Rs digital enters online gaming with 'zheza fighter'

"Zheza Fighter", RS Digital's first online game, and Zheza.com, an online teen community, are the two flagship online businesses of the company.

The revenue model for the gaming business will be similar to those where gamers play free of charge but pay for buying items during the game. The game has been on a trial run for a couple of months and gets about 20,000 hits per day of which is about 10 per cent of the total online gaming audience.

"'Zheza Fighter' is an extension of Zheza.com. The company has created the game's characters by RS's own artists. We believe that is our strength. Once we launch commercially, we believe we will gain more than 10 per cent of the market. Online gaming is a huge potential business. The total market this year is expected to reach Bt3.2 billion. Also, most gamers are young people who are anyway our target group," RS Digital senior executive vice president Yanyong Akrajindanon said.

Zheza.com is an online community for teenagers where users can create personalised pages. Currently, Zheza.com has about 900,000 members and gets 50,000 hits per day. Yanyong said these users will form the customer base for "Zheza Fighter" as well.

As for RS Digital's mobile business, Yanyong said, the company plans to launch two new services by the second half of this year - Artist WAP portal and Mobi Tube.

The Artist WAP Portal will be designed specifically for each artist  and will provide music videos and songs for purchase. It is expected to become a  channel for the distribution of the company's media content directly to its target customers. Mobi Tube will become an online channel for streaming content, such as video clips and music videos.

RS Digital's mobile business consists of two main product offerings - mobile downloads and ringback tones, that contribute equally to the revenue stream.

However, this year the ratio is expected to become 40:60, in favour of ringback tones.