Last month, Kiren Rijiju, minister of youth affairs and sports, while responding to a question in the Lok Sabha had recognised the importance of esports as an “emerging platform for the youth population in the country”.
Now, the industry players are joining hands to figure out the way forward for esports to become an industry in India.
“The need of the hour is for esports to carve out a clearer identity for itself in the true sense of developing an ecosystem structured for a skill-based sport,” said Rajan Navani, managing director, JetSynthesys. “The most effective way to achieve this goal is for all stakeholders to come together and structure a pathway to holistically develop the Indian esports ecosystem.”
Pune-based JetSynthesys is an early investor in India’s leading esports company Nodwin Gaming, which recently received Rs 164 crore funding from Krafton, South Korea’s leading video game holding company and owner of the popular game ‘PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ (PUBG).
In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ address in August last year, had said that the Indian gaming sector has the potential to create new jobs and companies.
Industry experts feel that 2021 is poised to be the year that esports will dominate Indian gaming.
Harsh Jain, co-founder and CEO of Dream Sports, which owns fantasy sports platform Dream11, said that the company is investing heavily in esports, which can win India gold medals at global sporting events.
“Esports creates sports engagement and offers a format where India can be a market leader globally. Dream11 has contributed heavily to the Indian digital sports ecosystem and helped 10 crore users to actively engage much more with the sports they love. Esports can have a similar growth trajectory in India and create more digital sports engagement among the youth of India,” Jain said.
Once this sector’s potential is unlocked, it could establish India’s leadership in the global forum, said Sai Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of Mobile Premier League (
).
“Without a doubt, India is embracing the spirit of an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ in the domain of esports as well. We have always been a big resource pool for IT development. With more technology and access to the internet, we are ready to make the plunge from being just a market for consumers to becoming a flourishing market for creators in gaming as well,” Srinivas said.
According to him, the potential for the industry as a whole demands a collective approach and for this to happen, the players need to create a framework to support indigenous publishers, creating ‘Made in India’ games for the world.
While the sector has so far seen vast potential in pockets, experts feel now it has serious long-term members of the ecosystem merging their views.
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