New Delhi: For Adi Sawant, aka Dynamo, India’s PUBG ban came as a bolt from the blue. The gaming influencer’s viewership count fell overnight—from 70,000 to barely thousands.
“India only recently started evolving in the esports arena, and Indian players had started participating in international tournaments,” Sawant told ET. “The PUBG ban was a shocker for me and millions of other content creators who had to explore other games.”
But the game is set to turn in gamers’ favour once again.
South Korean creator Krafton Inc. has announced the launch of Battlegrounds Mobile India, the local version of PUBG Mobile India. Pre-registrations are now open. Chinese internet major Tencent Holdings Ltd. isn’t involved in the development of this version of the game, Krafton has said.
Dynamo’s streams have already started touching 55,000 views and 130,000 likes.
“There is a renewed interest among brands for the game and as players’ stats keep going up, the gaming industry is going to witness some top brand endorsements coming in very soon,” Sawant said.
Bullish on gaming
According to experts, the launch of Battlegrounds Mobile India is expected to not only boost India’s online gaming ecosystem, but also revive the fortunes of millions of gamers who built successful careers on top of it.
Piyush Kumar, founder and chief executive of game-streaming platform Rooter, expects Battlegrounds Mobile India to garner close to 100 million downloads within the first six months of launch, adding to the existing player base of 360 million.
Advertisers too are keenly watching this segment. Apart from gaming-related companies, such as Disney, Marvel and Republic of Gamers, non-endemic sponsors like Flipkart, Procter & Gamble (P&>), Nvidia, Zotac, Gigabyte, Red Bull and Paytm have started showing interest in the space, giving a major boost to players’ earnings.
Most brands have started investing in influencers as the pandemic have reduced their ability to advertise “the traditional way”, said Trinity Gaming, a talent management firm that handles a portfolio of India’s top 200 gamers.
“Just like real sports, digital gaming — or any other form of content creation — is heavily dependent on ad revenues. In fact, a game stream of 4-5 hours gets larger engagement than an Instagram reel of less than a minute,” said Trinity CEO Abhishek Aggarwal. “Brands are slowly recognising this potential and allocating their marketing budgets to gaming.”
The creator economy
Today, mid-level creators with 50,000-150,000 subscribers or followers, can earn up to Rs 25k-50k per month from early brand collaborations. Influencers with 10 million to 20 million subscribers can learn Rs 20-30 lakh per month. This includes consolidated earnings from ad revenue, brand sponsorships, tournament prizes, Youtube/Instagram earnings and contributions by viewers.
The popularity of PUBG Mobile coupled with the onset of the pandemic actually gave birth to India’s gaming sector. According to Sensor Tower data, the first-person shooter game was downloaded 185 million times—about a fourth of global downloads—in India and garnered over $41 million in player spending.
Competition awaits
To be sure, the second coming of PUBG Mobile may face competition from the likes of Garena’s Free Fire, Activision’s Call of Duty and Riot Games’ Valorant.
“The ban of PUBG had created a sudden void for close to 15-20 days for the entire gaming ecosystem,” said Rooter’s Kumar. “But the likes of Garena have done a great job in filling that void and keeping the momentum going…”
