India’s Esports Market Set for Explosive Growth: Ampverse and DMI Finance Place Their Bets
- What is the main objective of this joint venture between Ampverse and DMI Finance in India? Can you elaborate how does the partnership plan to shake up the esports industry in India?
Those familiar with college sports in traditional sports like Football or basketball in the US or Cricket in India will know just how important a role they play in developing the wider ecosystem, including being powerful feeders at a professional level. Part of our long term investment plan with COLLEGE RIVALS is to help develop that ecosystem for Indian esports so we can give rising talent a platform to shine. This will initially be at the collegiate level, however, our intent beyond that is to then give the very best esports talent a platform to ultimately launch their professional career. This is where we intend to leverage the experience we have nurturing developing esports talent and giving them the tools to excel at the highest possible level as we’ve done with successful teams across Southeast Asia. This includes 5 times Championship winning Bacon Time who benefited from the youth development programme that we implemented.
The company intends to bring best-in-class original content and event activations to the market with the intention to complement and enhance the ecosystem that existing players have started to develop. This includes taking some of our learnings from operating successful esports teams and other IP’s across Southeast Asia.
- What expertise and resources do Ampverse and DMI Finance bring to the joint venture in terms of gaming communities and finance?
Both Ampverse and DMI Finance share a common vision in being data-driven with how we approach engaging with esports and gaming communities, so we intend to leverage some of the innovative engagement, participation, and reward tech products being developed by Ampverse Labs to help our partners achieve their marketing efforts through gamification and interactive experiences.
- Can you provide more details about the first co-developed IP, College Rivals – Esports Series, and its launch plans in India?
COLLEGE RIVALS is an ambitious project that seeks to bring college students together through intense Esports competition. Our tournaments will be filled with entertaining content, influencer appearances, experiential gaming truck activations, music, and intense training camps that will lift our players to the highest level of Indian Esports. We aim to create a platform that will give students a once in a lifetime opportunity to showcase their gaming skills, gain recognition for their achievements, and learn valuable life skills through the mental challenge of competition.
COLLEGE RIVALS is committed to promoting inclusivity, diversity, and excellence. We will foster the next generation of top Indian talent and lay the foundation for a vibrant and inclusive college amateur community that will one day take our best in class to the highest levels of professional Esports.
- How does Ampverse plan to leverage technology and data-driven solutions to enhance the gaming experiences and create innovative products and services for gamers in India?
We will have a very comprehensive content strategy, including developing a number of original content formats to tell the stories and capture the imagination of fans – casual and dedicated alike.
We will also have a comprehensive experiential on-ground activation, which will see gaming trucks touring cities coupled with influencers campus visits, mentorship programmes as well as streetwear partnerships. We will also have a diverse influencer talent strategy across gaming, music and lifestyle culminating in a festival-style event as the finale.
- Can you share your future business plans in India?
We have long-term goals in exploring how we can play our part to help grow the industry, which could include creating more value for gamers through innovative reward and incentive products and by helping to onboard web2 users into web3 gaming. However, our job for now is to make College Rivals the best IP it can possibly be and to ensure we lay strong foundations so that we can play a positive role in shaping indian esports for the long term.
- What are your bets for the India market?
The number of esports players in India doubled from 300,000 in 2020 to 600,000 in 2021, while the revenues increased by 29% from INR 7.5 billion in 2020 to INR 9.7 billion in 2021. In terms of outlook, India is predicted to be one of the countries with the highest growth in terms of esports viewership and income generated, increasing four-fold to INR 1,100 crore by 2025. India has the support to make it big in the global arena of esports, as it’s home to the second-largest gamer base in the world, with roughly 400 million gamers.
Mobile gaming is the dominant segment of the Indian gaming market, and this trend extends to esports as well. Games like PUBG Mobile, Free Fire, and Call of Duty Mobile have a massive player base in India and have hosted numerous esports tournaments, attracting millions of viewers.
Furthermore, India has the support from the government for esports to grow in India, where it is now set to take part in the 2025 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games (AIMAG 2025) and the Olympics Esports Week, signifying that the country is headed towards the development of talents in this sector.
With these, I’m confident about the outlook of esports in the India market, where we will only see more major tournaments being held and subsequent government initiatives rolled out to nurture the future generation of esports professionals and players.
