Between the ninth week of houseful shows and queueing up to enter Kainchi Dham, somebody at nCore Games saw the potential in Hanuman Ansh. It was not about merchandising or a soundtrack. It was about building a gaming franchise for mobiles, PC, and consoles. This is the new collaboration that Swambhu Media Network, the producer of the film, and nCore Games, creators of FAU-G, have decided to take up now. The multi-year and exclusive worldwide agreement makes Dot9 Games, the internal studio of nCore, responsible for developing and publishing three games based on Hanuman Ansh universe.
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However, Hanuman Ansh has done way better than just good; the game converted a rumored budget of Rs 2 crores into an over Rs 300 crore net in India in a span of just five weeks, still performing over 7,000 screenings a day during its fifth week in theaters. Those figures are bound to attract any gaming studio, irrespective of the topic.
The reason why this is not just about making a profit, as mentioned earlier, is the fact that India has over 500 million gamers, Neem Karoli Baba – the spiritual figure of Hanuman Ansh – having millions of followers even outside India, including Steve Jobs and Virat Kohli. Not to forget the around 35 million people of Indian origin living abroad. Therefore, we have a truly international addressable audience here, and Vishal Gondal, the founder of nCore, was quite clear about his intentions; “to take the Hanuman Chalisa to billions of people around the world.”
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This first game is a mobile application where you learn and repeat the Hanuman Chalisa verses line by line, all by yourself. The app targets family groups that can include children who are learning the chaupai for the first time, parents who can play along with them, as well as grand parents who know how to repeat the Hanuman Chalisa already. Different avatars will represent states and regions of India. It will be available for free for the first title.
As for the next two titles, the thing is getting exciting. nCore has revealed that there are “action-focussed” console and PC games being developed.
This is the bit that should be kept in mind: Dot9 Games CEO Deepak Ail says these will be designed as living games, attuned to the festival cycle, not judged based on downloads on day one but sustained usage through day one thousand. This is a different approach from most licensed mobile games, which are released with a peak in downloads, only to trail off into irrelevance after a few weeks.
It remains to be seen whether there is an audience for such a devotional app like Chalisa that will keep using it for long periods of time, and it has never been done at this level before. FAU-G has provided nCore with the opportunity to create an indigenous gaming IP; Hanuman Ansh provides it the opportunity to create something for an audience of hundreds of millions that will be around for centuries.
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