First-mover advantage in fun and games

NAZARA'S JOURNEY BEGAN when smartphones were unheard of and gaming was just a newly-found pastime for children. This was in the 1990s when nobody considered gaming a business in India.

- S SHANTHI

44-year-old Nitish Mittersain, CEO, founder and joint MD of Nazara was also one of those curious kids who loved the world of gaming. But, a few years later, when he was pursuing his graduation at Sydenham College of Commerce & Economics, an idea struck to convert his passion into a profession. He was only 19, but couldn't wait. This was also the dot-com era and the US video game market was flourishing, with a revenue of $12.7 billion, including $7.9 billion from retail and $4.8 billion from arcades, in 1995. Around this time, the sales of Super NES, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Tamagotchi, and Dreamcast were at their peak. Sony sold 100,000 PlayStation units on the first day of launch in December 1994 and two million units within six months.

Mittersain realised that gaming could become a larger business in India. He followed his instinct and without delaying further, jumped right in, to launch Nazara in 1999 as a gaming portal. "We started off with an objective to have online games made in Flash. Mobile gaming had not taken off then," he recalls. Mittersain's father became the first investor in the company and also worked closely with him for many years. Within months, the business idea raised quite a few eyebrows, and he was even invited to a talk show called Movers and Shakers.