Reliance Entertainment to invest $100 m in gaming business

Anil Ambani promoted Reliance Entertainment, which sometime back had announced its intention to venture into the online gaming business, will be investing $100 million over a three-year period to launch gaming portals and gaming cafes across India.

Sharing the company’s strategy with exchange4media, Rajesh Sawhney, President, Reliance Entertainment, said, “In Phase I, we will launch casual gaming portals; in Phase II action gaming portals will be launched; and in Phase III, we will launch MMOGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Games).”

Reliance Entertainment had roped in Indiatimes’ Rohit Sharma as its COO to head its Gaming Division in March 2006. “Gaming is part of our huge broadband strategy. We are very serious about our gaming business. We will do things which no player has done in India as yet,” claimed Sawhney. “Our target audience will be both school and college going youths.

We will launch the first phase of portals before Diwali,” he added. Asked about the pricing strategy, Sawhney said, “We will have something for everybody. We will follow a multiple pricing strategy.” On the content part, Sawhney said that that Reliance Entertainment would have almost equal number of domestic and international games. “While most of our content will be sourced from local or international markets, we will also develop some games in-house,” he said.