Nazara Technologies, the mobile gaming company has tied-up with CSE to develop, distribute and market games around cricketer Virat Kohli for three years. The deal will give Nazara exclusive rights to create games around the cricketer on mobile, web and DTH platforms.
According to Nazara, three to five games will be developed this year based on the right-handed batsman. The games will be made available for free on various digital and mobile platforms, with revenues being generated through advertising, sponsorships and in-app purchases. The games will also be made available to users across the globe.
The companies have however not disclosed if the player would gain any share of the revenue made from the game, or will be paid an upfront fee for the rights, or both. Cornerstone Sport & Entertainment, of which CSE is a sister company, also manages cricketers Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, M Vijay and Robin Uthappa. It will be interesting to see if Nazara extends its partnership toward other sportspersons in CSE’s portfolio.
This is not the first time Nazara has tied-up with famous personalities to make games around them. It had signed a deal with digital celebrity network Fluence to create games based on Amitabh Bachchan and Salman Khan in May last year. It had also signed a deal worth over $3 million with Sachin Tendulkar to make mobile games over a three year period back in 2005.
Similarly, Kerala based Toonz Animation had also created an animated character on Virat Kohli sometime ago.
Previously, Nazara Technologies had signed a multi-movie deal with Fox Star Studios to develop games on the studio’s upcoming Bollywood movies and prominent movies in the latter’s catalogue like Bang Bang, in September last year.
In November, it had invested Rs 4.2 crore into Hashcube Technologies from the seed fund it had set up earlier this year for start-up gaming companies.
