Online gamers turn to esports

Enthusiasts are switching from playing for fun to taking part in tournaments. And the action is shifting from entertainment to competition

Online gaming is serious business in India. Leveraging smartphone penetration and cheap Internet, the gaming industry is moving from entertainment to competitive sports. People are now willing to pay for premium gaming content, industry insiders say.

Gaming championships are held in different parts of the country and attract youngsters and gaming enthusiasts in droves. Bengaluru is an enthusiastic participant in these tournaments. Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO and Consumer Business Head, Acer India, describes the city as the core of gaming companies in India.

“As an emerging guru in esports gaming, with its massive population and hundreds of millions of budding gamers, the Indian market is bustling with potential. We have seen many players from Bengaluru who participated in the third edition of Acer Predator Gaming League and competed in PUBG competition through online and offline qualifiers; most of these gamers belong to the age group of 20 to 25 years. Boys outnumber the girls,” he says.

Game developing companies and startups are mushrooming across India, already one of the top five countries for mobile gaming in the world. The Indian gaming industry has an estimated revenue of 890 million dollars, according to multiple sources.

India has 250 game development companies, up from a mere 25 in 2010, with at least two startups coming up every month. It is also estimated that the country is home to a tenth of the world’s entire gaming population.

Raghu N, software developer, says he got into gaming during his pre-university days, when LAN (Local Area Network) games were popular. It meant people played multiplayer video games on consoles or computers, with a LAN connection established between these.

“During our summer holidays, we used to play ‘Quake’, ‘Counter strike’ and other games. When I went to engineering college, there were many with a similar interest and we would play online games regularly in the hostel,” he says.

This became a habit and now Raghu spends at least three hours a day gaming, teaming up with friends from different parts of the country. “I play first-player shooting games; right now I am playing ‘Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO)’.” He adds that he follows the team Astralis, a Danish esports CS:GO team.

Esports different

Esports is not just playing games on a screen. It is professional, competitive video gaming, a far more professional and nuanced industry when compared to casual gaming.

Gaming championships test the talent and skills of participants in varied games. An esports player puts in hours of hard work and dedication to hone skills.

Whopping prizes

Poised to be the youngest country in the world by next year, it is no surprise India offers a large consumer market when it comes to online gaming. Companies and sponsors understand this and offer huge cash prizes in a bid to grab the attention of players and viewers.

In 2018, reports say around Rs 3.74 crore (535,000 dollars) was offered in prize money across various titles and tournaments in India. A large portion of this was divided between the titles Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). For example, the prize pool for the 2017 edition of Dew Arena, a Dota 2 and CS:GO competition, was Rs 20 lakh.

The numbers have steeply increased in 2019, with a major chunk coming from tournaments featuring PUBG Mobile. The ‘PUBG Mobile India Series 2019’ had a total prize pool of Rs 1 crore.

Rapidly growing

A report titled ‘The Evolving Landscape Of Sports Gaming in India’ by KPMG India and the Indian Federation of Sports Gaming (IFSG), India’s first and only self-regulatory industry body for the sports gaming sector, says the fantasy sports and gaming industry in India is set to witness massive growth, from Rs 43.8 billion now to Rs 118.8 billion by 2023.

Tournaments in India

India has its own share of online gaming tournaments where big prize money is to be won. Here are some:

NGS Championship

Dew Arena

Ultimate Battle

COBX Masters

Code Wars

ESL India Premiership

eXTREMESLAND

Exun

GamingMonk Championship Series

KO Fight Nights

North East Championship

PUBG Mobile India Series

Taiwan Excellence Gaming Cup

U Cypher

Now in city

Acer Predator League 2020 will be held at Phoenix Market City today. Over 2,245 players and 449 teams from India competed in this PUBG competition through online and offline qualifiers and 16 finalists made it to the grand finale. The total prize pool is worth Rs 15 lakh.

“With Predator Gaming League, we aim to provide an international stage for budding Indian eSports players. PC gaming is a promising choice among gaming enthusiasts, and this change can be attributed to factors such as affordability, enthusiast millennials, affordable hardware and software, and availability of improved internet bandwidth,” says Chandrahas Panigrahi, CMO and Consumer Business Head, Acer India.

Hall of fame

Tirth Mehta, 24, from Gujarat created history by winning the country’s first-ever esports medal at Asian Games 2018. He won the bronze medal in the collectible card-based video game tournament called Hearthstone. But the medal wasn’t added to India’s tally, for esports was a demonstration event at Asian Games.

Tirth later talked about the need for recognising esports as a significant industry and added that he knew several gamers who weren’t allowed to participate because their parents didn’t consider gaming a serious profession.