Esports can be a viable career option with more investments in India: Mortal

Esports athlete Naman Mathur, popularly known as Mortal, was among the eminent panellists who were a part of the India Today Conclave 2021 during the session titled ‘King Kong: The multi-billion-dollar world of gaming’. Mortal believes that “We need to have more tournaments and more games to make esports a viable career option in India,” when asked about how much a pro gamer can generate revenue and if it is a financially viable option. The athlete was among the first few poster boys of PUBG mobile when it was launched and he has seen tremendous success since then.

“Transition has always been upwards”

“The transition has always been upwards, the experience has been great, I was doing B Com and wanted to be a company secretary while doing LLB. I was also uploading videos on YouTube just for fun like how people go to play outdoor games at 5, I would play on my mobile for 3 or 4 hours a day and one of those video got viral and people started recognizing Mortal. PUBG made me viral. Currently, it is BGMI,” he said.

“We need to have more games, tournaments and investments in India, I feel then esports will grow at a very large scale and can be a viable career option in future. He also advised new gamers to focus on one among esports and Content creation. It requires a lot of mental pressure you have to seat and play for very long time and then at night you have to stream so only one will be better,” added Mortal.

Aneesh Aravind, the Head of Publishing, India Krafton expressed his belief that the inclusion of esports as a part of the Asian Games will certainly add a lot of legitimacy to the gaming industry.

“Asian Games Federation are figuring out a format as to how this should be conducted”

“When Krafton decided to do publishing in India, we looked at what the market is, where it is going to grow, and we also looked at the player base that was here. So we said that we are going to launch BGMI and that took a bit of time and players went really clamouring. When we released it, it was phenomenal. Within a week, we were able to get 40 million downloads and 60 million DAU. More than the numbers, what we saw was the gamers’ passion. So, we looked at the passion and that was exactly what we were looking to build our product towards,” said Aravind as quoted by India Today.

“They have announced the eight games that will be considered medal events in the Asian Games, and the Olympics Committee and the Asian Games Federation are figuring out a format and logistics as to how this should be conducted. Esports being a part of the Asian Games certainly adds a lot of legitimacy. Not just for the games that are participating but for the entire video game industry. Certainly, participating and competing for your country is a great feeling,” he added.