Fight nights have returned. Only a month after the ban on Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) was removed, even if only for a 90-day trial period, e-sports arenas are being cleared, with two major events using the online multiplayer game is arranged.
More BGMI competitions are in the works, with e-sports companies preparing their lineups. Godwin, a Nazara Technologies subsidiary, is the latest to announce a BGMI event in collaboration with e-sports content platform Rooter, with a prize pool of Rs 27 lakh. Skyesports, an e-sports and gaming firm, hosted the first BGMI event after the ban was lifted, with a prize pool of Rs 25 lakh.
Krafton, the creators of BGMI, have exciting tournaments lined up for 2023, aiming to bring together players from diverse backgrounds, including both professionals and gaming enthusiasts.
According to Sean Hyunil Sohn, CEO of Krafton, Inc. India, the company is dedicated to organizing a range of tournaments that will attract a wide audience. Skyesports, renowned for successfully concluding the Skyesports Champions Series (SCS), is also planning to host additional tournaments.
The SCS garnered an impressive online viewership of 30 million. The top two teams from this tournament have already qualified for the upcoming Skyesports Championship 5.0, which is scheduled to take place later this year as a LAN event. Shiva Nandy, the founder, and CEO of Skyesports, expressed excitement about the upcoming championship and its potential to engage the gaming community.
Loco, an e-sports and live streaming platform that teamed with Skyesports for SCS, said that it will host BGMI competitions, scrims, and watch parties in the coming months. Scrims are practice games played between two teams.
BGMI players are paid by the e-sports companies with which they sign up, as well as through the prize pool. Furthermore, gamers profit from streaming and brand sponsorship arrangements, which are shared between the esports company and the player. It is anticipated that there are 30-32 BGMI teams in India, with 16 of them classified as Tier I. Players in this group are paid between Rs 1-1.5 million per month.
BGMI was the first game to be broadcast on television, with 200 million viewers. The game, which was released in India in 2021, attracted over 100 million users in a year. According to 2022 research by Niko Partners, nearly half of all mobile gamers in India had played BGMI 12 months before the game’s suspension. According to intelligence firm Sensor Tower, BGMI is also projected to have spent approximately $33 million on in-app purchases between July 2021 and July 2022.
