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Tag: Zapak.com

  • ALT Digital hires Viacom18’s Ekalavya Bhattacharya as chief strategy officer

    ALT Digital hires Viacom18’s Ekalavya Bhattacharya as chief strategy officer

    MUMBAI: Balaji Telefilms’ digital arm ALT Digital Media Entertainment has brought on board Ekalavya Bhattacharya as chief strategy officer.

    Prior to this, Bhattacharya was with Viacom18 as AVP and head – digital for MTV India, where he was responsible for expanding the channel’s digital footprint.

    He will work closely with the company’s leadership team to define the corporate strategy for ensuring wider acceptability and success of ALT’s digital initiatives.

    Balaji Telefilms group CEO Sameer Nair said, “Ekalavya comes with very strong pedigree having done some amazing work at MTV in building their digital business. We believe his disruptive attitude and business smarts are a wonderful addition to the eclectic diversity in the fast growing ALT Digital Team.”

    ALT Digital Media Entertainment CEO Nachiket Pantvaidya added, “We welcome Ekalavya to ALT – his experience and diverse skill sets will help us formulate and drive our strategy across our business operations. He will enrich the already strong team at ALT as we prepare to launch our service in India and globally.”

    Bhattacharya said, “Recent digital consumption patterns have made it necessary to introduce changes in the way content is created and offered to consumers and screenagers. As India’s leading production studio, Balaji Telefilms is in a unique position to utilise its creative capabilities for a digitally savvy audience. I am glad to be a part of ALT that stands for the alternate – alternate content and alternate screens.” 

    Bhattacharya brings with him more than a decade of experience in the digital space and has previously worked at digital firms like Zapak.com, Contests2Win.com, WAT Consult and PaGaLGuY.com.

  • Chess Grandmasters now on Zapak.com

    Chess Grandmasters now on Zapak.com

    BANGALORE: Zapak Digital Entertainment (Zapak) a Reliance ADA Group venture, announced the launch of India’s first full-feature online ‘Multiplayer Chess’.

    The Multiplayer Option provides the advantage of playing against your friend who could be anywhere across the world, and also has three difficulty levels; for beginners, advanced players and experts. Zapak.com also launched ‘Multiplayer Speed Chess’, where the player has only ten seconds to make a move.

    Koneru Humpy, the Reigning World Junior Champion, only 33 ELO points away from being called ‘Super Grandmaster Champion’ and Tania Sachdeva, the Reigning Asian Junior Girls Champion, unveiled the game and showcased the gameplay.

    Speaking about the performance of the portal on this occasion, Zapak COO Rohit Sharma, said, “We have become the fastest growing portal in less than two months from launch reaching 5,00,000 registrations and crossing 5,00,00,000 page views.

    The performance of the portal has surely exceeded our expectations and we are continuously adding new features on our website so that we exceed our players’ expectations. In fact we have even witnessed registrations from Vishakhapatnam, Siliguri, Jabalpur, Ludhiana, etc besides the Metros and even International Locations.

    Computer gaming the world over is dominated by males – almost 85% of the gamers are male, however according to Sharma, Zapak has around 25-30% female subscribers, a swing from the norm, while discussing the current three TVC’s on air which focus on males. The TVCs’ have been created by Marketing Ants, while the Reliance internal team handles the media part. Over the last two months since the launch of the gaming site around Rs.45 million have been spent on the media campaign according to Reliance Entertainment president Rajesh Sawhney.

    Currently on offer is a bouquet of 160 plus games on the site with plans to ramp this number up to 500 games by the end of March this year. Zapak also announced an online chess championship for the Zapak Grandmaster starting February 01 this year with a prize purse of Rs.100,000/- for the Grandmaster.

    According to Reliance estimates, the global gaming industry is worth around US$45 billion and is expected to grow to US$53 billion (which would make it larger than the Hollywood film industry), while that of the Indian industry is expected to grow to US$424 million by 2010.

  • Zapak.com ropes in Bipasha Basu; launches Zapak.tv

    Zapak.com ropes in Bipasha Basu; launches Zapak.tv

    MUMBAI: Zapak Digital Entertainment Ltd., a Reliance ADAG venture company, has roped in Bollywood actress Bipasha Basu, such that the gaming website Zapak.com would feature a ‘Bipasha Basu zone’ with games based on the actress.

    The portal has also unveiled a new feature called Zapak.tv, which claims to be the first of its kind audio-visual content on the gaming Industry. From trends, to game reviews, to special previews, cheat codes, behind the scenes in the making of games, gaming events, celeb chats, gaming countdowns to even gaming jockeys. Zapak.tv would also enable customers to share their thoughts and opinions on games.

    Players will be able to host gaming related video content on Zapak.tv by writing to it and sending across their videos, informs an official release.

    For the association, Bipasha would work closely with the Zapak Team to conceptualize some of the games. The site claims to explore the adventurous gamer personality of Bipasha and the first in the line of several games is an action game titled ‘Beach Blaze’. The player will have to pose as Bipasha Basu at a beachside skating challenge, while the actress has to defend herself from the bad guys in the game using equipment that she comes across while skating. Bipasha also faces hurdles and uses features to upgrade the actions. The company also adds that other games featuring Bipasha are in the pipeline.

    Announcing the association, Reliance Entertainment Ltd. president Rajesh Sawhney said, “Bollywood is probably the biggest craze in India. Every Indian wishes he or she was an actor. We at Zapak.com are helping the visitors on our website play out their fantasy, by letting them be or play with their favorite star. First, it was Salman Khan for Zapak.com. We already have a game on him online, ‘Puppy Razi’. Now, it is Bipasha Basu in a game called ‘Beach Blaze’ where Bipasha will be seen in her action avatar.”

    Speaking about this association, Bipasha Basu said, “I am excited about my association with Zapak. I love action and adventure, an element of my personality which was always hidden; with this association I can interpret those elements. I’m represented in an action form in ‘Beach Blaze’, the first game in which I get to participate in a skating challenge. This game has further strengthened my belief in how exciting action can be; therefore I will work closely with the team at Zapak to conceptualize some more games and will don the ‘action / adventure girl’ hat for them.”