Written by- Ananya Julka
This is the third episode of our Sports series-Hustle,Hit and Never Quit!
The picture shown below is not a scene from a fantasy movie. Nor is this dragon real. The picture is from the opening ceremony of the League of Legends 2017, finale conducted in Beijing. The event was attended by over 40,000 people.
The next
picture is from the finale of Counterstrike, Intel Extreme Masters,2017 held in
Poland. This event was attended by a whopping 173,000 people.
The famous game,
PUBG, after being banned in India sparked a lot of agitation from many
streamers and gamers alike. YouTube streams on PUBG ban and its implications
were trending online.
Who knew that
so many people would become so passionate about something like video games?
Seems strange to many of us. But e-sports, or Electronic Sports is a raging phenomenon
of our day and age. Starting from small subcultures in some parts of the world,
now, e-sports has billions of fans globally.
Games like
PUBG, Counterstrike, League of Legends and Call of Duty are a few examples of
this genre.
These can be
largely categorised into the following-
1. 1. First Person Shooters
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| First Person Shooter Games |
2. 2. Real Time Strategy
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| Star Craft AI 2 is an example of Real Time Strategy Game |
3. 3. Multi Online Battle Arena
4. 4.Battle Royale
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| PUBG comes under Battle Royale |
Some games
cannot be included in just one category and have the characteristics of all
these types.
E-Sports and Other Games, what is the difference?
But where
does e-sports fit into the world of games? For one, it doesn’t involve any
physical activity and e-sports players aren’t exactly considered “athletic”.
The general perception being that video gamers are “nerds” or “geeks”. Also, these
games are violent and are therefore, not considered “appropriate” for television.
These are the arguments given by people who oppose the entry of e-sports into
the Olympics.
To counter these arguments, those in e-sports state that physical activity isn’t necessarily a criterion for qualifying as a sport, because if a fighting video game isn’t a sport, then racing is just driving cars and chess is just a board game. The latter two and other games like poker are all broadcasted on sports channels worldwide.
To further
say in the support of incorporating e-sports in the Olympics, we can state that
with its inclusion, viewership of young people (below the age of 25 primarily) will
increase and moreover, Olympics has been losing viewership over the years with
the average age of a viewer being around 27 years old. Marketers can gain a lot
by tapping the potential of its new viewer base interested in video gaming.
But e-sports and other conventional games have a remarkable difference. That is, the rules aren’t fixed! Imagine that within a short span of time, the stump size of the wicket changes, or the field boundaries change and the size of the ball or the bat shirks to half. Impossible to imagine in cricket, right? But all the rules of PUBG or Counterstrike can be changed with just a click. This is something called “buffing” and “nerfing”. In case of PUBG, the size of bullets and the components of a bag pack can be changed via updates. These changes are introduced in a span of time as short as 2 weeks.
So, for a
gamer, the key strategy to last in a game is constantly adapting to new
changes. The rule of constant change in e-sports is what keeps it relevant to
its consumers. These updates are introduced by the designer of the game after
looking at data (like win rate) and skill of the players.
E-Sports
became especially relevant during this pandemic when all sports leagues like
IPL, NBA or the Olympics were postponed. People didn’t have a sport to watch as
a means of escape, hence, many of them resorted to playing and watching e-sports.
E-sports in
India-
According to a Forbes
India report in 2018, India ranks 16th in e-sports, with a total revenue of $1.17
billion (8,000 crore approx.).
In 2010, India had only 25
game developers and that number today has swollen up to 250 with more joining
this list every year.
E-Sports was popularized in
India after the advent of lower internet charges and 4G network. Youngsters
from every nook and corner of the country could now play on their mobile phones.
Connectivity is quintessential to growth of the gaming industry and higher
internet speed and cheaper data plans can ensure that everyone gets a piece of
this $1B pie.
As of now, India has a lot of potential in this area but the infrastructure isn’t mature enough for investment by major stakeholders. On a global scale, India has just started out in building its infrastructure with domestic startup’s such as Nazara, JetSynthesys and NODWIN Gaming. The fanbase in India is also steadily increasing. Much of this fanbase gets inspired by video game streamers who are far more approachable and relatable than players in other games.
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| Famous PUBG streamer Mortal |
Some inspiration can also be
drawn from 24-year old Tirth Mehta from Gujarat, who created history by winning
the country’s first-ever eSports medal at Asian Games 2018, coming third and
winning bronze in the collectable card-based video game tournament called
Hearthstone.
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| Tirth Mehta |
In conclusion, e-sports is a
product of this digital world that has the potential to be as big as
conventional sports like Cricket and Football. The future seems very bright for
this field and India can be a world champion in e-sports with appropriate infrastructure
and training. E-sports needs to be adopted by major broadcasters and needs to
get more stakeholders in order for it to truly become “mainstream”.
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