Gamerji is an indigenous, online esports tournament platform which conducts virtual tournaments for different popular esports titles like PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty Mobile and Clash Royale. The whole phenomenon came into existence from the gap that the founders identified in the market that most of the esports tournaments conducted
globally are mainly focused on the pro-level gamers.
Founded by Soham Thacker and Varun Gajjar, the platform raised a funding of of $400K from La Gajjar Group, an investment group based in Ahmedabad.
While plans of myriad industries have been deterred owing to the lockdown, online gaming has been booming since people are in their houses. The story of Gamerji is no different.
Says Thacker, “User flow and tournament joinings have increased since last one week and specially since the last couple of days as the offices, schools and public places are closed. People are looking for online modes of entertainment and playing video games is certainly one of them.”
Supporting this fact is the recent report by BARC and Nielsen.
Nationwide shutdown has led to Indians spending more time on their mobile devices as per the recent data released by viewership measurement BARC India and global measurement data analytics company Nielson.
Week one itself has seen the figures shoot up with time spent on gaming clocking 11 per cent to 169 minutes per user as per the report that was released over video conferencing by Sunil Lulla, CEO, BARC India, and Dolly Jha, country leader, Nielsen Global Media, South Asia recently. Overall, the time spent on smartphones per user has gone up by 6.2 per cent, a jump of 1.5 hours.
“We (on Gamerji) gain an average of 43k new users a month. In the last 14 days we have had more than 72k new signups. We have increased more than 10 tournaments everyday and even our revenue has grown by 57 per cent.”
Amidst high demand, the platform has also upped the ante by hosting free solo tournaments everyday for gamers to participate and win cash prizes. It seems to be an effort by the platform to increase user engagement and bring more offerings to its consumers at this time of lockdown. Instead of developing new features, the team is focusing on hosting a higher number of tournaments per day.
Concludes Thacker, “Gamerji staff is currently working from home and coordinating using technology. Along with this, all the staff members have been given necessary equipment such as masks, gloves and sanitizers to keep themselves safe during these tough times.”
According to the aforementioned report, smartphone users are spending more time on OTT, social networking and gaming. While 15-24 years and 25-34 year age group users have increased their screen time by 7 per cent and 3 per cent, it’s the 35-44 year age group, who have started spending 11 per cent more time on their mobile screens.
