Online gaming companies are attracting millions from investors, reports CNBC-TV18. But what about earning millions from consumers?

Exams or no exams - 18-year old Omkar and his friends spend nearly five hours everyday fighting evil. It is an expensive war. Access to a cybercafe costs them Rs 25 an hour and the adrenalin rush is limited by budget constraints.

Omkar Gharat, a gamer says, "I can pay a max for Rs 250, not more than that." Meanwhile, another gamer Omkar Mhatre says, "It is my own pocket money; my parents pay it for me."

Gaming is a price elastic luxury. So most gaming sites like Zapak.com and games2win come free. They make their money off advertising. But that is not much. Online gaming attracts less than 1% of the over Rs 100 crore online advertisement market in India. So some gaming sites have turned to subscriptions. Indiagames for instance charges Rs 200 a month for unlimited gaming. But that is not enough - what with free sites mushrooming!

Time then for gaming companies to jump a level - trap players by offering free access and then make them want to pay. Take for example a Korean game adapted for India called a3india. You can play up to a certain level for free but if you want to move ahead, you have to pay hard cash. And that is where the moolah is.

Alok Kejriwal, CEO, games2win.com, says, "We are going to charge consumers for 'avatar' revenue - we don't want to charge them subscription revenues, but when they are playing a game, if they want to upgrade a car, buy tyres, buy petrol, we will charge them for that."

That is the only way gaming companies will take on a profitable avatar. After all there is big money riding on this - from Anil Ambani who has invested Rs 450 crore in Zapak to UTV that has spent Rs 47 crore for a 50% stake in indiagames. Yet most of these companies are at least two to three years away from breaking even. Gaming, it seems, is no child's play!