The number of online FIFA players in India is unbelievable and the gaming companies are looking forward to tap this ever-increasing popularity. Online gaming companies plan to make the most of the FIFA World Cup which will be held in South Africa in June this year.

EA (Electronic Sports) sports, the gaming company is the proud creator and owner of the immensely popular FIFA World Cup games franchise. It is expected that around 120 million gamers will play soccer online during the FIFA World Cup in June. The online gaming industry accounts to around $1.3 billion of the total advertising revenues, subscriptions and other sales of virtual items. Games2Win – Mumbai based online gaming company – is expected to launch several new games to coincide with the FIFA World Cup.

Alok Kejriwal, CEO of Games2Win, feels that the craze for Soccer is rising in the country. Games2Win is currently in the process of launching the soccer application especially designed for iPhone. Hyderabad based, 7Seas Technologies is the next gaming company to follow suit with the launch of two new games, Soccer Ball and Soccer tournament.

Reliance Entertainment’s Zapak is also expected to launch new games during the World Cup. Zapak’s Power soccer is already a popular 3D browser based online soccer game in India. Soccer has also taken the mobile gaming industry by storm. According to Nazara Technologies, a leader in the mobile entertainment industry, Soccer accounts for around 2 percent of the total share of the $2 billion mobile gaming market.

Experts suggest that the increasing popularity of soccer due to the EPL has translated to the virtual platform as well. Whether the real version of the game manages to surpass the popularity of Cricket is a question that will be answered only in the near future.

IAmAGenius’ monthly winners are showcased on the ‘Hall of Genius’ section within the website and every participant that passes level 1 has the chance to become the member of a parallel digital world called ‘Digital Geniuses’. Launched on the 26th of September 2009, the digital world received close to 4000 hits a day and is meant specifically for the quiz contestants. When asked about the purpose behind the website, Dhananjay said, “Imagine how it would be if the able, interested, intelligent and knowledgeable like minded souls get to interact with one another freely. It would definitely make a world of a difference to the real world that we live in. Thekkiam and Digital Geniuses would definitely help bring this above said community closer to one another. This site helps one send & receive mails within the community, create and join Groups and Companies, make friends, Blog, 2weet, Advertise, inform events, hold their thoughts etc., – all under one roof. Also, DeeGees (digital money earned through ‘IAmAGenius’ contests) helps one determine their strength in the community.”

Dhananjay works as an online consultant for an advertising agency in Chennai and a BPO at Bangalore. Over the years the 40 year old Civil Engineer has worked in varied advertising fields (Mainline, Direct Marketing, Outdoors and Online) gaining expertise in Oracle 8.0, C, C++, Java, JavaScript, VB, ASP, XML, Adobe and Macromedia software. Both Thekkiam and Digital Geniuses are an independent project with merely designing duties being outsourced. As far as monetization goes he mentioned, “Presently, all the expenses for the sites have been borne by me as I’m able to afford my personal expenses and also the managing of the sites, I do not plan to monetize if this continues. But in due course, if the site expands and it grows beyond what I could afford, I might think of monetizing” Meanwhile the ‘one man workforce’ continues to develop newer projects ‘Parallel Time Zones’ and ‘Many More Lives’, both of which we will be looking forward to eagerly.

Is it still a puzzle? Well, to add to that a little more, it’s actually not that hard to take off 15 minutes for your own farm, which requires a daily religious to visit in order to survive. But of course, your heart will always be where your wealth is!! How can you work under a roof when you don’t know, if your maize is sown or the strawberries are harvested on time, or that the livestock is in good shape. After all you wouldn’t want to waste a land that’s so fertile that you can grow dates, strawberries, avocado, oranges, rice, wheat and cotton in the same farm irrespective of the geographical conditions and climate! See, it’s difficult to find such a farm, but not impossible.

If you have always dreamt to be a farmer, own a piece of land, sow seeds, harvest crops and yet had to bow to your talent and become something else, I got news for you. Wishing that you could have the best of both worlds, here’s something that’ll make you forget what compromise is all about.

For all those, farmers at heart out there, Facebook puts forth a mobile farm which gives you the option of working on your crops as well as your files sitting right at your desk, home or wherever you wish.

Farmville was launched on Facebook and other popular social networking sites on June 19 and it has already brought out the rural instincts of some 35 million internet users around the world, including hundreds in India. The game developed by a San Francisco-based gaming firm Zynga became an instant hit among a nostalgic urban crowd that can now enjoy the sheer pleasure of seeing chickens hatch, get the pleasure of petting sheeps, harvest their favorite fruits and vegetables and also plant trees.

According to the company’s website, FarmVille has attracted more than one million new daily active users a week on average. Funny as it may sound, online gaming addiction has been quite an issue worldwide- China has restricted online gaming to 3 hours for children below the age of 18 (they are prompted to stop) as they believe that physical activity is important as well as dealing with the issue of obesity. On the other hand the US blames online gaming addiction for the increase in the number of college dropouts. Not only is online addiction creating a problem when it comes to youth it is also hampering the productivity in the corporate sector as more and more employees are getting hooked to the concept of online gaming all over.

But regardless of the fact, executives in multinational companies or in the corporate sector, happen to be busier than ever. Because they are now farming. Literally and  virtually. And these warnings are unlikely to stop the urban farmers promising to make FarmVille the most popular ever on Facebook; the game’s popularity has been boosted by a growing trend among urbanites who love the concept of going away from the concrete.

AllFacebook, a website which tracks the popularity of applications, has estimated that there are over 72 million farmers on Facebook across a number of farming games. Although Farmville is free to play, Zynga draws revenue from online advertising and from some users who are prepared to pay for virtual goods.

Well, the reign of farming doesn’t need with FarmVille, Zynga also has another farming game, Farm Town, which happens to be Facebook’s second most popular application, incase you thought you knew all about virtual farming.

Well, we will support the green cause of course. As long as the farming goes good we won’t complain about the rest. Right on ya’ Mate!

After Miniclip.com, Zapak is considered to be the largest online casual gaming website in India. It’s host to more than 600 games, and also believes in a policy of adding a new game everyday. Therefore there is a never ending count on the addition of games. According to Indian gaming statistics, India is home to 2.8 million gamers. 72% of the gamers are from the higher strata and 80% belong to the 8 top metros. Zapak apparently is a highly visited site, which at present has over 6 million registered users and more then 60 million visitors, with an estimated potential of 20 million registered users by 2010.

Through advergaming and advertising Zapak has been able to pull in revenue as well. The gaming site has created advergames for Titan fast track, Ponds, LIC, Mc Donalds, Cadbury and Jhonny Players in the past. News site NDTV has launched a subsite which is a gaming portal (NDTVgames.Zapak.com) and which is again powered by Reliance Big Entertainment gaming company Zapak.com. The other gaming subsites which are powered by Zapak belong to Glamsham and Cricbuzz. NDTVgames.Zapak.com’s appearance is very similar to Zapak.com and there are five categories of games to be engaged in, namely action, strategy, puzzles, racing and sports.

Now coming to think of it, such partnerships not only increase the reach of Zapak games but the advertisements that flash before the game help create brand identity and brand image. Now, that’s what we call good gaming!

And recently, it seems that Zapak has developed a knack of letting hearts play as well! With its new subsite for teenagers in partnership with dating site Fropper, Zapak is all ready to hit the score.

About Fropper: Fropper is owned by the People Interactive group, which also runs Shaadi.com and Makaan.com. Needles saying, Fropper’s gaming section also happens to be powered by Zapak.

So, where else has Zapak been gaming?
Social networking site Desimartini.com by HT Media’s digital media subsidiary Firefly Ventures appears to be the latest portal to partner with Reliance ADAG Company Zapak to power its gaming section. Facebook also has an application which mentions about Zapak. On Orkut, it has four open social applications – Royal Challenge Quick Cricket, Zapak Multiplayer, Photo Battles and a dart game called Friendzy. They have also been able to lap up Hollywood films such as Transformers for a multiplayer racing game called Crazy Kart and Wanted. Quite a chess Zapak’s playing!

Last but not the least, Zapak has also recently tied up with Vayersoft, a Ukraine based , developers of a multiplayer game for children – Chobots which Zapak plans to host in India. It has been launched last month and is available at Zapak Kids. Targeted at families, Zapak Kids apparently contributes 25% of the traffic on Zapak.com.

No wonder, Zapak has been able to capture the limelight in a very short time, and have left no stone unturned to make their presence felt, from 8 to 35, including the corporate sector.

Too much success as it may seem, all one can wonder about is what is Zapak’s own gaming strategy!

Well stop drooling and fantasising; we are talking about the latest online game created by Reliance ADAG’s gaming house Zapak.com for the item girl’s controversial reality TV show ‘Rakhi Ka Swayamvar’.  Apparently over one lakh visitors are flocking the website to get kisses, win her heart and maybe get a ring. The objective is to collect of more of the so-called ‘love objects’ to win Rakhi’s hand.

Though 16 contestants sweat it out to woo Rakhi on the idiot box ironically lakhs of her fans are attempting the same online. This surely indicates Rakhi’s popularity with the masses (or just the men, to be precise). Plus it shows the growing demand for topical games that work effectively for the brand and eventually the masses. The best example is the series of politically-aligned games during the Lok Elections 2009 which received an overwhelming response.

Users need to log-in, choose players (they have a list of 16 players to choose from) and win points as per the performance of their listed players. The grand prize is a car followed by a bike and finally a few plasma screens and laptops.

I guess Aircel was late in launching the game as DigiMouth recently reported about Virgin Mobile’s new fantasy game titled Indian Hatke League. The second IPL season lost on the viewership scale, but there has been a barrage of creatives and online initiatives pertaining to the IPL.

In fact TMT Investment Pvt Ltd (owner of Internet and mobile license for the DLF Indian Premier League) has tied-up with Delhi based Zenga Entertainment to attain  mobile rights of the tournament. IN fact TMT Investment is looking at a deal that would last till 2013.

Zenga will broadcast the IPL games mobile. These live games can be viewed for Rs 150 wherein subscribers can watch all 159 matches. They could even opt to watch each game at Rs 10 or all the matches of a single team for Rs 50. Adding more value the company’s application called CrickZenga offers live scorecards.

There seems a lot of activity around one of India’s biggest cricketing event. This surely is great in terms of Internet and mobile innovations and tie-ups.

But I was really thrilled to discover the latest online game from Virgin Mobile titled Indian Hatke League (IHL). The online fantasy game is a pun on the biggest cricketing event and you can register on IndianHatkeLeague.com to play the tournament. Though it is an online fantasy game the prizes are for real. The Man of the Series will end up as a proud owner of a Hyundai i20 while others have the chance to win Sony Play Station’s and Virgin Mobile handsets. The game is a brand-building exercise for Virgin Mobile which has been active on the Internet with varied campaigns.
The content is zany with some innovative hooks. Even the teams have quirky names like Mumbai Manoos owned by Mukesh Aamdani while Kolkata Tram Riders is owned by Ruk-Ruk Khan. The player names are equally funny – Dickey Ponting, P. CallingCard, Viru Suhaag.

Overall the IHL looks like a wondrous way to leverage the power of the Internet and its users. And with real prizes as a bait I am sure IHL will get a good response.

The flash gaming hotshop has introduced a game where users have to answer questions related to contesting politicians for Lok Sabha Elections. Well this surely demands for users to be updated with the educational, political and professional background of the politicians.  It is really a great way to educate users about contesting politicians. It even would help them in taking a wise and calculated decision.
In a bid to ride a similar wave Google recently launched the Election 2009 microsite. Google partnered Hindustan Times to create this microsite. The tagline for the microsite is “Be an Informed Voter” and provides personalised maps, news, quotes, polling booth locations and more, all personalized to your location. Users need to specify their city or town, and get relevant election information.

The gameplay is simple. The user interacts with a couple and needs to save the guy from his suspicious girlfriend in a given time limit. The user will be posed with questions like “Was it your dog that bit him on the neck?” or “Does Akshay think I look fat in this outfit”. The user simply needs to be assertive or negative. If you ain’t smart enough you could take a clue from the guy wherein he shows off the sliding feature of the VGlide.  BC Webwise scores brownie points for the execution.

Recently Virgin Mobile had launched a microsite called SMS123. DigiMouth had reviewed the microsite which was designed to promote its latest offer wherein subscribers will be charged for the first three local SMSes of the day but the next 100 after them would be completely free.

At the start of the year DigiMouth had reviewed the ShootAtSight microsite promulgating the video facility on the vKewl Virgin Mobile phone. It seems like the microsite-cum-video sharing platform went well with the users.

Currently Virgin is running a banner campaign to drive traffic to the Slide Code game.

7Seas Technologies Limited is an independent game development company focusing on PC games, mobile games, console games and online games.

With our Indian political leaders as main characters the games have a quirky to them. You could play Segment War, Votefun, Who Wins or Political War and entertain yourself at the cost of Indian politicians.

Currently you could view and play all the games on OnlineRealgames.com which has a dedicated category called Political Games.