Entertainment
Children’s movies, a disappearing genre (Children’s Day special)
New Delhi: Remember getting transported to a fantasy land with movies like “Jajantaram Mamantaram”, “Karamati Coat” and “Chhota Chetan”? Sadly, the whimsical world of children has vanished as Bollywood is now focusing more on real life and inspirational stories, say experts.
“Movies like ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’ are more appreciated now. Schools also recommend to students to watch such kind of movies. Parents also tend to take their kids to movies like these,” Sanjay Ghai, chief operating officer, Mukta Arts, told media.
“Hum Tum” fame director Kunal Kohli tried to explore the realms of the genre with “Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic” in 2008. It had popular names like Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerji, but couldn’t create fireworks at the box office. He says failure stops filmmakers from making such movies.
“Sadly, we are not making children’s films and the ones made aren’t box office hits so the cycle continues of not making them. Hope the trend changes,” said Kohli.
While there are less movies with wands and potions, films highlighting children’s issues and problems are still made.
If “Taare Zameen Par” emphasised on academic pressure on children, “Stanley Ka Dabba” delved into the life of a child who works in a restaurant.
And now, big names are also roped in to give a push to such films.
“Children’s movies don’t have a commercial angle. Hence, big stars are roped in to gain momentum in the market. For instance, ‘Bhoothnath’ was a children’s movie, but it gained popularity because of Amitabh Bachchan,” distributor Rajesh Thadani of Multimedia Combines told IANS.
The reason behind the lack of popularity, as Shravan Kumar, CEO of Children’s Film Society India which organises National Children Film Festival, puts it is because “exhibitors are not very open to give space to any film which is not star-based”.
“We need to facilitate the process where exhibitors understand that there is an audience for such a movie. We need to remove the disconnect between the distributors and exhibitors in bringing out the content,” Kumar said.
“Unless we make it available through normal market mechanism which is the theatre, it will not attract attention as a value based product,” he added.
He also blames the distribution mechanism.
“Children movies are often small budget. Distribution is a costly exercise and many can’t afford it,” he said.
Kumar is also in favour of using technology to promote the genre.
“It is not necessary that we go through the traditional medium. We have started putting our movies on YouTube and are in talks with some mobile platforms as well,” Kumar said.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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