Tk 180m gaming platform shut down in just 2 years

The gaming platform named “Hasina and Friends”, which was created for children and adolescents at the cost Tk 183.5 million, disappeared from the internet within just two years.

Multiple sources said more than six times the budget was spent solely on the web portal.

The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division floated separate tenders for the web portal and 12 interactive gaming applications.

On the birthday of then prime minister Sheikh Hasina, the platform was launched at a lavish ceremony on 28 September 2022.

Sources at the ICT Division said a tender for the project “Skill Development for Mobile Games and Applications (2nd Revision)” for developing “Hasina and Friends” (12 games) was issued on 3 March 2021.

Within four months, on 26 July of the same year, another tender was floated for the web portal’s development under the “Innovation Design and Entrepreneurship Academy (IDEA)” project. The descriptions for both tenders were identical.

Golden Harvest Infotech Limited secured both contracts through the bidding process. The budget for the 12 gaming applications was set at Tk 119 million while the web portal development was estimated at Tk 64.5 million.

After deducting 20 per cent for management expenses, the remaining funds were paid to the company.

When asked why the platform was shut down, Mohammad Anwar Hossain, project director of the ICT Division’s Skill Development for Mobile Games and Applications, said, “Probably, Golden Harvest Infotech has closed the website due to changed political situation.”

People involved in web design and game development said that a normal quality web portal can be developed at a cost of Tk 30,000-40,000. A medium-quality setup may cost up to Tk 100,000, while a high-quality portal could cost from Tk 1 million to 5 million, including a 27 per cent tax and VAT.

If a well-branded company undertakes the project, the cost would not exceed Tk 10 million. So at least six times more was spent just on the web portal for “Hasina and Friends”.

Speaking to Prothom Alo, IDEA project consultant Mominul Islam said, “Since it was named after the then prime minister, it had to be of higher quality and feature-rich. It was not a typical web portal. A normal web portal can be developed for much less.”

Anwar Hossain said he joined as project director after the platform was completed and was unaware of the specific budget allocations.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Asiful Islam, founder of a software solutions company called Softimize, remarked that the overall budget presented for the platform seems highly unusual and illogical.

He said, “Creating an interactive platform with an advanced web portal and 12 (32 stories) gaming applications shouldn’t cost more than Tk 12.1 million.”

According to the ICT Division, www.hasinaandfriends.gov.bd was the first interactive gaming platform in Bengali language, also available in English. Its purpose was to educate children and adolescents aged 6 to 16 about the country’s development and various important issues through interactive stories and games.

When asked for an overall opinion, professor BM Moinul Hossain, director of the Information Technology Institute at Dhaka University, told Prothom Alo that interactive gaming platforms for children are popular worldwide.

He said that the platform developed in the country could effectively disseminate information on education, health, environment, and connectivity.

Given the significant government investment in its creation, rather than shutting it down, modifications and improvements should be made where necessary, said BM Moinul Hossain, adding that this should be achieved through proper planning and implementation.