India’s premier mobile game developing and publishing company Nazara Games announced their investment in TrulySocial, a London-based mobile games studio. London Venture Partners and Drussila Hollanda-Grönberg, Game Lead at Supercell are the other key gaming co investors.
TrulySocial led by Salone Sehgal and Sebastian Coman, will build contemporary social world games for mobiles and tablets across the globe by the end of this year. Nazara’s co investment for a minority stake with other key investors is a move towards strengthening of partnership with the casual gaming studio, TrulySocial.
Commenting on the new partnership Nazara Games, CEO, Manish Agarwal says, “We see a perfect fit with TrulySocial’s contemporary social world and are working with them to bring a completely new genre of gaming to India.” He further elaborates, “We believe in their team’s idea of ‘not just making a game but changing gaming’ is what excites us and motivates us to making this investment in their conviction.”
The game to be developed will allow players to escape into lives less ordinary. It will be a story driven and lifestyle themed game designed specifically for women on mobile platforms. It leverages the best of dress up, fashion and celebrity content; with a focus on narrative centered on dating and building romantic relationships.
According to TrulySocial, CEO and co founder, Salone Sehgal, “Emerging markets are not a mere afterthought for us. We are positioned to build a presence in India, right from the start. The investment and marketing partnership with Nazara secures distribution for our localized game. With celebrity tie up’s through Nazara, we look forward to bringing innovative gaming content to Indian audiences”
According to Drussila Hollanda-Gronberg, “As a female developer myself, TrulySocial’s commitment to the female players really inspires me. The audience base has massive potential and Salone’s team not only recognises that, they plan to harness it with fun, innovative gameplay mechanics which I haven’t quite seen before.”
Currently TrulySocial is coming with Hugs game which is a light hearted social world game with a lifestyle theme, that’s all about building relationships whereas Nazara had earlier announced their tie-up to come up with games for celebrities like Virat Kohli and Hrithik Roshan and are also coming up with games for Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) and Tinkle’s well-known characters.
With so many partnerships and association taking place, exciting times lay ahead for Nazara Games.
Update: Talking to AnimationXpress, Manish further adds, “The team at TrulySocial has a proven track record and have worked with teams across the globe on multiple successful games. We saw a huge potential in narrative driven games designed for women and that is what excited us to partner with them. Socially interactive games for women is a very niche genre of games and new games coming up in this genre have been doing really well.”
In India and few other markets, TrulySocial Games will be published under Nazara Games whereas in the Western markets, a third party publisher could come into play.