Times Internet, Hovr launch ad supported mobile games

Times Internet Ltd (TIL), the media and entertainment company of the Times Group, has announced a partnership with mobile content company Hovr to launch a mobile gaming portal, GameZone.

GameZone will be available on wap.indiatimes.com and can be accessed through GPRS-enabled mobiles across operators. There are 300 games avaialble currently, and will grow to 1,000 in six months.

The games will be available free to subscribers as they will be funded by advertising. Hovr claims to have a subscriber base of more than two billion globally and has recently launched a mobile community. GameZone, developed by Hovr’s technology, will also feature community features such as multiplayer games and enable gamers to interact with each other.

Dinesh Wadhawan, chief executive officer and managing director of TIL, says, "The business model would be relevant advertising prior and post the game is played. So while the core Gaming experience remains unobstructed the consumer receives relevant advertising messages, offers while he is interacting with GameZone."

"Partnering with TIL, the most innovative mobile and entertainment company in India, furthers Hovr’s goal of leveraging our white label, ad supported mobile gaming solution to drive the mass market adoption of mobile gaming in one of the largest and fastest growing mobile markets in the world," said Deepak Gupta, vice-president, business development, at Hovr in a statement. Based in New York, the US, Hovr has a development centre at Gurgaon in India.

TIL and Hovr will approach advertisers jointly for the platform, though no names have been disclosed yet.