When one looks back at 2016, many may associate it with Trump winning the US Presidential elections or the year demonetisation occurred. But, unbeknownst to many, 2016 also marked the year that the Indian eSports scene finally emerged from its shell.
After receiving a massive boost back in 2011, competitive gaming has grown from strength to strength and is now a whopping $892 million market globally. While the world was going gaga over this phenomenon, India meanwhile, remained impassable towards it for a very long time (read years). However, with a ton of tournaments taking place and more than Rs 75 lakh in prize money, 2016 definitely proved to be a starkly different year for the Indian gaming community.
2016 at a glance
The year started of sluggishly but as it progressed, the intensity and frequency of gaming tournaments increased manifold. National DOTA 2 Championship was one of the first pan-Indian tournaments to take place. Promoted by a handful of DOTA 2 enthusiasts, the event had a nominal prize-pool of Rs 15,000. However, this small sum did not deter participation as over 100 teams enrolled for this online event held in March. Fast forward a month, Mag Gaming, an Indian eSports news portal announced its 2 day LAN event,’Havoked’, which focused on DOTA 2 and Hearthstone games and contained a prize-pool of Rs 60,000. Raising quite a many eyebrows, this was one of the many examples of the fact that the casual interest in gaming our country had, was now manifesting into a serious business.
SuperNOVA , a massive E-sport event organised by NOVAPlay, an Indian gaming portal and community page. Online qualifiers were conducted over weeks in order to decide which team would make it for the July finale held at Bangalore.
Indian eSports Championship(IeSC) was another competition, boasting a prize-pool worth Rs 20 Lakh. This tournament featured three games, namely DOTA 2, CS:GO and FIFA 16. Events such as SuperNOVA prove that the tournament formats have evolved over time. Nowadays, gaming tournaments do not run for only a day or two but take place over weeks. This not only helps improve the gaming experience but also the quality of play.
Going International
Though there were many home grown events, a lot of foreign brands also took note of
India’s potential. The most prominent ones being ESL and PepsiCo. For those who don’t know, ESL(Electronic Sports League) is a leading organiser of top-class eSports events across the globe. It partnered up with NODWIN Gaming, India’s largest gaming solutions company and hosted the ESL India Premiership. This was both the longest as well as the largest event to take place.
Season one of ESL India stretched for over almost 9 months and was organised at various cities, with multiple qualifying stages. The tournament contained a gargantuan cumulative prize-pool of Rs 42 Lakh
Never before had the Indian gaming fraternity thought that this would be happening in their very own backyards. Over 10,000 gamers participated in a variety of games which included Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), DOTA 2 and Clash Royale. A few international teams also participated in this event, with Risky Gaming from UAE and The Council from Bangladesh being the most prominent ones. Risky Gaming took home the ESL India Premiership 2016 CS:Go Masters Trophy, Respect, the prize money and a crazy fan followed after a God-like finale. The Council’s dream of leaving a mark in the Indian Dota-2 scene was sabotaged by some excellent home-bred teams(Invisible Wings and Beyond Infinity), it did not deter them from vowing to come back and claim what could have been theirs in the next season of ESL India Premiership.
Another example of how international bodies are looking at India as a tournament destination was The Taiwan Excellence which was sponsored and backed by the Taiwanese government. Itself. About 400 teams participated in this multi-city DOTA 2 tournament and it carried a prize-pool of Rs 5 Lakh.
The year also witnessed quite a few Indian teams venturing out from the country’s borders and participating in international events. Entity Esports, arguably the best DOTA 2 team in India went on to participate in two International tournaments – The Pro DOTA Cup, the ROG Masters and the Boston Majors Open Qualifiers. They played against some of the best international teams including Execration, Fnatic and Team Faceless. Dhruvin Kalawadya and Anbarasu Sujay represented India at the prestigious Electronic Sports World Cup in Paris for Clash Royale and FIFA games respectively. In the CS:GO category of this tournament, India was represented by Team Overcome.
Although they couldn’t fetch the laurels they intended to get back home with in the first place, it did indeed fan the flame in the gaming fraternity’s heart that what once was a just a dream, dreamt in the dingy dark rooms of Indian gaming cafes, is now a reality they have to rub shoulders with.
Just like the global eSports scene, India too witnessed it’s fair share of eyebrow raising news; for instance Entity Esports CS:GO squad could not attend the ROG Masters in Malaysia due to passport issues.
Raunak “Crowley” Sen, currently ranking third in India’s pro Dota 2 roster according to AFK Gaming, had an unfortunate and ill-timed exit from Entity Esports.
Prashant “Aequitas” Prabhakar(CEO, SoStronk) announced his retirement from the active CS:GO casting roster.
It’s not just eSports that hogging all the limelight in the country. Cosplay as a sub-culture saw an enormous growth, with two winners from ESL India Premiership going to an all expense paid visit to ESL One Genting, Malaysia. Participation by these Cosplayers is also a rising figure every year at Pop-Culture tournaments across the country.
New Age Gaming
PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew Arena was a one-of-its-kind event. Instead of a fixed venue, this tournament was designed as a roadshow of sorts. A special gaming truck fitted with Xbox consoles was created for this purpose. July onwards this vehicle would go on to travel for the next nine weeks across 50 cities in North India meeting gamers along the way.
The idea was that if you couldn’t come over to the venue, we’ll bring it over. Just like we used to lug our 8-bit consoles to our friend’s homes back in the day.
The top participants at the event later arrived to play the finale at Kingdom of Dreams, Gurugram in September.
What’s in store for 2017?
“Even though India got a late start, 2016 has proved to be a game changer. With the increase in quantity as well as quality of tournaments this year, it has indeed laid down a strong foundation for Indian eSports. It can only get better from here!,” says Akshat Rathee, who heads NODWIN Gaming. He firmly believes that although the advantage may lie with the international gaming scene right now, it’s even better for the Indian eSports circuit as they have the opportunity to learn and not make the same mistakes like their international brethren, considering there is a lot of hard work going behind in putting up a show like no other.
Also now we don’t literally have to beg-borrow-steal for steam wallets. In a major development, NovaPlay got integrated into the Steam transaction window of India. Imagine having to pay cash on delivery for the games you purchase online. Now imagine the looks of glee in every gamer child of tomorrow’s faces.
“2016 has been a landmark year for Indian eSports, especially for CS:GO a lot of major events such as ESL, SuperNOVA and IeSC. Even though 2017 may be better, 2016 will be remembered as the stepping stone.” Bhavin aka HellrangeR, captain Dare2Dream.
We may have lost Harambe, Bowie, Prince, Carrie Fisher. But the greatest thing all of these names taught us reflect well for the coming gaming year. Hope.
(These are purely personal views of Nodwin Gaming’s Kevin Fernandes and AnimationXpress.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views)