India's game for online sports

MUMBAI: Football will be seeing competition for young attention this weekend. From Friday, June 30, to July 2, the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) will click off on a scale like never before.

Over 800 national champions, from the participating 53 countries will be engaged in a cyber war, comprising seven games, with an estimated 40,000 spectators at the Bercy Stadium in Paris. The prize money: $4,00,000.

Even though it is the fourth edition of the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC) worldwide, this is the first time that Indians are participating in the tournament. “I think that the video game industry is not so developed in India like in other countries.

This is the beginning in India, but for sure you are going very fast. The first year was an incredible year,” said Renaud de La Baume,chairman of the supervisory board of Games-Services.

The Indian leg of the tournament was organised by the Indiatimes Gaming Division headed by Vikram Khanna. He defined the objective of the event when he said, “We were investing in the development of an eco-system for the gaming industry to survive.”

The spokesperson for sponsor Intel, Sandeep Aurora put it differently, “The idea was to educate gamers about our technology and build a rapport.”

Prasad Phadke, the spokesperson for nVidia, the worldwide sponsor of the ESWC said, “Our goal is to create a community and to persuade the market.

This is not a market with an immediate return on investment.” Mr Prasad compared the Indian market to a field that needed attention from a farmer.

“We plan on cultivating the market over the next couple of years,” he added. nVidia are doing exactly that. They gave out a graphic card worth Rs 6,000 to each of the 162 semifinalists.

The infantile Indian market produced 10 finalists that emerged at Delhi, out of the 162 semi-finalists who had been selected after preliminary rounds held in nine cities. “There were approximately 4,000 paid-entrants participating from all over India,” Mr Khanna pointed out.

The host of the preliminary rounds in Hyderabad was Diginet Digital Experience Zone, run by KG Krishna. He quoted Diginet’s market research saying that the current revenue earned by existing gaming parlours in India lies between Rs 100 to Rs 150 crore. “We plan on opening 24 gaming parlours around the country,” he stated.

Mr Phadke admitted that it was difficult to estimate the size of the Indian market. However, he said that nVidia estimated that nearly 50% of the population was in the age group of 18-25. Quoting idc.com, he said that since PC sales are approximately 4.5m a year, the scope is huge.