Games2Win.com earns more through LS trust vote and Singh is Kinng

Games2Win.com launched the game, Singh is King, to cash in on the hype generated by the movie and earned three times more revenue than on a normal game on the portal

Singh is Kinng, Akshay Kumar’s newest film, was launched with a high decibel marketing campaign and unmitigated hype. Meanwhile, an online game used a similar name to capitalise on that hype and became a hit within 15 days of its launch, earning five times more revenue than the cost of its production.

The king of this game, developed by Games2Win.com, a Mumbai based online gaming company, is Manmohan Singh, enacted by a player who takes on the avatar of Singh and runs towards a crown. In order to become king, the player is required to pass over the obstacles denoted by sociopolitical issues – such as the Indo-US nuclear deal, farmer suicides, opposition from the CPI and rising inflation – faced by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Opposition parties also chase the player during the game.

Speaking to afaqs!, Alok Kejriwal, founder and chief executive officer, Games2Win.com, says, "The game has been played over one million times in just two weeks of its launch and received more than five lakh unique visitors as of now. It has been copied by 925 websites, including In.com of Web18 and Indyarocks.com."

He adds, "This game has earned us three times more revenue as compared to other games."

Seventy per cent of the users who played the game are from India, while the remaining 30 per cent of the traffic came from countries such as the US, the UK, Congo and Jamaica.

Surprisingly, the popularity of the game is a result of viral impact and word of mouth marketing; no dedicated marketing activities were carried out to promote it. The company used a mix of search engine optimisation and right timing to push the game.

Kejriwal says, "We used guerrilla marketing tactics and launched the game on the same day when the movie, Singh is Kinng, was released in the theatres. The timing also matched with the no-confidence motion in Parliament. As a result, when people searched for the movie or Manmohan Singh on the Internet, the game appeared on the search results page."

The company has monetised the popularity of the game by inserting pre-roll, mid-roll and post-roll ads. The ads, served by its gaming ad network, Invizi Ads, are not fixed; every time a user plays the game, he will see different ads.

Games2Win.com permits other sites to copy its games and continues serving ads to the copied games as well. Since 925 portals have copied the game, it implies that the company is earning additional revenue.

Kejriwal says, "We are receiving a click-through rate (CTR) of 3.5 per cent for the ads served in the game."

Seeing the popularity of topical games, the company has launched a new game called Gunning for Gold, aimed to cash in on the popularity of Abhinav Bindra, who won India’s first individual gold medal at the 2008 Olympic Games.