Do you know, Who the King of the LUDO KING is..!
Story of a young boy from Bihar, who is now ruling the gaming zone.
Baking, binge watching or wait, how about the dice game first! A leading source of entertainment for many, the Ludo King has become a major support during this phase of Covid-19. Crossing over 300+ million downloads, this casual yet classic dice game has been ranked no. 1 in the “Top Free Board Games” category on the Play Store and App Store.
No doubt, the authentic board game will give you nostalgia. Roll the dice, beat other players and become the Ludo King- It’s just so simple. It can be played with anyone from anywhere, be it our family or friends, to even unknowns or friends on facebook. But do you know the prodigy behind this sleeper hit app?
Who the King of the LUDO KING
The young boy from Bihar, Vikash Jaiswal, who used to pay one Rupee for playing each game at video parlours, is now the real king of Ludo king. An Indian Entrepreneur and the Founder and Director of the Gametion Technologies Pvt. Ltd., mainly hails from Danapur. After completing schooling from Patna, Vikash tried competing for IIT exams.
He tried again and again for 2 years, but did not succeed. Of course, God had some other, better plans for him but also, God help those who help themselves first, like Vikash. He did not give up. He learnt about some softwares, doing a multimedia course. That was the time, he realized persisting his career in programmings and computer science, though not games yet.
For pursuing Engineering in Computer science, he went to MIT, Bulandshahar, where his interest in games flourished. He used to perform all sorts of analysations on the gaming CDs.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way”. The famous proverb fits perfectly for Vikash’s allegiance and adherence, when he was once talking to his friends in college and shared his yearning to discover a game. And, within only 3 months, he developed ” Eggy Boy” named video game, as a part of his thesis. It was named PCQuest magazine’s ‘ Game of the Month’ for July 2003.
He said in an interview, “I made sure before graduating in 2004, I’ve sent my developed gaming CDs to various gaming companies but unfortunately it did not arrive to any of them, except Indiagames.” Vikash moved to Mumbai after getting a call from Indiagames Ltd. and started working there as a tech lead.
In the desire of starting a venture of his own, his dreams got wings. With just 4-5 people along and Rupees two lakhs investment, he set up Gametion in 2008 and made 10-15 desktop games, including racing, puzzles and action related ones.
Though for a short span, but he got the taste of success in 2013, when almost 20 million people started visiting Gametion’s website monthly. Just an year later, the mobile games started winning over the desktop ones. Gametion had no other option but to switch their way to be in the race. He tried launching his popular games like Baby’s Big Adventure and brought many other such games to mobile versions but none of his advancement attained any benefit.
Then, one fine day, a simple game of snake and ladder drew his attention and the idea of launching ludo game striked to him. Though he was not able to convince his team members for the same but Vikash did not let his faith in the idea drop. And Gametion finally launched the Ludo King on December 2016. Never knew that the game soon will be a big hit, until the team noticed a difference in the Google Play Store dashboard’s and Google Analytics’ statistics just few months later.
And they were amazed to know that the app was being transferred among the users through sharing apps. In another interview Vikash said, “I was sleeping, when I got a call at 5 am, asking for the cheat code of the game, and that’s when I realized, it’s a hit.”
Without any external promotion, the game has been topping the Google Play download charts since May, 2017 with almost 10 million active users, Daily and 70 million users, Monthly.
According to Vikash, what attracts the users most is the interesting music, easy user interface, authentic board design, different themes and various new features, including the emojis and chit-chat options.
Talking about his achievements, Vikash Jaiswal received the Mobile and Tablet Game: Arcade (International) in gaming for Ludo King at the 19th FICCI Frames Best Animated Frames (BAF) Awards in 2018. Also, was recognized as “Icons of Navi Mumbai” by the Economic Times Group in 2020.
Who knew the little child of Bihar, who was a fan of Nintendo Mario game once, will now rule the gaming zone!