In a significant move towards rapid and robust development of Esports in India, the Federation of Electronic Sports Associations of India (FEAI), the apex national body for Esports in India met with minister of state electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar and submitted its Policy Paper for esports under the Government of India’s recent push for India’s AVGC.
The policy paper seeks to facilitate a policy-centered esports outlook that aims to address India’s unique definition for esports, which not only welcomes conventional global esports outlook but most importantly promotes India’s indigenous talent and narrative. The report also propounds a strong talent development ecosystem that covers the spectrum of talent, businesses, job creation, education, and revenue generation for India with regional centres of excellence.
Commenting on the occasion, Chandrasekhar said, “The government is keenly observing the opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship associated with esports. The rapid expansion of the mobile ecosystem and internet in India will further accelerate the adoption of esports and we will be providing the necessary policy level support to ensure that the esports industry grows and contributes to the development of the nation while Indian players win laurels for the country in esports. The recently announced AVGC promotion task force will recommend ways to realise growth and build domestic capacity for serving our markets and the global demand and I am sure the learnings from the policy paper of FEAI will be useful for building a larger outlook.”
Federation of Electronic Sports Associations India founding member Vaibhav Dange said, “In guidance of the PMO towards India’s emerging AVGC sector, we are thankful for Rajeev Chandrasekhar ji to have met us and understand FEAI’s perspective on an effective policy intervention, anchored by the Government of India, towards formalisation of the esports and allied industries, including AVGC, to create an enabling ecosystem to support the Indian industry. FEAI is honoured to receive the directive to assimilate and invite all industry stakeholders and create a formal engagement with the MEITY. We believe that this is the right time to make sustained efforts to ensure that India is at the forefront of this development of the AVGC sector, and we are playing our part in ensuring that. We are trying to promote a hybrid model for esports and we would like the Government of India to support the industry, players and the entire ecosystem in this endeavour.”
FEAI looks at esports as an important component of the overall gaming and sports industry of India. FEAI brings a holistic perspective that caters to all stakeholders: be it the developers who are designing the game or the players playing the game, or organisers organising tournaments. All of them have different roles to play. So, after looking at the situation from this holistic perspective, FEAI drafted the policy paper after interacting with the stakeholders. FEAI is focused on bringing Indian games to the fore. FEAI is also looking at a bottom-up approach, wherein it can host tournaments at colleges, universities, districts and so on to cultivate the esports culture.
India is amongst the top five mobile gaming markets in the world. In the next two years, this sector will be worth Rs 3 lakh crore. As the prime minister Narendra Modi has time and again highlighted, India should lead the digital gaming sector, develop games inspired from its culture, folk tales and this is the genesis of the idea of FEAI of taking India’s ideas, definitions, and athletes in a rightful manner to the global centre stage.
There are over 1.7 million esports users presently in India, and some of these are professional athletes who have won international laurels for the country. Esports is set to be a medal sport in the Asian Games 2022, it will also be played as an exhibition event during the Commonwealth Games 2022 and FEAI hopes could be soon inducted in the Olympics once the International Olympic Committee determines the format.