If you ever thought of disowning your friends on Facebook, fed up after never-ending Candy Crush or Angry bird invites, it’s definitely time for you to rethink. That may be the first step towards discovering the latent ‘sports-star’ in you.
Competitive gaming or online gaming tournaments often termed as eSports is no longer a western concept. India has now jumped on that bandwagon.
Sixteen-year-old Simar is just back from a boot camp where schedule is God and punctuality divine. For the last two weeks he played video games day in and day out. All play does make a sharp gamer!
Simar is a part of a five-member professional Indian eSports team called ‘Brutality’, which has won several national and international tournaments.
Known as ‘Psy’ in the gaming world, Simar explains his new found identity,“When you enter into a game the first thing you do is register as a player. Nobody ever enters the real name. It’s a gaming tradition to adopt a pseudonym. Its my style quoteint.”
Simar says he was “always exceptional at computer games” but when he got picked up by Team Brutality, he literally thought of making a career out of it.
Simar ‘Psy’ Sethi extreme right in the picture, with Team Brutality
(Photo: Team Brutality)
The New Club Culture
The 2015 Indian gaming market review says that 40 to 50 million Indians play eGames on their smartphones and the older ‘feature’ phones. High priced gaming consoles are also being substituted by well-equipped gaming cafes in tier-1 and tier 2 cities.
Gaming is the new club culture!
Life in the times of Gaming
(Photo: Gaming Gif)
Inside a Gaming Cafe
State-of-the-art gaming consoles, animated games and ergonomic furniture designed to hold up your back for hours together, welcome to the new-age gaming parlours, second home to gaming enthusiasts in India.
Fifteen-year-old Keshav Kulshreatha from Bangalore spells out the chaos, “My mom gets agitated seeing me shout and scream at the PC console. It took her time to understand it was a multiplayer game played online. You don’t see your rivals. They don’t see you.”
Keshav aspires to play for an Indian eSport team. He is already investing in that future.
“On weekends, I start playing at 10 in the morning, take a lunchbreak around 3 pm, and then the game goes on till almost 10 in the evening. I watch international players on YouTube to learn new strategies. There are very few e-sport teams in India. Until I get into a really good team; it will be very difficult,” says Keshav.
Making of a Legend
Gaming as a sport might still be young in India, but it already has its fair share of icons.
28-year-old Santanu Basu of Kolkata, made headlines in 2014 after he secured a third position in the grand finals of an international eSport tournament in China.
Since he was 7 years old, acute pancreatitis kept Basu confined to his room. He took refuge in video games, playing through the night, keeping his parents in the dark.
In 2007 Basu’s passion took him to Mumbai. “I was broke and travelled without ticket in an unreserved compartment. In Mumbai, I slept on the pavement and ate what my fellow gamers bought for me out of kindness. Finally, I stood third in the World Cyber Games Competition. Things changed overnight. A company called games2win offered me a job in game promotions and paid for my flight back home,” says Basu, who has represented India in various championships and Asian games since then.
(Photo: Gaming Gif)
A Career in Gaming
Games are the among the most downloaded apps in India as gaming is set to become an Rs 4,580-billion industry by 2019, according to a KPMG report. Experts believe that this is a great change for casual gamers to turn into sports stars.
Your career in gaming starts when you are still in your teens, when reflexes are the most sharp. I have seen players peaking between 18 to 25. With consistent efforts you can hold on till 28 maybe. But what do you do after that? You then move on and get into the alternate gaming careers.Ankith ‘Venom’ Panth, Founder & Captain, Team Brutality
A career in gaming can range from being a player, to being a shout caster/commentator, a team manager, a coach, a gaming agency or, a game developer.
With great internet speed and a robust gaming culture, Bangalore and Mumbai are clearly the gaming hubs of India.
“We held the first Video Game Fest here in 2014, response was overwhelming. Three thousand professional gamers enrolled. Hundreds of casual gamers walked in. In 2015, close to 8000 gamers enrolled with us and more than 5000 enthusiasts walked in,” says Trupti Latur co-founder of Dumadu Games a game development company.
(Photo: iStockphoto/treated by The Quint)
Meanwhile, parents in India, who have struggled their way out of the engineering and medical mindset, to get used to cricket and tennis academies, are now learning to welcome this new baby on the board.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)