Technological advancement has made sports reach its peak. It has revolutionized the way of sporting and after the introduction of e-sports, the affection for sports among the peoples, especially the youngsters. The e-sport industry has made a remarkable enhancement in past few years and is increasingly progressing at the time.
“E-sports is a growing cultural phenomenon expected to reach about 500 million fans worldwide by 2020. Leading up to PyeongChang 2018, Intel’s goal is to share the thrilling e-sport experience with sports fans around the world,” said Gregory Bryant, Senior Vice-President and General Manager of the Client Computing Group at Intel Corporation in a statement. “Intel has pushed the boundaries of e-sports for more than 15 years, and we’re committed to growing e-sport at every global sporting stage.”
Closer home, in India, multiple companies such as Nazara technologies, JetSysnthesys and NODWIN are trying to popularise e-sports in the country, where internet and mobile users are rapidly rising. MOBA (Massive Online Battle Arena) games such as Dota2 and League of Legends have been most successful in popularising e-sports, though tournaments and leagues. Games such as Counter-Strike continue to draw millions of viewers to watch the best e-sports athletes compete against each other.
The e-sports market is growing at a fast pace as it becomes more and more popular around the world. The Indian e-sports audience is small, with an estimated two million enthusiasts and two million ‘occasional viewers’ but is expected to grow more than fivefold by 2021. ESL, originally Electronic Sports League, is an e-sports company which organizes competitions worldwide. ESL is the world's largest e-sports company and the oldest professional e-sports organization that is still operational. Other popular e-sport companies in India are Nazara Technologies, JetSynthesys, and NODWIN. These companies organize events basically on mobile and computer platforms.
In February 2017, Nazara technologies a leading mobile game publishing company announced that it plans to invest $20 million (approximately 136 crores) to develop the Indian e-sports ecosystem over the next five years. [G7] Nazara's existing investments in mobile gaming companies like Next Wave Multi-Media, Mastermind Sports, Moong Labs[G8] and Hala play are in line with building a network of synergistic companies for operations in India and other emerging markets across the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia.
JetSysnthesys, a leading digital entertainment, and gaming company, as has been looking to make e- sports mainstream in India. The mobile e-sports platform for Sachin Saga witnessed over twenty thousand mobile gamers compete against the best across India to qualify for the real-life tournament at the show and win cash prizes worth one lakh, in-game gold coins, and other prizes. The JetSysnthesys e-sports arena also witnessed real-life competitions played by players across the top mobile games in the country like Ludo King, Asphalt 8 Airborne and Doodle Army 2 with qualifiers and finals for each game.
NODWIN, a 50:50 venture between Akshat Rathee, Gautam Virk and JetSysnthesys Pvt. Ltd., claims to have pioneered e-sports in India with established relationships with global gaming publishers and platforms including market leaders such as ESL (Turtle Entertainment, GMBH) and Valve Corporation.
Founded in 2012, the platform currently hosts e-sports tournament across India, has an e-sports center to keep Indian audiences up to date about the news. NODWIN has the exclusive long-term India rights for global partners such as ESL, ESWC among others. NODWIN hosts and manages IP-based gaming events such as the ESL India Premiership, KO Fight Nights, The North East Championship, The Intel Extreme Masters qualifiers for India, The Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) India Qualifiers, etc.
Presently, many people do not take up e-sports as a career, major reasons behind it being, especially in India, are society norms and proper knowledge about e-sports. Although after the Digitization on India from the previous year there has immense growth in this field and is likely to stay persistent in upcoming days.
