The esports rally for the country seems to have been pushing forward at a lucrative pace. With 2018 being a fruitful year with multiple big scale tournaments in place, 2019 is already looking packed with prospect!
The recently announced Sky Esports Tournament in Chennai stands testimony to the same. Slated to be held on 23 and 24 March, the tournament will feature four games, PUBG Mobile, Overwatch, CS GO and Clash Royale.
Says Sky Esports head, Shiva Nandy, “This is going to be one of the biggest if not the biggest tournaments ever in the history of competitive gaming in Chennai. We’re focused on making it a good, memorable one. We really believe in creating a better esports environment in Chennai and South India, through this tournament.”
The organisation behind the event is a branch of the already existing game development studio, Skytou studios, known for their game My Blobby.
With Rs. 10 lakhs already being set as the prize pool, the number, according to the organisers, may further increase as they are in talks with more sponsors and partners. Already onboard partners for the tournament include Monster, Nippon Paints and Phoenix Market city as the venue partners.
Nippon Paints might sound like a fresh name in this segment; however they might just be making their way into esports after a plethora of initiatives in the sports category in the country. They were the associate partners for Chennai Super Kings at IPL, Chennaiyin FC and Pro Volleyball.
PUBG Mobile so far has had around 650 squads registered from South India and the qualifier rounds are already in progress, since the past two weekends, more of which are yet to come. For the other titles, the qualifiers are slated to kick start very soon.
Concludes Nandy, “There have been a lot of things happening with the Indian esports scene. Good and bad. Chennai has been in a hiatus, for a while. You can say a little dormant when it comes to bigger tournaments.
We’re trying to reactivate the esports culture here. We cannot ignore the mobile platform anymore after what we’re witnessing with respect to PUBGm or Clash Royale and many other immensely popular titles.
We would like to make this event a grand success to pave a new path in the near future for us and everyone involved and hopefully travel further.
End of the day, everyone should enjoy the tournament and we’ll do our best to keep it that way. A lot of effort is involved to make the event as pro as possible. It’s still a very big work in progress. This is our first tournament and we would like the esports community to remember us for good things.”