Press release overdrive for Zapak these days. Zapak Digital Entertainment has entered into a partnership with E-City Media to be present in the gaming zone of its Fun Republic malls in Mumbai, Lucknow, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh. Zapak will distribute their online games through PC’s in these gaming zones. According to Vishal Anand, VP of E-City Media, in this Agencyfaqs article, the gaming zones receive around 60-70,000 visitors a month while smaller towns receive roughly half the traffic. Since the gaming zones already exist, this will most probably be a branding deal with POP banners and Zapak set to homepage on PC’s.

I recently noticed a few cybercafes from my CounterStrike days being rebranded into Zapak gaming cafes, current strength 20 nationwide. Looks like ADAG has learnt from its WebWorld days and has taken to the franchise model instead of running its own retail show. Any idea what Zapak is offering besides branding to the SME’s? Additionally, official sources state Zapak is also using its cafes as a testing ground and is about/has begun a closed beta of its upcoming MMORPG with select outlets.

“Game for Money” is a stock market based game launched by Zapak. Players invest a virtual capital of Rs 3 lakh in shares, mutual funds, property and insurance. They are judged on the basis of returns and the player with the highest return at the end of every month wins. The game, according to the company, has around four million registered players. According to this Mint article, a similar game is due to be launched by The Economic Times on their website sometime this year.

Stock market simulations are not new. Zoom has previously launched its celebrity based mobile stock property called Star Power and Sahara Filmy has an Indianized version of the cult Hollywood Stock Exchange called Filmy Stock Exchange. Games2Win has the irresistibly titled Stock Market Suicide, where you catch a falling P. Chidambaram or PM Manmohan Singh. 

Nikhil adds: a few years ago, quite a few brokerages like IndiaBulls used stock market games for promotion. Currently, Moneycontrol also has Moneybhai Investor.