Last Monday at XL Axiata’s offices at Menara Prima in Jakarta, XL Axiata announced its cooperation with The Mobile Gamer and a couple of local game developers. With this partnership, XL users will be able to access WAP-based social game, KotaGames, with little cost.
As written by Kompas Tekno, an XL subscriber needs only to pay Rp 250 (before tax) for 12 hours of gameplay or Rp 550 (after tax) for 24 hours of gameplay. Afterwards, each subscriber can freely play during the duration without having to pay GPRS fee to access the games.
KotaGames is a gaming-oriented social network made by The Mobile Gamer. In a statement on its website, KotaGames mentioned that members not only can play but also interact, make friends, send messages and set status like other social networks. Muara Sipahutar, The Mobile Gamer Business Development Manager, says that KotaGames has been launched since October last year and can be accessed free of charge aside from the cost of GPRS.
KotaGames can be accessed using all types of phones including feature phone with a web browser. Currently, there are 6 games in KotaGames: the Demon Hunter, Monster Fight, Hermit Defense, Meteor City, Fun Factory and Club Wars Advance. Aside from Meteor City which was made by Agate Studio, all of those games were made by The Mobile Gamer. By focusing in releasing RPG, action and strategy game genres, KotaGames is targeting males aged 13 – 34 years to be its members.
In addition to KotaGames, XL Axiata also collaborates with several other developers like EA, Gameloft and Squarenix, also with local game developers Toge Production, Agate Studio, Gamemachi and Credoland. According to Andrew Budianto, Hunter Guild Master (Chief Marketing Officer) Agate Studio, Agate is developing new games and other game porting for the already exist games for this cooperation. Release of these games will be made soon.
