Mobile entertainment company Nazara Technologies has incubated social gaming firm Playcaso, a venture focusing on publishing casual social gaming across smartphones, Tablets and social networks and targeting casual and social game players worldwide.
Financial details of the investment stand undisclosed.
Headquarterd in Mumbai, Playcaso is a multi-platform casual social gaming company set up by Ninad Chhaya, who doubles up as the COO of the firm. Before setting up Playcaso early this year, Chhaya was the executive vice president at Jump Games and was earlier also the creative director and co-founder of Indiagames Ltd.
Playcaso will release at least six titles by March 2012, the first of which will be launched this month. The company is also in talks with several other developers to fund & publish interesting third party titles.
“The casual, social gaming space has created a lot of buzz in the past 2-3 years in an industry traditionally driven by premium, IP based games. The timing is perfect for new entrants with innovative ideas to enter in the market. Playcaso has a strong team with vast experience in gaming at its helm, which is core to the success of any venture,†CEO Nazara Technologies Nitish Mittersain said.
Nazara itself is backed by private equity firm WestBridge Capital. In a recent interview Mittersain told Techcircle.in that the firm is looking to raise $20-25 million in next round of funding “Nazara Technologies has been a market leader in the Indian mobile industry and with them incubating Playcaso, it creates a winning combination to grow the ecosystem,†COO Playcaso Ninad Chhaya said.
According to a recent report from Gartner, the amount of money that will be spent worldwide on gaming will reach $112 billion by 2015. While the money spent on gaming in 2011 will exceed $74 billion in 2011, a growth of 10.4 per cent from the previous year when the gaming expenditure was estimated at $67 billion.
Out of the $74 billion spent on gaming this year, a major chunk of $44 billion will be spent on the gaming software followed by gaming hardware and online gaming, which will be $17.8 billion and $11.9 billion respectively. The gaming software is a category which will continue to dominate the gaming expenditure throughout the five year period till 2015.
