India is constantly rising as a market for online gaming as people are currently glued to their phones. Due to this craze, Garena, an online games developer and publisher, has launched Free Fire, a mobile battle royale game to tap the market in 2009, Garena has to its name various other games like Arena of Valor, Call of Duty: Mobile Garena, FIFA Online 3, League of Legends, and Heroes of Newerth. However, Garena is betting big on Free Fire in India.
Free Fire is apparently the first mobile battle royale game developed exclusively for the mobile gamer. While India has already established itself as a mobile-first economy, its gaming sector is also gaining traction.
To encourage more gamers in India, Garena recently hosted a tournament in New Delhi which attracted participation from over 1,00,000 gamers in terms of registrations. Around 5,000 teams, comprising around 20,000 participants, qualified for the initial playoffs while 12 teams, comprising four members each, qualified for the finals. The total prize pool of Rs 35 lakh was split amid the top ten teams.
Tournaments like these have helped Garena garner more than 450 million registered users for Free Fire. In addition, Free Fire has witnessed more than 50 million peak daily active users from over 130 markets worldwide in Q2 2019.
As per few reports, India has reached 530 million smartphones and is predicted to touch 925 million by 2023. And this is what gaming companies – both local and global – are looking to capitalise. As a spokesperson was quoted saying, “India is one of the fastest-growing esports communities worldwide, said a Garena spokesperson.
Garena’s next global event is the Free Fire World Series, to be held in Brazil on 16 November. India will be represented by Team Nawabzade and this will not be the first time an Indian team gets a chance to participate in Free Fire events on a global stage. The last such event was Free Fire Streamer Showdown, which was held in Bangkok on 1 September. Team Bengal Tiger represented India at the event.