After US success, 7Seas game for poll battle in India

HYDERABAD: Buoyed by the success of its online game on US presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain, Hyderabad-based firm 7Seas Technologies will launch 10 games featuring local politicians on its website.

The Obama-McCain game, which was released by 7Seas during the US elections last year, lured over 10 lakh users online.

7Seas has been designing these games for the past six months and will release them on March 15, MD Maruthi Sankar said.

���We are designing 10 games, five based on national leaders and another five on Andhra Pradesh leaders. All the games will be free on our website. We expect the games to push the ad revenue in positive direction,��� he said.

National political personalities covered are prime minister Manmohan Singh, BJP leader LK Advani and BSP supremo Mayawati while state-specific personalities are N Chandrababu Naidu, Praja Rajyam Party president K Chiranjeevi, chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy and Lok Satta party president Jayaprakash Narayan.

And 7Seas is not alone in cashing on the poll fever. Spanin Technologies, also based out of Hyderabad, has launched a poll-specific website, futurecm.com, that includes information related to contestants and constituencies.

These apart, there are few other firms that have tied up with political parties to provide online and mobile services to help their poll campaign. Given the interest in elections across the spectrum, these websites are expected to attract eyeballs and in future, generate ad revenues.