WinZO's gaming platform championing Aatmanirbhar initiative: CEO Paavan Nanda to Republic

The year 2020, dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, uncovered both the pros and cons of the technological powers that humans have acquired. When the world went under lockdown and millions of people were confined only to their homes, many were also seen resorting to mobile games to shift their focus on anything but the global health crisis for a brief period of time. Many games enjoyed sudden surges in popularity and several went viral. India’s vernacular mobile gaming platform WinZO co-founder and CEO Paavan Nanda explained how his platform offered the users to play ‘interconnectedly’ in conversation with Republic World's Ankit Prasad.

While explaining WinZO’s features, Nanda said, “WinZO is a gaming platform, a social gaming platform. For ease of understanding, just imagine single windows mobile app, the users can download more than 70 plus games across different formats. Each of these games are real-time, multi-player games."

WinZO co-founder also explained that the idea behind creating the app was to develop a single platform that offered its users an array of different games.

What is the unique cash element on WinZO?

Nanda explained that when any user joins the app and for instance, chooses to play Carrom, they have to pay a “very small entry fee” that allows WinZO “micro-transactions.” He added, “So let’s say I put five rupees, and the opponent comes from the other side and he also puts five rupees, and then the winner gets nine rupees. One rupee is basically the platform commission that goes to the developer. I think, net-net it’s a very cost-effective microtransaction-led way to entertain to spend time.”

He further told Republic, “Over the last one and a half years, since COVID-19, we have seen a tremendous amount of customer love, customer support, customer attention towards us...I would also like to tell you that we are on the forefront, we are championing the entire Aatmanirbhar initiative because of several reasons.”

How is WinZO championing the Aatmanirbhar initiative

WinZO's CEO cited acing the Aatmanirbhar initiative of the government and in the interview, he also catalogued the reason behind the same. He said, “First one being that games that are there on the platform, we don’t make these games in-house, but we support third-party game developers based out of India...it can be even college students and they have a gaming idea. WinZO goes ahead and supports them, gives them all kinds of funding that is needed to get their games on the platform. 

“To distribute our product as well, we do not spend money on Facebook and Google to market ourselves or to advertise ourselves, we go ahead and actually partner with YouTubers, with third-party influencers, with the young generation, youth who are generating content on Instagram, on YouTube, on Telegram. We actually go ahead and create an employment generation opportunity for them to promote our product.”

“Thirdly, we also have a very very strong vernacular element. This product is for Bharat so it is available in 12 different languages and for us to maintain support in 12 different languages, we actually partner with housewives, with retired government servants to help us in translation and help in providing a truly vernacular experience. So I think there are several elements or sections of the society that come together on WinZO to deliver a delightful experience for our customers which are again India focussed.”

All about WinZO

As per its website, “WinZO is a gaming platform that offers all kinds of games such as Free Fire, Rummy, Cricket, Fantasy Sports, Fruit Fighter, Carrom, Pool etc. All these mobile games are available in the exciting format as WinZO Baazi, Tournaments, Team Tournaments and win real cash! There are 70+ games available across categories such as Casual, Card, Action, Esports, Battle Royale & more. WinZO is available in more than 10 languages such as English, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Bhojpuri, etc. WinZO also has daily contests and leader boards running where the users can win cash by playing games daily. Users can also earn a lot of cash prizes by referring their friends on WinZO. WinZO was earlier known as WinZO Gold or WinZO Games. So download the application now and earn cash online by playing games.”