Exclusive: Esports will continue to boom in post-Corona world: Sidharth Kedia

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Bengaluru, May 12: The Coronavirus-forced nationwide lockdown has forced people to stay indoors. With moving around severely restricted and the scope for sporting activities limited, they now have to resort to several online platforms for entertainment, resulting in a spike in the usage of esports.

Sidharth Kedia, Group CEO, Nodwin Gaming, the largest such platform in Asia, told MyKhel that lockdown has given a boost to esports market and said even in the post-lockdown world the esports will flourish without seeing a major dip in the numbers.

Q: Do you think there has been a sprout in the popularity of esports during the COVID19 and in the resultant lockdown period?

Ans: Definitely, the lockdown has given a boost to an already booming market of esports. This is evident from viewership numbers, game download statistics, social engagement and overall consumption of esports content worldwide. The PMPL South Asia Scrims is at 1.3 million views on average and Steam's peak concurrent user count has touched 20 million. This pretty much defines the spike in large scale consumption during the lockdown. All the major global esports tournaments are being held online. The ESL Pro League S11 has 4.3 million watch hours, the best in the tournament's history. Esports is one of the top sources of entertainment right now.

Q: Do you think e-sports will continue to maintain its grip post the Coronavirus days and once the lockdown is lifted?

Ans: Post lockdown is when people will actively look forward to attending the withheld LAN events. Esports arenas in Europe and Australia can expect a good crowd once the situation is safe enough to conduct all the ESL Ones and DreamHacks. Even the online viewership has its dedicated audience. I don't think that there will be any kind of major dip in numbers in the post lockdown scenario. We are expecting an increase in consumption and user base post-COVID. The viewership of some of our PUBGM broadcasts stood at an average of 1 million viewers pre-COVID, the number jumped to 1.8 million in lockdown for the PMPL Scrims. And we are expecting a good 1.3 million average viewers post-COVID. That's a delta of 300K viewers gained for esports post-COVID on a steady-state basis.

Q: Do you target a specific age group or is esports popular across the age groups?

Ans: Esports in specific is predominantly consumed by the 18-25 age group. While the age group for esports viewership can start from as young as 14-16 years and can go well up to the 30s.

Q: What are the upcoming competitions/gaming leagues?

Ans: We already have the PUBG MOBILE Pro League South Asia Scrims going on for 3 days a week for the past one month now. The biggest one on the line is our flagship esports tournament the India Premiership that's entering the 5th year with its launch this month. The biggest PUBGM tournament, the PMPL South Asia was put to hold as it was right at the time of the first lockdown. The tournament should be underway by second half this month.