India has become an outsourcing hub for animation films because:

• India has a vast base of English speaking workforce: Animation, which requires familiarity with the English language, benefits when the work is outsourced to India. A number of animation companies in the country are also creating skilled manpower for the animation market through various training programmes.
• Presence of good studios: India has the second largest entertainment industry in the world, after Hollywood. Animation studios in the country provide a large supply of low-cost, high-quality software engineers. A number of Indian animation companies have set up hi-tech studios (equipped with state-of-the-art hardware and software) to execute overseas projects.
• Low cost of animation services: The main reason why foreign entertainment firms are flocking to India is the cost advantage the country offers. For instance, in the US, animators can cost about $125 an hour; in India, they cost $25 an hour. Toonz Animation offers animation at 25 per cent to 40 per cent lower rates than other Asian studios and much lower than those of American studios.

The total cost for making a full-length animated film in America is estimated to be $100 million to $175 million. In India, it can be made for $15 million to $25 million.

C K Prahlad, an animation consultant based in Bangalore, says the biggest advantage is the cost factor. "Indian animation companies are charging extremely low rates compared to other countries. That is attracting the Hollywood companies to outsource their animation film series to the country," he said.

http://www.allaboutanimation.com/

This website might give more insights on how animatorsERA's approach should be in the next few months as well. Every site (AE/PE/GE) should act independently interms of feature additions as understandably they will address a totally different market. I specifically feel there is a lot of scopre for addition of features in animatorsERA rather than other sites!!!!!

This is their site on blogging: http://www.allaboutanimation.com/blog/

Hi Friends,

Here is a list of Web 2.0 companies in India and globally, though this is not very recent one, but hope this will help a lot many people,s purpose. I will upload the new list soon.. so enjoy and comment on it.

The online gaming industry in India is worth 21 crores, according to a report published by IMRB International on behalf of the Internet and Mobile Association of India, (IAMAI). In India, as in more developed markets, school and college going youths between ages 17 and 25 are the key drivers of this segment. Although miniscule compared with such developed gaming markets as Korea, China, Japan and the US, this is a sure indicator of the commercial and social potential of the segment. Currently, most of the revenues in this segment come from organised cyber cafés (Rs. 12.17 crore) and from subscription based revenues (Rs. 6.6 crore), the contribution of advertising (Rs. 2.24 crore) which is currently low, should go up over the next 2-3 years, in line with developed gaming markets such as US where it accounts for close to 40 percent. Almost 20 percent of this revenue (Rs 4 crore) currently accrues directly to international players not based in India. It is expected that over the next 2-3 years this proportion would go down as more Indian gaming portals come up and establish their presence by providing localised content.

Currently most Indian gaming portals are on a free model and are looking at advertising revenues to sustain the first phase of growth. There are plans to introduce monthly subscriptions or subscriptions to higher levels as users become more comfortable. Most portals acknowledge that advance advertising options such as in-game placements will take some time to enter the lexicon of mainstream advertisers, most of who are just beginning to experiment with online advertising.

Business Standard

Companies give subscription model the thumbs down. 

A shift from the subscription model to direct sale of virtual items in cyberspace has just begun. 

Massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) company Level Up, for instance, has set up an online mall, following its decision to earn revenues from the sale of virtual items as against subscription fees for its MMOGs and Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) — Ragnarok, Gunz, and the more recent Ozworld. 

The business model of selling virtual items is also finding favour with Sify which launched a MMORPG called Rakion 3-4 months ago, and will be beta (test mode) launching Nostale — an entry level MMORPG on the same business model — next month. Its older MMORPG, A3, will continue to follow the subscription model. 

“Currently, the sale of virtual items accounts for less than 5 per cent of the total subscription sales. However, by the end of financial year 2007-08, there will be a substantial shift from the subscription model to sale of virtual items,” says Surjyadeb Goswami, Assistant Manager, Communication Research, IDC India. 

Subscription revenues will grow at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 126 per cent from $1.22 million in 2006 to $72 million in 2011, he adds. 

Additionally, the number of online gamers will grow, at a CAGR of 63 per cent — from 1.3 million gamers in 2006 to 14 million by 2011. 

However, it is too early to say what the revenues from the sale of subscriptions would be, since industry players and experts refuse to put any estimates. 

“The change in the business model would ensure more entry-level gamers and subsequently more revenues as playing would now be free,” reasons Venkat Mallik, managing director, Level Up. 

For instance, “at Level Up we are already experiencing a 100 per cent increase in the number of gamers playing for free,” he adds. 

Besides the change in model, “The MMOG and MMORPG market is also witnessing an explosive growth in the number of titles increasing from three in the beginning of the year to 10 by the year-end,” says Navin H, head, national sales, Sify. 

Level Up is planning to launch three more MMORPGs/ MMOGs over the next 3-6 months. Sify is introducing Nostale next month, even the recently set up MMOG company Kreeda Games, which launched Dance Mela a couple of months back, is planning to introduce another MMOG title. 

Besides, other online gaming players like Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) company Zapak.com too plans to launch two MMOGs in the next 3-6 months. Even Mobile2Win is planning to launch City Racer, a MMOG, soon. 

Rohit Sharma, chief operating officer, Zapak Digital Entertainment, says, “Currently, advertising is our only source of income but after the launch of MMOGs, revenues from subscriptions will account for 40-50 per cent of our overall earnings.” 

For Mobile2Win too, MMOG would provide the company a new platform to attract additional advertising revenues, concurs Rajiv Hiranandani, country manager and co-founder, Mobile2Win. 

Financial Express 

Rupsa Ray

Posted: May 08, 2008 at 2119 hrs IST

How about helping Bappi Lahiri in recovering gold jewellery, or playing Bipasha in challenging the worlds’ best to an adrenaline-pumping jet-ski ride across exotic circuits? Or, may be, accompanying Hanuman in his mission to rid the world of evil forces? Well, these are some of the popular ideas grabbing the attention of mobile gaming enthusiasts.

And it is not just mobiles that are attracting gamers. Slowly but surely Indians are begin wooed by exciting gaming options across platforms—be it online, consoles or just plain old PCs. Mobile devices, to being with, have a huge reach and opportunity in India. With 261 million cellular subscribers, and growing rapidly, the gaming industry has barely scratched the surface of this vast opportunity. Analysts say that the market share of mobile gaming could reach 68% by 2009. As for the gaming themes, cricket and Bollywood sell best in India. It is true of mobile gaming as well. A game on Indo-Pak series by Jump Games saw 2.5 million downloads. To keep up the sensation, Jump Games and Zapak.com have tied up with cricketer Ishant Sharma to create online and mobile games on him.

Besides, new trends are emerging—advergaming, for example. These are games on the mobile platform that revolve around brands. Experts say this would become a popular advertising medium, primarily because the cost for developing an advergame is pretty low, ranging from Rs 3-6 lakh. “Thums Up Everest Challenge, an advergame on Reliance network, saw more than 350,000 downloads a week,” says Salil Bhargava, CEO, Jump Games.

But there are challenges before the gaming industry that go beyond the constraints of partially developed mobile broadband. “The biggest challenge for the mobile gaming and VAS industries in India is the discovery factor. People want games and content, but do not know where to access them,” adds Bhargava.

Experts say Indian gaming industry is in a transition phase, moving from casual to serious gaming. Although Indian gamers are not ready to pay big bucks for serious games, casual and entertaining online games seem to have posted a healthy growth. With increasing PC penetration and the opportunity to play games at cyber cafes, this segment is showing much promise.

“Racing and sports steal the show when it comes to online gaming, and cricket is the most popular sports in India, followed by Fifa,” says Rohit Sharma, COO, Zapak Digital Entertainment. Zapak is also creating games for Kolkata Knight Riders on its website.

Interestingly, Zapak and Onlinereal games.com have different sets of games for women, who prefer activity—oriented gaming, puzzles and games on fashion. However, 30% gamers for Zapak’s online cricketing game are women; 10%-12% gamers are into racing and action.

“Online gaming is becoming popular as it is simple and easy to play. On our site, we have different genres of games catering to teenagers, women and 35 years. Also, there are games in different Indian languages to reach out to a wider user-base,” said Maruti Sanker, MD, 7Seas Technologies Ltd, which owns the portal onlinerealgames.

Analysts feel the growth for serious gaming is pretty slow in India. MMOGs (massively multi-player online games), which are for hardcore gamers, will take some time to gather pace in India. Zapak is coming up with its first MMOG called crazycard by June and with three more MMOGs this year.

“The reason for serious online gaming not taking off in India is the poor PC and broadband penetration. Unless that improves, not much can be expected in this segment. However, we hope that the situation will improve in the coming months,” says Surjyadeb Goswami, assistant manager, communications research, IDC India. “There is a lack of a robust business model for popularising and growing the online gaming market and vendors are confused as to what would work better— a subscription based model or a virtual sales model,” he added.

However, industry experts feel that there are a number of reasons for the growth of the Indian online gaming market. Piracy is one—as users are not satisfied with the quality of standalone (offline) pirated versions of games, they would be driven to online games.

Growing blogging and gaming communities are also expected to accelerate the growth of online gaming. While there is growing excitement around mobile and online gaming, industry observers say that consoles such as Xbox and PlayStation give the ultimate gaming experience.

However, they believe that consoles will remain a niche market here because of steep price tags. Industry estimates indicate that console gaming will account for only 20% of the market by 2009. “Unless taxes and duties on these go down, it’s not possible to cut prices steeply because developing a quality game requires multi-million dollar investments,” says Ashim Das Mathur, a spokesperson for Microsoft Entertainment Devices Division.

For the foreseeable future, meanwhile, it seems that PC gaming will continue to hold the attention of stakeholders. PC games development market in India is expected to witness a CAGR of 62.6% and go up to $35 million by 2009. Gaming development companies like Electronic Arts (EA) are trying to get casual gamers into hardcore gaming and non-gamers into gaming.

“Today, we have cut down the prices as much as is possible. We are offering different versions of games such as “Need for Speed” at different price tags. We are trying to reduce prices by 30% and taking a number of initiatives such as manufacturing the discs in India to do so,” says Ajay Khanna, general manager, EA. However, the market for pirated games in India is about $40 million, which is affecting the organised gaming market.

In the next 3-5 years, gaming is expected to become the biggest entertainment for the youth. Though console-based gaming is the biggest platform globally, analysts say India will follow China in going the digital way, with better broadband networks and a larger subscriber base. “The Indian gaming market is quite different from the rest of Asia,” says an industry official. “Gaming in India is not yet ingrained in the country’s culture like in some of the evolved markets of Korea and Japan, where role-playing and strategy-based games are more popular. In India, gamers prefer action, racing and sports, like their counterparts in the US and Europe.”

If you are a painting lover or a painter check this link out, for sure you guys will enjoy:

http://dailypaintings.blogspot.com/

http://www.linesandcolors.com/

Its very interesting & have lots of excitement if you are a painting lover!!!! Would advice to check this out.

regards

MyWebERA

How about an event for painting & animation across India with online registration & the best creation getting selected based on reviews by various set of users online. It might become an healthy competition between various colleges, showcasing of their talent globally and among the students who are accross the country. Also the college getting recognition in a global scenario. Its like the students taking the college throughout the globe!!!

 Think it will be very good initiative if it can be done. May be a detailed planning is obviously required for going ahead and turning this plan into a success.