Reliance Big Entertainment, which owns Indian gaming firm Zapak, is buying a 50 percent stake in British video game maker Codemasters. Balderton Capital, which had accumulated a large stake in Codemasters between 2005 and 2007, is the other major shareholder; Balderton bought the Codemasters shares it didn’t already own in…

Can India do a South Korea when it comes to online gaming? Hundreds of thousands of teens there, and in China, lead the way in multiplayer games, spending committed hours at their screens. Now India’s UTV wants in on the act, setting aside $100 million to invest in freemium games…

UTV Software Communications Ltd, the Ronnie Screwvala-promoted diversified media firm that is now majority owned by The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS), clarified a host of business-related issues in an earnings release yesterday, when it said net profit for the quarter ended 31 March was down 51% to Rs13 crore.…

For now, Facebook users in India are the only ones with access to popular word game Scrabulous through the social network. A few weeks ago, developers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla pulled the Scrabble knockoff from Facebook in the U.S. and Canada following a complaint by toy company Hasbro but all…

UTV Software Communications, the media and entertainment company, has picked up an 80 per cent stake in California-based gaming company True Games Interactive. The acquisition has been done through its UK-based subsidiary IG Intercative Entertainment, said the company informing the BSE today. True Games is a multi-player online game publisher…

Zapak, Reliance ADAG’s online casual gaming arm, has launched Zapakworld, a casual game aggregator consisting of 12236 games, reports Medianama. User’s have the ability to upload their own games. Note that Zapak in its earliest avatar was an aggregator itself, albeit not one that scrapped for player embed codes on…

Scrabble, which replaced the popular Scrabulous application that was pulled from Facebook yesterday, has been attacked by a hacker and pulled from the site, newsfactor.com reports. *Electronic Arts*, which distributes Scrabble in a partnership with Hasbro, released a statement that read: “We’re working with our partners to resolve this issue…

Indiagames, the mobile and online gaming company in India, plans to buy a 51 percent stake in a US mobile games firm, and will raise the funds through a new share issue. Its Indian parent, UTV Software Communications, plans to invest $75 million in its gaming business, including taking a…

Zapak.com has dipped its toes into the mobile domain through its Zapak.mobi venture. The GPRS-based site offers games for mobile download and play, with multiplayer aspects and a message box, to bring in a community touch-point. The multiplayer titles are currently turn-based only—apparently due to bandwidth restrictions. There are five…

—- Games2Win has announced the launch of its gaming ad network called Inviziads. The service requires developers to integrate the ad code along with the game and as the game gets shared, monetizes the inventory through pre-rolls. The network currently has AddictingGames.com on board which WAT reports has over 10…

In its sixth and the biggest acquisition till date, Raman Roy-led Quatrro BPO, backed by US-based hedge fund DE Shaw Group, has acquired British firm Babel Media, a provider of specialist outsourced services to gaming and interactive entertainment industry. While the deal size stands undisclosed the deal value is believed…

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has got an interim injunction from the Madras High Court, restraining Sandeep Goel (of the Indian Fantasy League) and Rediff.com from displaying or using the domain name/title indianfantasyleague.com or indianfantasyleague and logo or any other domain name or trademark similar to…

BSE listed Animation outsourcing company Compact Disc India (CDI) has informed the stock exchange that they’ve sold the IP rights to an animated character “Joker” (via Hindu) to Singapore based Golden Games Pte. Ltd. Golden Games will pay $1.65 million (Rs. 7.10 crore) for developing and publishing Online, Mobile, PC…

Indiagames has acquired rights for mobile, PC and interestingly Interactive Television (DTH and IPTV) rights for Star’s Kya Aap Paanchvi Paas Se Tez Hain (Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?). The tri-party deal with Bulldog Media, Star TV and Indiagames gives Indiagames the right to publish ancillary content including…

Tyroo has launched a gaming channel that includes inventory from the likes of Miniclip, Ultimatearcade and Cheatcodes.com among others. It proposes to target four million unique users belonging to an age group of 13-25 and high spending power. No mention of Yahoo India’s gaming vertical being part of the network…

AOL India has tied up with Galatta.com for movie content related to South India, an AOL (NYSE: TWX) spokesperson confirmed to ContentSutra. The recently launched South Cinema channel features content from Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil cinema. All the content is in English, though AOL does have local language content…

You are reading it here first. The approximately Rs 60 crore expensive futuristic love story starring newcomer Harman Baweja and Priyanka Chopra will be launching a PC game as well. While the concept of movie-based games isn’t new (although almost all have been huge critical failures, while some like Path…

As far as India is concerned, the xBox is the x’ed Box, if this report from CNBC-TV18 is to be believed. The console has apparently been such a dismal failure in India that Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is reportedly winding up operations in several Tier-I cities. MS’ Entertainment & Devices Division…

Zapak is indulging in vapor talk again: Anil Ambani-owned gaming firm Zapak Digital Entertainment says it is in talks with about six gaming companies in U.S. and China for acquisition. “Discussions are on with two Chinese companies, and 3-4 US firms,” Zapak COO Rohit Sharma told TOI...of course this could…