Gaming as a means to benefit society and the underprivileged is an upcoming trend. By Mehak Chawla
The concept is gathering attention across the world. In the Games Developers’ Conference that was held in the US in March 2012, there was, for the first time, a two day conference on games for change.
Sojo Studios known for its games that directly aid charities such as Save The Children and Children Health Fund is the pioneer in this area. Its game, Wetopia, directly relates the players to causes that they support and, while a player may or may not donate directly while playing, Wetopia gives a part of their profits to these causes or charities.
With India’s first such game on the brink of release, we see the market dynamics and the reach that gaming for good could have in India.
Karmic intervention
India’s first such game, named Karma Kingdom, is expected to be launched sometime in the coming month. The soft launch has already taken place on Ibibo. Ashok Desai, Founder and CEO, Asvathaa, the organization behind the game, felt that they could be a bit ahead of the times, although he was optimistic that they would be able to successfully test the waters with this game and create a category in India.
Asvathaa, a Singapore-based company entered India in October 2011 and calls itself a transmedia company. “We are based on the principle of develop once and deploy many times,” explained Desai. Apart from this, there is another fundamental that Desai swears by. “The overarching theme for us is that we will always develop socially responsible content. Therefore, we will not have shooter or racing games in our portfolio, even if they are purely commercial.”
Desai believed that the first mover advantage in such games would do his company good, while also bringing gaming for good into the mainstream. Karma Kingdom, the game that Desai is launching, is basically around earning Karma Points and donating the same to real world charities. “In our game, goodwill is our currency. Karma Kingdom is all about building a vibrant community and that’s where we have tied up with real-world hospitals and charities like Sankara Eye Hospital,” explained Desai.
Gaming for good moves from merely having an impact in the virtual world to doing good in the real world. As of now, Karma Kingdom already has 500 players on Ibibo. Of these, about 20 have bought the Sankara Eye Hospital. Desai explained, “It means that at least these people (about 4% of gamers) are willing to pay about Rs. 25 to the hospital as a measure of their charity. The number is not bad when compared to virtual good sales, which is a huge market today. We are attempting to divert some fraction of that money to a good cause,” said Desai.
Karma Kingdom, according to Desai, is the only game so far, except cricketing games, that has been designed particularly for the Indian population. It uses characters from Indian mythology.
Gamers buy Icoins (on Ibibo) and they can donate these to charities. On Facebook, the same mechanism will be applied with Facebook Credits. Asvathaa is also in the process of tying up with other healthcare and education institutions to be a part of the Karma Kingdom. They have also divided the price of each coin by four in order to appeal to the price sensitive Indian population. As a result, you can get one coin for as little as 50 paise in the game.
Desai was of the opinion that, sooner or later, the company would be looking at bigger alliances, even at the government level, once the concept became more popular.
Question of viability
According to Aditya Parashar, Managing Director, Idea Cart, who was previously the director of Esportz Marketing, the organizers of one of the biggest gaming events in India, “Organizations cannot get into the gaming for good segment, unless they have very deep pockets.”
“If you rope in some commercial activity around your games and have some reward system for contributors, it might work,” he opined. Others were also of the view that gaming from a charity perspective, did not seem feasible.
Ashish Gupta, Director, Xtreme Gaming pointed out that gaming for charity was an unheard of concept in India, even though he agreed that gamers were spending on buying games or upgrading within games.
This economic viability, according to Desai, was the the primary reason why Asvathaa chose to diversify its portfolio. As a result, it is also launching mobile games, which are purely commercial while remaining socially responsible.
For instance, the mobile game Bark Buddies, is aimed at awareness of nature to children who increasingly spend all their time indoors. Apart from this, Asvathaa also has a services portfolio around gaming.
“If you are in a category like this, it is vital to structure your business around risk mitigation,” elaborated Desai. There is another revenue model that Asvathaa is hoping to monetize.
“We are talking to corporations as well so that they could take this as a CSR type of activity. CSR is at the corporate level, we want to go beyond and take CSR down to PSR (Personal Social Responsibility). By earning karma points, employees have a role to play in their company’s CSR,” said Desai. Asvathaa has already tied up with HCL and is in talks with some other corporations as well.
Potential market
If there are 40 million Facebook users, there are about four million social media gaming players today who are playing Farmville etc over social networks. “We are saying that even if we can get 10-15% of this market to start with, that’s a reasonable critical mass to kick off with,” revealed Desai.
Also, not all the gamers who will play Karma Kingdom will come to the transaction threshold. That is why, said Desai, going with corporations is a very important part of his strategy. The idea as of now is to get mind share with the hope that market share will follow.
Although there is no doubt that gaming for good will take quite some time to gain foothold in India, with online gaming picking up, this is not far away, felt Gupta.
As Desai put it, “Social platforms have to go beyond just sharing information to having a social impact.”
mehak.chawla@expressindia.com