New Delhi, April 5 (PTI): As the cricket fever is all set to grip the country with the seventh season of Indian Premier League (IPL) scheduled to kick-off from April 16, the T20 games' fantasy version is back again.
The second version of the IPL Fantasy League, which runs for the entire duration of the IPL league, is a digital version of T20 cricket that allows users to select their teams and play against others, earning points and winning prizes.
The digital version of the T20 cricket that debuted last year saw participation from about 550,000 players from across the globe.
"Last time we expected to get a 100,000 users but it went to as high as 550,000 users. We have this time added several features, including greater emphasis on social platforms and better optimisation for mobile," TenTenTen Digital Productions CEO and Managing Director Ramesh Srivats said.
Bangalore-based TenTenTen Digital has designed the fantasy game for IPL.
Fantasy games are role-playing games in which the players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting.
Last time the site saw about 15 million visits and over 100 million page views in a space of 2 months and it created tremendous involvement and social buzz with lakhs of tweets and Facebook updates.
"Here the users were given the ability to create private leagues and play IPL Fantasy with their friends and colleagues, for bragging rights. Several office leagues came into being as a result of this," Srivats said.
Encouraged by the success, the BCCI went on to extend the Fantasy League to the Champions League T20 2013 with TenTenTen handling all responsibilities for the same, he added.
The objective of the game was also to drastically increase the digital engagement of IPL by increasing the reach of the IPL T20 website and adding stickiness to it, he said.
Players were asked to create their own team with a name, emblem and motto and were given 10 million Fantasy Dollars using which they could pick a squad of 11 players. Players earned points based on their squad's actual performance in the IPL matches, Srivats explained.
Explaining some of the features, Srivats said the stealth mode lets players hide one's squad changes from opponents.
Similarly, scheduled subscriptions allows players to schedule changes one match in advance and the all Star is the place where fantasy cricket meets blockbuster entertainment and lets users create their own star-studded fantasy squad, he added.
"Apart from this, there is the Facebook Leagues, which will allow players to check their rank among their Facebook friends and Dishooms that will allow the players to send fun messages to members within their league," Srivats said.