GamerESPL 2021: Serving the untapped 1 million potentials!

ESPL 2021: Serving the untapped 1 million potentials

The ESPL was the talk of the town when it received a spectacular 1 million registrations. We caught up with Vishwalok Nath, Director, ESPL to get a gist of the ‘behind the scenes’ of India’s first franchise-based esports tournament.

By Amarylisa Gonsalves

The Esports Premier League (ESPL), which kicked off on July 16th, 2021, has been going on in the full swing. The Free Fire tournament, scheduled for a duration of over two and a half months, has witnessed tremendous success so far. Within just a few days of its commencement, the spectacular tournament managed to receive over 1 million registrations. We connected with Vishwalok Nath, Director, ESPL, to understand the thought process behind initiating India’s first franchise-based esports tournament. Though the tournament still has a month to go before its completion, it has received a great response from the esports community. Nath shares some insights on how the tournament has been doing so far and what is anticipated.

Can you elaborate on the structure you follow while designing and hosting a tournament? How are the format and structure decided upon?

The structure for any given

“ “ “Indian parents should encourage their kids to follow the route of becoming a professional esports athletes.”

tournament is different depending on several factors, including the game and the scope of the event. Other aspects that impact these tournaments include whether they are a solo segment or will just focus on team-based competition. These things are taken into consideration during the making of the format and structure of the tournament. For ESPL 2021, we knew that we wanted to target gamers across India with Free Fire as the title. The nationwide structure and the franchise-based system aided the decision to divide ESPL into four levels spanning two and a half months.

When we talk about an esports tournament, what are the different teams involved who work backstage?

For ESPL 2021, several teams work in the backend, from the conception to the execution and the post-tournament activities. We have a team that works on the concept and structure of the tournament and the marketing team that pushes the idea forward to the partners. Other teams include a production team that handles both the design and the actual execution of the tournament matches. Esports Premier League 2021 also has a customer support team that addresses any concerns gamers may have over discord and other support lines. The overall team includes a tech team and content team that focuses on keeping the site running and the correct information for interested gamers. Tell us about your most successful tournament so far. Most of the tournaments in the past have been successful in various degrees, from gamer engagement to the actual scale. However, ESPL 2021 seems to be on route to be our most successful tournament so far. As part of the registration phase, we managed to amass more than 1 million participating players with thousands of registered teams. The nationwide scale of the tournament is likely to take things to the next level in the remaining levels.

How has the pandemic affected the occurrence of esports tournaments?

The global pandemic has changed the way we planned to Vishwalok Nath, Director, Esports Premier League (ESPL)

execute the event. Initially, we planned the tournament to be a proper offline celebration of gaming and esports. However, the pandemic turned it into a completely digital event for both the organisers as well as participants. This helped us ensure that ESPL 2021 is exceptionally safe for all the parties involved.

How do you manage the registrations and verifications processes?

We have created a robust India Today Gaming platform to ensure that we can easily manage the registrations and not worry about verifying the players involved. We have also used discord and social media platforms to help incoming gamers register without any problems. If they have any issues, they get connected with our team to solve their queries

and issues. The ESPL 2021 registration process requires players to verify through their phone number or email ID to make the process as seamless as possible. This one-time registration will ensure that players can stay informed about our future esports tournaments. We are continuously working to improve the platform to make it better for gamers.

Can you share an incident where a major technical issue occurred and how your team overcame it?

We did face some technical issues at the start due to the sheer number of users registering on our platform. However, our technical team was on its toes and quickly fixed the problems to make the Esports Premier League 2021 registration process a breeze.

What do you think of Indian esports tournaments as compared to the tournaments in western countries?

The Indian esports scene is still nascent compared to global esports and happens at a much smaller scale. However, significant game tournaments happen between India and other countries both in the East and West. ESPL is one small step in helping India move forward the long journey to bridge this gap.

Where did the idea of ESPL and having a franchise-based esports tournament root from?

We created ESPL 2021 to serve the gaming community in India by offering them a national stage to exhibit their talent. This move will push gaming to the mainstream and on par with some of the other competitive sports. India has a lot of untapped potential in the esports arena. We want to help discover and nurture this underutilised reserve of talent. Our goal is to make esports a viable and lucrative option for Indians so that even Indian parents can encourage their kids to follow the route of becoming professional esports athletes.

ESPL received 1 million registrations. What would you like to say about that?

I want to thank the entire esports community for offering tremendous support around Esports Premier League 2021. One million is a good number, and it will help us bring more (and much larger) esports tournaments in the future to create newer platforms. In the meantime, stay tuned for other tournaments in the coming months and future iterations of ESPL.

India Today Gaming has partnered with global brands like Infinix Mobile and WD Black, to name a few, for organising tournaments. What impact does collaboration with international brands bring?

Collaboration with global brands like Infinix Mobile, Western Digital, and Garena for tournaments helps us push the tournaments to the next level. Some of these brands have a healthy history of being involved in much larger esports tournaments across the globe with multiple organisations. Their expertise helps us in assimilating the latest when it comes to organisational practices from around the world. This allowed us to create and execute tournaments like the ongoing ESPL 2021.

Apart from ESPL, any upcoming esports tournaments from India Today Gaming?

We are currently working on a major global tournament behind the scenes. I would request interested gamers to stay tuned for tournaments that are now in the works and is likely to be announced in the coming months.