RISE OF ESPORTS IN INDIA

In the autumn of 1972, a PhD student named Bruce Baumgart earned himself a year's subscription to Rolling Stone magazine and a few cans of beer.

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It was the prize money for the first-ever esports competition held in the Stanford University AI laboratory. Back when most people were busy playing poker and rummy games in cardrooms and cafes, a small group of people kickstarted a concept that has today become a behemoth in the entertainment industry. If you are fascinated by online video games, handle your gamepad extremely well, or even know how to play rummy like a pro, there might be an esports platform you would be interested.

From a lab at Stanford University to the global audience, the esports evolution has been a quintessential 'niche to mainstream' journey.

Organized competitive video gaming was a deviation from the prevailing norm that gaming was about being entertained in isolation. Early esports in India were the same as in the rest of the world.

The influx of the internet at the turn of the century meant that gamers could play competitively in LAN gaming cafes. These competitions were not formally organized but helped in the growth of the early esports talent in the country. Soon, Indian gamers were participating in international esports tourneys. The Indian gamers participating in the $500,000 Major League Gaming World Finals in Louisiana, the USA, in 2015 included Ganesh Meenavalli, a 13-year-old Hyderabad boy! Fast forward a few years to 2017-18, and esports had graduated from neighborhoods cybercafes to a major organized sport.