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Mumbai-based Nazara Games has picked up 26% stake in London-based gaming studio Mastermind Sports.
Founded in 2014 by Tom McCall and Pratik Shah, Mastermind Sports is a gaming studio that creates social and interactive games for the smartphone generation of sports fans. Mastermind Sports acquired Matchup Cricket in 2015 and is focusing on the rapidly growing ‘second screen’ gaming market.
“Our focus is the ‘second screen’ experience. We aim to use our sports & technology insights to create mobile games that engage fans during live matches, enhancing experience with their friends & family without geographical constraints,” said Tom McCall, Founder and CEO of Mastermind Sports.
The startup is also ready to launch its first game ‘CricBet,’ a real-time prediction game offering second screen experience. Pratik Shah, co-founder and CTO, added, “The platform’s intelligent engine adapts to the ebbs and flows of a live match, ensuring the most accurate and insightful gaming experience possible. Our games, led by ‘CricBet’, are designed to truly test fans’ ability to predict what is about to happen. Something that every sports fan professes to do best!”
The game ‘CricBet’ is a live prediction game where users stake virtual coins on what they think is about to happen during a match. There are 8 prediction markets where one can predict the next boundary to be scored; guessing the number of runs off the next over, whether a batsman will score over 50 runs or not. “The last game to be similar in the nature of competitiveness was Fantasy Cricket, which appeared more than 10 years ago,” said McCall. He also said that the company is targeting football next with this platform.
Nazara is a mobile games developer and publisher, focused on the large mobile consumer base in India and worldwide. In addition to developing a range of branded and original mobile games, Nazara operates unique services such as “Games Club”. It also serves as an exclusive distributor for key game developers such as Electronic Arts. Apart from Mumbai, the company has offices in Dubai, London, Africa & Singapore.
Nazara has been on an aggressive growth path for the last three months. It is now attracting global gaming IPs such as ‘Cut the Rope’ of ZeptoLab to publish in India.
Earlier this month, Nazara, through its Game Fund initiative, invested an undisclosed amount in London-based mobile games studio TrulySocial.
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