Hasta La Motion!

The global video game industry is thriving despite the widespread economic disruption caused by the coronavirus. With the precautionary norm of social distancing reducing consumer and business activity to a minimum, gaming is proving to be an engaging distraction for people at home looking for social interaction. The initial data shows huge growth in playing time and sales since the lockdowns began.

ASUS India business head, Consumer and Gaming PC, System Business Group Arnold Su

Citing the COVID-19 scene ASUS India business head, Consumer and Gaming PC, System Business Group Arnold Su shares with AnimationXpress that, “The upward curve for gaming brought on by the pandemic which has given a significant fillip to what was already a growth industry. Esports is riding a wave of growth like never before. With mainstream sports around the world on pause, people are increasingly swinging to online gaming to fill up the empty hours of the lockdown. Millions of people staying home are looking for interesting activities, and it is a great opportunity for the esports industry to attract viewers. We have been conducting various community engagement activities in the offline space for our communities, however, the present situation allowed us to  take our initiatives offline to online.”

On a global scale, India has just started out and has already shown the potential of becoming a top country in esports. With the emergence of competitive gaming, esports is evolving as a viable career option for virtual athletes and gamers. In the same context Su added that, “esports is the world of competitive and organised video gaming. It brings competitors from across the globe together from various leagues and genres of gaming. Participants compete against each other in the same games that are popular amongst gamers such as Fortnight, Call of Duty, PUBG PC, Counter-Strike, and LOL to name a few. With its massive population of potential gamers, India as an esports market is brimming with opportunities. And we are well-poised to capitalize on the growth in the coming times.”

Considering the recent context staying indoors and avoiding social gatherings is perhaps the safest and easiest way to curtail the spread of the virus. Today, government is steadily trying to bring some degree of normalcy with the resumption of essential services to keep the economy going albeit with strict measures in place. At a time when the world is undergoing so much stress, ASUS is aiming to encourage gamers to utilise their time productively, thus they are enabling them to cope with the change in the usual routine.

A series of tournaments named ROG Showdown had been recently organised by ASUS which inspired a healthy competition among gamers “that will pump them up during the Coronavirus lockdown imposed across many parts of the globe. ROG Showdown has been receiving international applause with the participation of teams like Shattered Lagcy, Red Viperz Gaming, TeO Ignite among others. More than 2500 participants from countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India are giving each other tough competition. On the back of its immense popularity, the tournament ended up hosting the second-largest LOL (league of Legends) Tournament ever played in India. Indian team Filler Cuties won the tournament by defeating Red Viperz Gaming from Bangladesh. The tournament has cumulatively helped to ROG and Intel to connect digitally with an approximate 1 M audience base.”

During the lockdown period, a lot of new players have emerged in gaming and esports and Su believes, “With gaming companies quickly adapting and innovating to the current situation, there has been wider adoption of non-gamers to gaming tournaments. This bears out in the fact that our ROG Showdown witnessed the participation of students, working professionals, and live streamers in massive numbers. We have also received several international entries for the tournament. Various players and teams from countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, and Srilanka also participated in the Showdown.”

Going forward post Covid-19 crisis, Su thinks that “the global gaming industry is expected to register a CAGR of 12per cent from 2020-2025. Increasing internet penetration is driving the demand of the market. The number of people with internet access in emerging markets has grown in the past years. Talking about the future post COVID-19, this period has witnessed a surge in gaming due to the pandemic and there has been a good blend of professional as well a casual gamers and we expect it to increase even further. “

Since esports is an important category for Asus, they will continue with their activities in the online and offline space. As for the current situation, the focus is online however they believe at the end of the situation when everything normalises, they will be conducting a host of offline events as well.

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Netflix has acquired exclusive online-streaming rights to the extended version of Malaysian animation studio Monsta’s animated film BoBoiBoy Movie 2 for South East Asia which will include seven minutes of unreleased footage that was previously unavailable in the original cinema version. 

The 2019 successful film from Monsta was released in 500 cinemas across Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei, and Vietnam, eventually becoming a huge success among young and adult fans alike.

Speaking about the partnership, Netflix Content Acquisition manager, SEA Raphael Phang said, “At Netflix we always believe that great stories can come from anywhere and be enjoyed everywhere, that’s why we’re very excited to work with Monsta to bring BoBoiBoy Movie 2 to our members in South East Asia. With great storytelling, and great quality imagery we can’t wait to see our Netflix members and their whole family join another marvellous adventure of BoBoiBoy and have a great  family viewing experience. It’s the kind of entertainment that brings families together. ” 

The extended version of BoBoiBoy Movie 2 will have a longer runtime of 117 minutes compared to the 110-minute cinematic release, and will stream on Netflix from  1 June 2020 in the original Bahasa Malaysia and English besides simple and traditional Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, and Bahasa Indonesia for a more immersive entertainment experience.

“Throughout its 11 years of establishment, Monsta’s fanbase has gradually extended to many corners across the globe with a large number within the Southeast Asian region in particular. The studio has always thrived to make its animations more widely-accessible to viewers everywhere, regardless of borders. As such, this partnership with Netflix has opened up an invaluable opportunity for Monsta to reach out to more viewers from across the region, allowing them to experience BoBoiBoy Movie 2 in the comfort of their own homes,” added Monsta CEO Nizam Abd Razak.

BoBoiBoy Movie 2 follows the titular character BoBoiBoy, a young elemental superhero and his friends as they try to defeat the evil villain Retak’ka, who is determined to claim his powers to conquer the galaxy. With its exciting blend of action comedy and beautiful visuals, BoBoiBoy Movie 2 captured the hearts of 2.5 millions viewers, collecting a whopping RM30 million in cinemas to place itself as one of the highest-grossing animated films in Malaysian history. 

Known for producing animated projects like BoBoiBoy, Pesanan Papa Pipi, Fly With Yaya, and Mechamato, Monsta hopes that with the release of BoBoiBoy Movie 2 on the streaming platform, new viewers from across South East Asia will finally get to experience the definitive version of the movie and experience its unique and family-friendly take on the superhero genre.

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WinZO, vernacular social gaming platform, backed by Kalaari Capital and Hike has partnered with Titan Capital backed Rein Games and Kalaari backed Deftouch to bring multiplayer real-time pool and multiplayer cricket to the 20MM registered users of Bharat. This comes in shortly after WinZO’s recent announcement of tie-up with Tecent to make PUBG tournaments available in 12 languages. 

In the last few months, WinZO has partnered with 50+ indie-developers and global gaming studios such as Garena (for FreeFire), Nazara Technologies to host their games on its platform and solve for the monetisation for the vernacular audience through its micro-transaction backed model. Being vernacular has helped WinZO spread its reach in the deeper roots of Bharat (Tier 2-5) and garner 10X growth within 12 months – its noteworthy that WinZO is the only vernacular gaming platform in the country with 12 languages made available.

Rein Games is a Noida based startup backed by Dr Ranjan Pai’s MEMG and Titan Capital established in 2018 is founded by four former Octro colleagues. WinZO has partnered with Rein games for the game of Pool, inspired by their product, R8 Ball Pool Pro which is a full-featured real time multiplayer pool game. The complex dynamics and physics used to develop WinZO Pool makes the game extremely realistic and engaging for the users. This game, like all others on WinZO, has features which allow users to invite and play the game with their friends in private mode, making it India’s first ever private real- time pool experience. Within one week of the launch of Pool on its platform, WinZO is observing an average time spent of 50-60 minutes on the game.

Deftouch Interactive Art, on the other hand, is the creator of Cricket Dangal. A Bangalore based venture, is also backed by Kalaari. Deftouch was the official gaming partner of RCB for IPL in 2017 in the prototype stage itself. WinZO has partnered with Deftouch to monetise their biggest IP, All Star Cricket. All Star Cricket is one of the most loved multiplayer cricket games on WinZO with an average time spent of 40-45 minutes, consumed in Hindi by 40 per cent of users. What is unique about this game is that this is multiplayer- now while you bat, your friend would be bowling. 

Through WinZO’s tech infra, these games have been especially optimised to operate in areas where the internet speeds are not reliable and stable. In recent times and during this COVID pandemic, owing to large internet demands, many areas are facing high fluctuations in the internet connectivity and speed. This leads to a suboptimal experience for the users especially gamers. Hence, these games have been developed to circumvent these hindrances and provide the greatest gaming experience to all WinZO users across Bharat.

“Gaming > Music + Movies, globally. We are thrilled to partner with the best teams to disrupt game monetisation and to bring realtime social gaming experience to Bharat – truly the new age way of hanging out together. With WinZO’s Game Developer Console, it’s easier to partner with transparency and co-build the gaming ecosystem with game developers of the country. GDC gives the direct access of WinZO’s 100 per cent paying players to these developers/studios to monetise their games to their full potential on our platform. The entire gaming ecosystem is coming together to solve for the entertainment of Bharat in a sustainable fashion.” says  WinZO co-founder Saumya Singh Rathore. 

Rein Games founder Vaibhav Gupta, said “Our decision to collaborate with WinZO was a very intuitive one as we see a huge potential in this partnership. Not only shall the users of WinZO be able to enjoy the most authentic Pool experience out there, but we will also be able to cater to a larger audience, especially non-metro, which is WinZO’ s stronghold in a sense and provide them with great user experience. What is also incredible about this partnership is the value alignment between the two organisations about customer focus and we are extremely sure that this partnership will create great value for both the organisations” 

WinZO had earmarked $1.5 MM  fund to support content production in the country- as a part of ‘Build for Bharat’ initiative of the venture. Through this fund, WinZO encouraged the developers to create world class games with an assured capital and revenue stream. WinZO clocks 200 million microtransactions per month with more than 1.5 million bank accounts linked to the platform, 20 per cent of these users are making their first-ever media and entertainment payment on the platform.

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The rising demand for video games and increasing awareness of esports contribute to the growth of the esports market. As technology is expanding so the video content, products, virtual reality, and video game competitions are increasing. Video gaming has become a transforming pop culture and redefining the ways that young people consume entertainment.

According to the market research report global esports market is expected to grow from $1.09 billion in 2019 and to $1.11 billion in 2020 at a growth rate of 2.16 per cent. The slow growth in 2020 is mainly due to the economic slowdown across countries owing to the COVID-19 outbreak and the measures to contain it. The market is then expected to grow and reach $2.11 billion in 2023 at CAGR of 23.82 per cent. North America was the largest region in the esports market in 2019. The Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing region in the forecast period.

According to  Newzoo report, the global esports market  sees:

• Global esports revenues will grow to $1.1 billion in 2020, a year-on-year growth of more than 15.7 per cent, up from $950.6 million in 2019.
• In 2020, $822.4 million in revenues—or three-quarters of the total market—will come from media rights and sponsorship.
• Globally, the total esports audience will grow to 495.0 million people in 2020, a year-on-year growth of more than 7 per cent.
• Mobile esports enjoyed a huge spike in the past year, with emerging markets like Southeast Asia, India, and Brazil at the forefront of this growth.

A shift from on-ground esports events to online mode
Globally esports community is adjusting to a new reality brought on by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. On ground gaming tournaments have become big money-spinners in recent past, generating revenue through endorsements, broadcast/streaming, and ticket sales. However, due to the ongoing crisis, the industry will see a bit of a setback. Today facing opponents in an indoor stadium, bustling with fans and monitored by referees is a matter of past. Not only that today esports players are competing against them in an online-only version of esports, where everyone from organisers to teams participate and interact from the comfort of home.

The global esports market is expected to generate $1.05 billion in revenue 2020 now, down from the earlier estimated figure of 1.1 billion, according to a revised April report by Newzoo, an eSports analytics and market research firm.

Because of pandemic everyone is house arrested more and more players are joining the gaming queue and can easily catch up events happening around the world.

All major esports events, including PUBG Mobile World League, Overwatch League, ESL Pro League, have shifted to online-only mode. PC maker Asus’ gaming division, Asus ROG (Republic of Gamers) India is also holding an e-Gaming Tournament called ROG Showdown with Counter Strike: Global Offensive .

Measures taken for online esports events
Unlike an offline event, enforcing fair play can be a big task in online esports tournaments. As players join matches remotely, regulating through physical referees is no longer viable. That is where many tournament organisers are testing various new ways to regulate matches.

Few days back Entity Gaming’s player ETG ASHWATMA’s caught in-game hacking in Free Fire Scrim Wars 2020 tournament after detected by the in-game anti-hack system of Free Fire. In Free Fire line-up he was found guilty of hacking in the Free Fire Scrim Wars 2020 tournament . Reportedly, he was the substitute in the team. Not only him, but ZACK TSG from TSG Army was also accused of cheating in the tournament. Garena Free Fire took strict action against both the team players and banned them for one year. Also, both teams were disqualified from the Free Fire Scrim Wars with all Prize Money taken away from them and awarded to the next best team.

To curb such kind of behaviour in tournaments, organisers of the League of Legends European Championship are also trying out screen recording, voice monitoring and remote control over the gamer’s computer.

Riot Games has even developed a new anti-cheat engine for Valorant, a popular new multi-player game. Using server authority, the gaming company will prevent players from using speed hacks (which allows players to move faster than others) or wallhacks (when players can see opponents through walls). Very soon, it will be able to tackle hacks such as aim locks and trigger bots too.  And for sure other game companies are also trying out procedures to curb illegitimacy in tournaments.

Rush of investments and partnerships

Esports companies  and brands are investing and partnering in innovative new esports platform for increasing their revenue and expanding their consumer base and also for gaining a competitive edge over their rivals. Here are few instances, in 2019, in Africa, NickX, an esports platform, launched by Viacom provides children with a tournament platform, using Nickelodeon gaming content. Also for instance, in 2019, IKON, a USA-based gaming platform company launched a new platform that allows players to challenge fans and friends in games, such as League of Legends and PUBG. Also for instance, in 2019, Mobile Premier League (MPL), an India-based mobile esports platform company launched its mobile esports platform in Indonesia.  In May 2020 Rooter, Paytm and Paytm First Games formed a partnership for content across cricket, fantasy sports, gaming and esports. In April Garena partners with Paytm First Games to host ‘Free Fire’ esports tournament. Also, they aimed to have accelerated growth with esports amid the lockdown, and have partnered with Esports Players League.

In March  Berlin-based VERITAS Entertainment announced its gaming centre, dubbed LVL, after raising $10 million in funding. Gaming startup Rally Cry raised $1.2 million in seed funding that includes investments from founders of Blizzard Entertainment, Twitch, and Riot Games. Mobile-centric esports organisation Tribe Gaming closed its seed funding round, raising over $1 million. Boston Celtics player Gordon Hayward was part of the round, alongside WWE pro wrestler Claudio “Cesaro” Castagnoli. They will serve as strategic advisors to the organisation along with others who contributed. Artificial intelligence startup Anybrain received over $1 million investment from Trust Esport. Anybrain.gg is an artificial intelligence and data processing firm that is looking to protect the security and integrity of online gaming and esports. Simplicity Esports received $500,000 investment from Triton Funds.

Raven.GG (formerly Neen), which owns the esports apparel brand Raven, announced that it has secured a $1.4M USD seed investment. The financing round, which was raised with a US-based private equity fund, will be used to further develop the company’s service offering across product design, manufacturing, marketing, and logistic. Even today Global esports organization T1 Entertainment & Sports has announced an investment in esports analytics startup Mobalytics. Financial terms were not disclosed. In addition to building a new training program for VALORANT, Mobalytics provides analytics and tools for League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, and Legends of Runeterra (all Riot Games titles). The company has previously partnered with various League of Legends esports teams such as Golden Guardians as a data partner.

Where are we?
The Indian market has turned into a big potential opportunity for esports startups thanks to the rise of mobile gaming.With the lockdown, the likes of WinZO, Ewar Games, Gamerji and others have seen around 2X-3X growth in its user base. Paytm First Games’ first esports tournament in April 2020 with Clash Royale saw over 12K registrations and around 70K viewers. In April Paytm First Games launches India’s first free to play Ludo tournaments with over Rs. 1 Lakh prize money daily. In addition to that WinZO has entered into a partnership with Tencent Games India to bring PUBG MOBILE tournaments on the platform. WinZO will be now conducting PUBG MOBILE’s free to enter esports tournaments with prizes over Rs.1 crore per month. Apart from that lot of charity tournaments have been conducted by brands, esports organisation to raise funds for COVID-19 relief  and with this many new esports players are coming in recognition new esports teams  are also forming.

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