Online Games at Sify iWays Grow 100%. Number of PCs for games doubled over last year

Pearl: The number of hours of its games played online at its iWay cyber café chain grew by over 100% during the last financial year. The number of PCs at these cafes for online games doubled to 6000 during this period. The online games market in India will exceed $200 million by 2010. The report indicates growth of the online games market in India is being driven by the rapid adoption of the Internet; increasing broadband penetration; growth in Internet cafes; and a sizable middle-class with rising disposable income. The report also cites that game operators are promoting and educating consumers about online games. iWays: We are growing the online games market in India by providing highly popular games such as Counter Strike at the iWays in agreement with the games creator, as well as CD based games. Players are then graduated to true online games such as A3, Sify’s MMORPG game customized for the Indian audience, to provide the online game playing experience. Today, over two thirds of Sify’s 3300 cafes across the country offer players the opportunity to play games online on 6000 games enabled PCs. This reach, coupled with the fast growing base of Sify broadband subscribers, gives Sify the opportunity to grow the market for online games in India. In addition to making online games widely available at iWays across the country, the strategy for A3 is to promote the game intensively in a city to rapidly grow the user base, then replicate the experience in other cities. This is done with on ground promotions, as well as contests where both experienced players and new players battle it out for top honors. To enable inter-café and inter-city competition, Sify has invested in dedicated servers so that the games played are over Sify’s network infrastructure.This ensures low latency and gives players a LAN like experience in terms of the speed and quality of the games. Sify’s agreement for the Counter Strike series, one of the world’s most popular First Person Shooter (FPS) games, enables a player at an iWay cafe to play with anybody in the world by connecting to international servers. In addition, Sify’s online 3D MMORPG game A3, currently in the open beta stage, is expected to go into the commercial stage by the middle of this year. Games? Wkipedia Red Viking Online games market in India

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