India Today Gaming has rose the bars of Indian esports by successfully hosting a major Free Fire tournament called Esports Premier League. This tournament enjoyed success on multiple fronts and one of the key factors affecting its success is large marketing and strong support. Sports Ministers from several states endorsed this event and Mr. Vishwalok Nath explained how they brought such influential personalities onboard to support an esports event.
India is still in the its preliminary stages of growth for esports industry. The gaming is still not widespread even though its is quite popular. Many times, the concept is misunderstood by many as a form of gambling and hence, India has a slight stigma related to gaming industry.
Due to such diversified issues, it must have been a difficult task to bring government officials onboard to support an esports event and Mr. Nath explained the same on Talkesport Interact. In this session, Mr. Nath said that many ministers already knew about the esports industry and offered a hand to support this event but the organizers struggled to bring some of them onboard.
Some ministers mistook gaming or esports as gambling and real money games where people are betting on the performance of other players. Mr. Nath went on to explain that they went in depth to explain the officials that both concepts are different and how esports industry is growing around the world.
They made their case based on some facts like esports has secured a place in Asian Games and might be added to Olympics as well in the future. This paved a path a officials including themselves in ESPL and attending several events like team announcements and other things.
Although India has not officially recognized esports yet, efforts by organizers like India Today Gaming is clearly making some impact towards achieving that goal.