The more the players from different streams of entertainment and interactive realms cross breed their content on varying platforms and media, the better for the growth of a healthy ecosystem.
Leading Indian mobile game developer Indiagames recently secured the mobile content rights for Nagraj and Bankeylal from one of the country’s most prolific comic book publishers Raj Comics. Both the characters are extremely popular in across the country.
Bankeylal Ke Kamaal, the first game to be published under the new license is a casual puzzle game and will be live on the Reliance Network towards the end of May. Production on the action game around Nagraj is underway and the game is expected to launch in July on the GSM network.
Speaking to Animation ‘xpress, Indiagames Head of Business & Corporate Development Samir Bangara said, “We wanted to back the development of original Indian content for mobile which has been very limited, except for Bollywood based games. Both Nagraj and Bankeylal are extremely popular comic book characters and we are very sure that these characters which are already extremely popular will have a pan India appeal when they will be available on the mobile”
Raj Comics CEO Manish Gupta stated, “Nagraj as a Character has entertained a huge number of readers for the last twenty years in the form of printed Comics. We have sold over 100 million comics on Nagraj alone. We are actively looking at scaling ours comic characters into other segments of kids entertainment and lifestyle products like Animated and live action feature films, TV shows, Stationary, Apparels and Toys. Worldwide, Comics Heroes enjoy a celebrity status and command a brand value much higher than the other celebrities. Kids look upon them as their role models. This association is deep rooted and ever lasting. We are actively taking initiatives to take these Indian Comic icons to their rightful place”
“Our partnership with IndiaGames is a step in that direction. We are extremely delighted to work with IndiaGames which is a global leader in Mobile Games. They have produced such popular titles like Phantom, Bruce Lee and Spiderman on the Mobile gaming platform worldwide. We are confident that IndiaGames would exceed the expectations of the huge Raj Comics Fan community and bring out the most engaging games that one could imagine” he added.
On being asked to elaborate on Raj Comics PC gaming plans Manish shared, “Next in line are Console and PC games. Indian gaming community is growing rapidly and we would like to be on the leading edge there. We are actively looking into strategic associations with the finest Console and PC game publishers to bring out games in various genres like Multi Player Role playing, First person Shooter and Strategy games”
On the mobile game front the next and eagerly anticipated release from IG is The Da Vinci Code. The game has been developed by Blaze and is to be distributed in India by Indiagames. IG is also expected to launch the much awaited Superman game coinciding with the release of ‘Superman Returns’