nazara is a consumer-centric company which understands the first time mobile internet user and mobile gamer very astutely across emerging markets.
The team at Nazara believes in offering games which are relevant, keeping the overall consumer target base in mind instead of basing them on individual and personal preferences. This is evident in the case of a space like gaming where it is easy for individuals to get carried away based on personal likes and dislikes. Nazara also thrives on data-driven decision making and hence the entire company has a strong pulse on numbers and it becomes easy for the teams to have fact based debates and arrive at logical conclusions without spending too much time on discussing and dissecting subjective opinions.
The Textbook Tactics to Triumph
‘Nazara’ in the local Hindi dialect means Vision. They have the vision of a beautiful sight and that is to bring smiles to billions of gamers across emerging markets. They make this happen through their home grown tech platform which allows them to offer gaming subscription services across 51 countries spanning the Indian Subcontinent, Africa, Middle East and South East Asia via carrier billing through 95 telecom operators.
Nazara strategizes the customer relation through Comprehensive Customer Acquisition Channels that includes, Direct-to-Consumer (more than 90% users through this channel), i.e. reaching/acquiring the end consumers through digital marketing. Dedicated in-house digital marketing team actively monitors the channel efficiency.
The Pre-Installation strategizes co-operation with OEMs to pre-install the games. The team works in close collaboration with many handset manufacturers. And last but not the least, Strategic Partnership works for cumulative agreements with major domestic and international carriers to market Nazara’s games.
The Essence of Grant Feats
Nazara is a game publisher and creates easy to pick up and play games which are seemingly easy to play but difficult to master. Nazara has consciously taken a call not to limit itself to being a game developer. The team at Nazara loves working with multiple developers across the globe including India to create games which players love.
One of the biggest challenges for Nazara is to cater to a wide varied base of gamers in India ranging from hard-core players playing RPG games at one extreme to super casual players playing simple arcade games. They have created separate teams to cater to different gamer segments having different expertise and a mindset to ensure that the thoughts do not get mixed up.
Team Nazara says that game selection as a publisher is still a precarious business and in spite of all the data-driven green lighting process, they could end up getting it wrong. But that’s what makes gaming challenging, exciting and super fun!!!
The Connoisseur of Gaming
Manish Agarwal, CEO of Nazara Games is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and NIT Warangal. Manish has been a leading figure in the Indian gaming ecosystem and has been the biggest proponent of the quality of the Indian mobile game developers across the various mobile gaming conferences around the globe. Manish has led various gaming companies like Zapak and Reliance Games before joining Nazara.
As a CEO, Manish focuses on a data-driven decision-making process with complete empowerment to the team, ‘to make mistakes and learn from them’ is what he truly believes and that’s how he encourages his team members. Manish asserts, “If we believe that we know everything in gaming, we are fooling no one but ourselves.”
Manish believes that while working within the ecosystem as publishers, their developers are the key to their growth. His responsibility is not limited to a specific arena. Manish has expertise in building tools and platforms to engage and retain more users on Nazara network from time to time.
Most importantly, Manish stays abreast of happenings via an efficient MIS system which keeps him in synchronized with ground realities and numbers making it easier to have discussions with the teams.
Breathtaking Games
“If Nazara were a student, it would be humble, grounded and super hungry for learning. We would like to stay like this forever and let our work do the talking.” –Team Nazara
Nazara is not into servicing business and does not take work for hire projects. Nazara publishes games on Google Play/iTunes/9Games and runs its own direct to consumer gaming subscription services.
So far Nazara Games has created awe-inspiring games like Nazara Cricket, Virat Cricket Challenge, Googly Cricket, Chhota Bheem Maths Vs Aliens, Cut the Rope Magic, Chhota Bheem Race, Bang Bang, Bombay Velvet, Seven Stars, and so on. It is not a surprise that all the games are massive hits and they all have won the hearts of players. Hard work never goes in vain!
Nazara Technologies: Apotheosizing Mobile Games
