365telugu.com online news,Hyderabad,21stJuly 2021: From being a casual gamer to managing his family business to becoming an esports (short for electronic sports or organised video game competition) pro to
owning an esports outfit, Govindaraju Manoj Kasyap, popularly known as TM Sentinel in the
Indian esports circuits, has come a long way.
Esports is a form of competition using video games. It often takes the form of organised,multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Esports has become a significant factor in the video game industry since 2010 with many game developers actively designing and providing funding for tournaments and other
events. With a majority of viewers between the ages of 18 and 34, esports gained popularity from
South Asia and Southeast Asia, and predominantly from India.
Today, Velocity Gaming, an Indian esports outfit floated by this 33-year-old entrepreneur-turned
esports streamer, has to its credit the longest unprecedented streak of 24 wins, a record which is
yet to be broken. Velocity Gaming’s team has played 13 of the 15 tournaments held in 2020,
emerging winner in all of them. Outperforming top-notch teams from Thailand, Myanmar and
Singapore, among others, Velocity Gaming was ranked third in the SEA (Southeast Asia) region
and number one in India in 2020. “We are delighted to announce that Velocity Gaming has become the first South Asian team to have qualified for the Valorant Conquerors Championship (VCC), which is scheduled to be held in the end of August 2021. Also, we have surpassed all the live concurrent watching records for this region during our final of VCC India qualifiers Stage-I held recently, with over 30,000 gaming enthusiasts watching the grand finale live,” said Manoj Kasyap, who is also the executive director of Mahi Granites Private Limited.
The e-sports industry offers a lot of career opportunities not just for the gamers but also for
casters, in-game observers, editors, producers, make-up artists, cameramen, analysts etc for
aspiring youngsters to seriously consider.
Valorant Conquerors Championship is organised by US-based player-focused game developer
and publisher Riot Games. The winner of this championship will bag the VCC Champions title
along with a lion’s share of the $33,000 prize pool that is on offer. Riot’s Valorant game,released in June 2020, currently has 44 million users globally.Kasyap, a post-graduate from Harvard University, has been fascinated by gaming since he’s 10years old.
After dabbling with console games like Nitendo and Xbox, he tried his hand at Counter-Strike tournaments hosted by World Cyber Games (WCG) in Hyderabad and across other cities in India.“I realised that esports is also a form of sports where people team up and play and get paid, too. I intended to pursue esports as my career but it did not take off then. I decided to form my own gaming company when I have sufficient funds. And, my dream turned into reality with the establishment of Velocity Gaming in 2019. Though India apparently is a late entrant to esports, it is now fuelling the growth of the overall market, courtesy its much younger gaming demographic, introduction of affordable gaming PCs.
The esports industry is expected to see more and more traction in India in the next couple of years, once the internet services become faster and stable, and when India ramps up production of chips under the Make in India campaign, among others,” Kasyap added.According to Newzoo’s Global Esports and Live Streaming Market Report, the esports industry is expected to reach the $1.084 billion mark in 2021, from generated $947.1 million last year.
Besides, it projects that the esports industry will earn $833.6 million from media rights and sponsorships due to an increase in the livestreaming audience for esports. The report predicts the global live-streaming audience to hit 728.8 million by the end of 2021, as against 662.6 million in 2020.