2017 looks to be promising for the Indian eSports scenario. We recently saw one of India’s biggest names in game publishing delve into the eSports sector, as Nazara Games announced their very own eSports league. However, before that, another league of a large scale was announced by USports. Titled ‘UCypher’, the league is the brain child of businessman, Ronnie Screwvala and promises the Indian players with a formidable platform to showcase their talent.
Now, the first set of operational details has been revealed by the company in a meet with the players where USports, CEO, Supratik Sen and Screwvala addressed the gathering.
The tournament is set to kick off next month, which is April. As revealed earlier, the event will have two seasons per year, at least for the initial years. Around 66 gamers from around the country have been shortlisted for the tournament which will sport a prize pool of Rs 50 lakh.
The organisers, USports, have tied up with Valve to use their hugely popular eSports-friendly games, CS:GO and Dota 2 for their tournament, which will go on for 37 days.
Also, for the first time, eSports would be a daily affair on one of India’s major youth-centric channels, MTV India. The league will be broadcast on the channel and simultaneously will also be broadcast on more conventional mediums like YouTube, YouTube Gaming and twitch.tv.
Each game will have six teams and the captains will be chosen by the organisation and then they would pick their teammates. However, the players can play for their respective teams together in other tournaments.
There was also a buzz about some console and/or mobile games being a part of the tournament, however nothing has been disclosed yet.