Pushing the Boundaries with Fantasy Gaming App in Local Languages This app is offering enriching sports experience in Hindi, Tamil and English

The craze for any sort of sporting activity is gradually catching up with the frenzy of people in India. In tandem, fantasy sports is also gaining popularity, fuelled by Indians' growing obsession with cricket and football.

A fantasy sport is a type of online game where participants form imaginary or virtual teams but play as the real heros of a professional sport.

Numerous companies are tapping into the industry by building apps that are changing the way fans watch and play sports.

BookMyShow-backed Fantain Fantasy League app, developed by Chennai-based Fantain Sports Pvt. Ltd., is a fan relationship management (FRM) solutions provider.

It is offering fans a better way to engage with their favorite sports teams and players. Launched in 2016, Fantain is also India's first multi-lingual fantasy gaming mobile app offering enriching sports experience in three languages -- Hindi, Tamil and English.

In a chat with Entrepreneur India, CEO and Co-founder Anand Ramachandran talked about his strategy to bring the right audience to his app and why India needs a multi-lingual app in the gaming industry.

Better Fan Experience

This is a sports company run by sports fans. "We have been harnessing data to try and read our fans' behavior. This gives us unique insight into their likes and dislikes, their demography and most importantly their thinking patterns," he added. This information is used while building solutions for our customers, said Ramachandran.

The enterprise is currently making fantasy games based on cricket and kabaddi on their Android app and plans to make them more comprehensive in the future. It is also coming up with good ad strategy and other referral programmes to engage users. It currently offers gift coupons from leading providers like BookMyShow, Amazon and FreeCharge.

"We use standard advertising channels, but our new users are increasingly coming through organic methods, including word-of-mouth. We also focus on referral programmes that incentivize existing users, engage with sports franchises and teams directly to appeal to their fan base. We have a generous prize scheme that is always popular with our users," he explained.

Native Languages Rule

Ramachandran came up with the idea of launching a multilingual app when he realized that a large section of Indians is still comfortable with their native languages.
"We understood the tremendous opportunity we have to appeal to a large population of potential users who are starving for vernacular content for the things they love. For instance, Kabaddi is largely a Hindi-belt sport. Tamil Nadu Premier League, Karnataka Premier League, Bengal Premier League, etc. has more fans in Tier-II and III cities that can be engaged better with the local language apps. With this in mind, we made Fantain to be India's first multi-lingual fantasy gaming app," he added.

He said the overnight popularity of the app clearly indicated the need for local language support for sports fans.

How can India be Next Fantasy Gaming Destination?

Ramachandran stressed that few factors were creating the right environment for the growth of a huge market around the gaming industry in India.

"While cricket is practically a religion in India, we have seen the rapid growth of professional leagues in other sports like football, kabaddi, badminton, hockey, etc. This has created an all-year sports calendar that was non-existent until just a few years ago. Other contributing factors include increase in disposable income, explosive growth of mobile telephony (including the recent Jio factor), increase in broadband penetration and the need for more entertainment and engagement avenues," he stressed.

For the gaming app industry to thrive, India requires a platform that is multi-sport, caters to a large section of the population, uses data to tailor the user-experience, and is well-designed and trustworthy.
If such a platform emerges, India can definitely create a mark for itself in fantasy gaming, concluded Ramachandran.