Despatch 11: “Bollywood On Mobile Is A Huge Opportunity”

Mobile Gaming Conference, New Delhi: What is the next big content opportunity in the Indian mobile space? It’s bollywood. According to Rajiv Hiranandani, Country Head, Mobile2win, bollywood is wooing mobile phone users, because they have a ready client base of 63 million and growing at 3 million a month. There are some 600 movies being made in bollywood. Although not all of them can be made into games, there is a huge opportunity out there to make games based on movies.
Mobile2win started with bollywood epic movie Sholay sometime last year. Probably that was the first time a mobile game on bollywood movie was produced in India. Says Hiranandani, “It took three months for us to strike the deal with the Sholay producers.” Those were the early days. Bollywood didn’t know about the new small screen called mobile. Later, Mobile2win made games on movies like Lakshya, Naina and so on.
Another interesting aspect was that the Sholay producers didn’t have the rights for the voice of the actors like Dharmendra and Hema Malini. So the game producers used mimicry artists to ape their dialogues.
Now there is a rush among gaming companies to acquire rights for movies. Says Hiranandiani, “It’s a bidding game. Some content developers are trying to outbid others just to get the content rights.” Movie producers on the other hand are demanding for the money upfront.
Operators also have understood the importance of bollywood on mobile. Hutch has developed a GPRS/WAP portal for bollywood, which has gossip, news etc. Reliance Infocomm has R-World which has movie trailers etc. So finally, bollywood on mobile is here to stay .

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