Arun Gupta heads Mauj, a Mumbai-based gaming company. In part two of our conversation Arun talks about current trends in mobile gaming and computing. He discusses how Mauj is creating content and games in various languages from Hindi, Tamil, Telugu to Arabic and French.

The profile of a mobile gamer is very different from that of a core gamer he points out. Additionally, form factor, processing power and the awkward keyboard limits a mobile gamer from playing for an extended period of time he says.

Mobile gaming will see an upward trend in the next few years predicts Arun. Not just in India, but world-wide. Mauj is positioning itself to ride this future wave. The company is busy creating games, content, ringtones, wallpapers in different Indian and non-Indian languages ranging from Hindi, Kashmiri, Gujarati to Arabic, Spanish and French.

Mauj creates games and content aimed at various segments of the population. Entertainment-based, specifically film-based games and content (ringtones, wallpapers etc) comprises is a good portion of the company's offerings. They have created games for Bollywood, Tamil, Telugu and Bengali films. Sarkar, D, Tom Dick Harry, 36 China Town, are some of the films for which they created content. Additionally, they are creating film celebrity-based games for their Telugu audience. Besides films, they also create mobile content for regional newspapers like Dinamalar, a Tamil newspaper.

Arun paints a fascinating profile of a typical mobile gamer in India. They tend to be casual gamers, who typically play for 5-10 minutes. But, they might play frequently on a given day. In contrast, core gamers play who play on consoles or PCs tend to play for longer hours he points out. There is difference also in the kinds of games they play. Mobile games tend to be simpler when compared to console or PC games.

Currently Mauj develops 6-10 game titles every month, and this does not include the porting work they do for their older games. Creating a game is like making a film says Arun.

Mobile computing or accessing the Internet through your mobile will take off in India in the next couple of years predicts Arun. Currently what is limiting mobile computing are two factors: lack of bandwidth combined with a lack of color, Java-enabled, Internet ready phones. Mauj is also getting ready to offer content for Internet-enabled phones. Arun sees the next wave fast approaching when these color, Java enabled phones that will be the default entry mobile phones in India.

Arun co-founded Mauj less than three years ago. Prior to that he was with Yahoo! India in their wireless division He has about seven years of experience in the mobile content business.

In early 2006 Mauj became one of the few Indian start-ups to land a $10 million in VC funding. The funding round was led by Westbridge (which has since become part of Sequoia Capita), Sequoia Capital and Intel Capital.

Indian Telecom India Mobile Gaming India Indian Podcast