Nazara subsidiary Nextwave Multimedia to buy IP assets of Games24x7's Ultimate Teen Patti

Nextwave Multimedia predominantly focuses on developing casual and multiplayer mobile games in the sports genre.

Nextwave Multimedia, a subsidiary of Nazara Technologies, is expanding its casual freemium gaming business by acquiring key assets of a game title from a local rival.

On April 4, Nextwave Multimedia said it is buying all the intellectual property rights related to "UTP - Ultimate Teen Patti", a casual freemium card game from U Games, a subsidiary of skill gaming unicorn Games24x7.

Nextwave Multimedia is buying these assets for Rs 10 crore in cash, of which Rs 9 crore has been paid today and the remaining Rs 1 crore will be paid upon completion of the transfer of services and backend integrations related to the IP assets of the game.

Launched in early 2015, UTP - Ultimate Teen Patti is a free-to-play social casual card game and does not offer any real money winnings to the players. It achieved a gross turnover of Rs 7 crore during the financial year 2023.

Nazara Technologies, one of India's oldest gaming companies, has been looking to grow its freemium gaming business for a while now. To achieve this, it had roped in industry veteran Christopher Franklin as the CEO of Nextwave Multimedia in February 2023.

Nextwave Multimedia predominantly focuses on developing casual and multiplayer mobile games in the sports genre.

The company's flagship title is World Cricket Championship (WCC), which claims to be the largest mobile-based cricket simulation game. It has subsequently released two sequels so far - WCC2 and WCC3. The firm claims to have clocked over 100 million downloads across mobile platforms in the past seven years. It also plans to launch a new game in Q1-FY25.

WCC titles are played by around 9.34 million monthly active users as of Q3-FY24, with India accounting for 65 percent of the users. Of this, about 1.41 million people were daily active users for the quarter.

The freeming gaming business however contributes for a tiny part of Nazara's overall revenues at present. With revenues of Rs 18 crore for the first nine months of the financial year 2024, it accounted for just 2.1 percent of the diversified gaming and sports media firm's revenue for the period which stood at Rs 872.1 crore.

Last year, Nazara founder Nitish Mittersain had told Moneycontrol in an interview that a big focus area for the firm is growing its portfolio of companies through acquisitions in the future, with a particular focus on acquiring more gaming IPs and studios.

The company currently operates in three key sectors - gaming (World Cricket Championship, Kiddopia, Animal Jam, Classic Rummy etc), esports (Nodwin Gaming, Sportskeeda) and advertising (Datawrkz).

In March, Nazara earmarked $100 million (about Rs 830 crore) for mergers and acquisitions over the next 24 months to strengthen its global presence. This move came on heels of the company raising Rs 760 crore from marquee investors, including Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath, ICICI Prudential MF, SBI Mutual Fund, and Plutus Wealth Management, among others.

Nazara Technologies also launched its publishing unit, Nazara Publishing, in October 2023 in a bid to capitalise on India's rising potential as a global gaming hub. The company plans to launch up to 20 games across mobile, web3, virtual reality (VR) and personal computer (PC) over the next 12-18 months and invest between Rs 1 crore and Rs 3 crore a game.

In December, Nazara's publishing unit unveiled its first set of five games, ranging across various genres, from four Indian game studios. The company has also acquired exclusive rights to publish game titles from Israel-based Snax Games in the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East region on a revenue-sharing basis for five years.