BackeSports revives inter-college competition amid covid curfew
Following the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns, many colleges shifted to online classes using video conferencing apps. Extra-curricular activities including intra- and inter-college sports are yet to resume
_1548847791722_1606913190328.png "Since single-player mobile games were rendered monotonous at some point, players did not get aggressively hooked on to them as compared to the adrenaline-pumping, multi-player online games.")
PremiumNEW DELHI: Harshit Somani, an MBA student at IIM Indore, is an avid pool player. Since the pandemic, he has been playing it online. When he found that Mobile Premier League (MPL), a Bengaluru-based online gaming firm, is organising an online eSports tournament for colleges, he entered it.
“I expect a decent level of competition in such tournaments. The prize pool is decent too," Somani said.
Somani isn’t alone.
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The tournament has caught the interest of thousands of students from various colleges including IIT Kanpur, IIT Delhi, IIM Rohtak, XLRI Jamshedpur, SRCC, NIT Durgapur, Punjab University, and SRM University.
Following the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns, many colleges shifted to online classes using video conferencing apps. Extra-curricular activities including intra- and inter-college sports are yet to resume. Gaming companies are trying to fill this gap with eSports.
“Inter-college competitions for physical sports as well as extra-curricular activities have seen great participation through the ages, and the excitement these activities generate are an important part of college life. We are bringing that same excitement and vigour to inter-college mobile eSports," said Sai Srinivas, Co-founder and CEO, MPL.
MPL’s tournament will revolve around simple and popular skill-based games such as WCC (cricket game), Rogue Heist (shooting game), Pool and Speed Chess. Unlike PUBG Mobile, these games have a wider appeal as most students are likely to be familiar with them in some form.
On a slightly different note, Delhi-based gaming firm Rooter, which is in talks with sponsors and college bodies to organise eSports tournaments after the New Year, has decided to let college organisers choose up the games they want to compete in.
Rooter had recently organised an eSports tournament for startups in collaboration with AWS. Over 35 startups and 300 people participated in it.
“We are planning to extend the same model to colleges. We will hold online tournaments within colleges and will later make them inter college tournaments," said Piyush Kumar, founder and CEO, Rooter.
Rooter also has a game streaming platform. During the online college tournament, all the games will be streamed on it.
In addition to recreating inter and intra college rivalry through a virtual tournament, online eSports also gives students the chance to win real money. For instance, students participating in MPL’s tournament can win scholarships and cash prizes with a total value of ₹1 crore. Participation is completely free for college students with no entry fee.
In case of Rooter, Kumar said, “entry will be free and the pool prize at a college level will be ₹4-5 lakh and at an overall level it will be ₹10-15 lakh initially. As we get more sponsors, the pool prize will get bigger."
Online gaming emerged as one of the top activities for smartphone users during the lockdown months. The interest hasn’t waned yet, with various online gaming platforms still seeing plenty of traction. By taking online tournaments to colleges, these firms are hoping to onboard new users as many of the participants are likely to stick around and try their luck at fantasy sports and other competitive online games.
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