Mumbai: Riot Games today announced the successful conclusion of Lenovo and Intel-sponsored Convergence, its first-ever international VALORANT esports tournament held in India in partnership with The Esports Club. Hosted at the Manpho Convention Centre in Bangalore, Convergence showcased the pinnacle of competitive VALORANT gameplay, celebrating skill, strategy, and sportsmanship. The tournament, which spanned over four days, saw over 10,000 attendees visit on-ground to support six of the finest VALORANT teams from across the globe.
The championship match, held in front of an enthusiastic live audience and streamed to millions of viewers globally, showcased intense showdowns and breathtaking plays. After a nail-biting finale match, FUT Esports emerged triumphant, solidifying their place in history as the first ever champions of Convergence. Their exemplary teamwork, precision, and unwavering determination set a new standard for excellence in VALORANT esports.
Convergence successfully met all of Riot Games’ set objectives concerning viewership, production quality, competitive standards, and fan engagement, including achieving the remarkable feat of organically trending as the #1 topic on Twitter in India for two consecutive days. The event also featured various engaging activities for attendees, including fan meet-and-greets, exclusive merchandise stalls, and community-driven initiatives, creating a memorable experience for gaming enthusiasts.
“We are thankful to the players, teams, sponsors, partners, and especially our Indian fans for making Convergence 2023 an unparalleled success,” said Riot Games esports lead, India and South Asia Sukamal Pegu. “The passion displayed by our fans is our driving force and serves as a constant source of inspiration. Congratulations to FUT Esports for their exceptional performance and to all participating teams for their dedication and sportsmanship. Convergence will be back with a bigger and more exciting edition in 2024.”
Riot Games country manager, India and South Asia Arun Rajappa said, “Convergence was the perfect finale to a year of exciting initiatives in India and South Asia, from celebrating VALORANT’s anniversary with fans at gaming cafes, to cheering on teams at the VCSA, to giving back to the community at Harbor’s anniversary event. We were also thrilled to bring amazing influencers together at Radiant Retreat. It’s been a fantastic journey, and we can’t wait to bring even more games and experiences to our players in the region in 2024.”
Riot Games has been actively engaged in fostering community engagement through multiple initiatives over the past year. Earlier this year, Riot Games celebrated the one-year anniversary of VALORANT’s first-ever Indian agent Harbor by conducting a beach clean-up with the Indian gaming community, and also commemorated the third anniversary of VALORANT in India with BHARAT VALORANT celebrations.
Mumbai: Riot Games’ Convergence, its first ever international VALORANT esports tournament in India in partnership with The Esports Club, and Lenovo as the title sponsor, is all set to kick off, with the top VALORANT teams from across multiple regions taking the field to compete for the prestigious title. Held from 14 to 17 December 2023 at the Manpho Convention Center in Bangalore, Convergence will be Riot’s first international VALORANT e-sports event on the Indian circuit, showcasing its commitment to the growing gaming culture in the country.
For Indian gamers, the tournament marks an exciting opportunity to see some of the top VALORANT teams from around the world play each other live – including two Indian contenders, Global Esports and True Rippers Esports to cheer for. With the other contenders representing Asia, Europe, and the Americas from Riot’s VALORANT Champions Tour (VCT), the event is sure to be the pinnacle of professional VALORANT esports and boost the Indian VALORANT circuit. Here is a quick look at the teams competing later this month:
Global Esports
Mumbai headquartered Global Esports are one of the teams to watch this tournament. Known for their strategic site executions, the team will have plenty of fans to cheer for them in Bangalore, particularly for local boy Abhirup Paul ‘Lightningfast’ Choudhury. Together, they will be looking to convert their homeground advantage into a strong performance at Convergence.
FUT Esports
Representing Turkey, FUT brings a unique flair to the competition with their unpredictable playstyle and knack for surprise tactics. With the potential to take games off any team, they will be strong title contenders and a dark horse coming to challenge the established order.
Furia
Representing Brazil, one of the most competitive FPS gaming regions in the world, Furia’s precise and aggressive gameplay has been forged in the fires of the competitive South American region, and has made them a force to be reckoned with. They will be looking to bring their A-game to the Convergence battleground as they go toe to toe with the best in the world.
Team Vitality
Hailing from Europe, Vitality’s strategic plays have been their standout feature and carried them to 5-6th Place at the EMEA League of the 2023 Valorant Champions Tour. Convergence will be a new proving ground for the squad, who will be looking forward to clinching the title at the tournament.
Gen.G Esports
Gen.G is a powerhouse North American / Korean organization, this year fielding a talented all-Korean squad with a reputation for explosive plays and clutch moments. With a roster stacked with top-tier talent, they are determined to establish themselves as the dominant force in the global VALORANT scene.
True Rippers Esports
Fighting their way up to the tournament from the Indian qualifiers, Bangalore based True Rippers Esports have already begun their journey in the tournament with a bang, and will look to continue their winning ways by taking games off the established top teams at the event. Performing in front of a home crowd, the underdogs may be new to the scene but definitely not ones to be counted out.
As the tournament kicks off, Indian fans can look forward to seeing a stellar showcase of VALORANT performances and global talent going up against Indian esports athletes. Convergence is set to be India’s biggest VALORANT event, and a delight for fans both in India and around the world.
Mumbai: ‘Convergence’ by Riot Games in partnership with The Esports Club, is all set to showcase India’s esports prowess as the company today announced its plans to host an India Closed Qualifiers into the upcoming tournament. Joining forces with Lenovo as the Title Sponsor for its first ever international VALORANT esports tournament in India, Riot Games is committed to promoting local teams in the tournament scheduled between 14 to 17 December, 2023 at the Manpho Convention Center in Bangalore.
The India Closed Qualifiers will witness Indian VALORANT teams earn a chance to compete with some of the best professional VALORANT teams from Riot’s International Leagues from across the Pacific, EMEA and Americas. Scheduled to begin on 30 November, the closed qualifiers will invite the top six professional VALORANT teams from India to battle it out and secure a spot in the main tournament. The six teams will follow a Double Elimination format to select the home team that will join the Convergence main event. The upper bracket and lower bracket finals, as well as a grand finale of the qualifiers will be streamed on The Esports Club’s YouTube Channel, starting from 29 November. All teams have secured their invitation to the qualifiers based on their performance in the Indian domestic season in 2023.
Riot Games esports lead India & South Asia Sukamal Pegu said, “We are super excited to announce that the India Closed Qualifiers gives top local teams a great platform to showcase skills and play against some of the best professional VALORANT teams in the world. The goal behind Convergence is to grow esports talent in India and the qualifiers are a testament to the hyperlocal opportunities we are creating for our VALORANT community in the region.”
“Lenovo India has been championing esports as a dedicated way to reach out to gaming audiences, and with VALORANT being a popular title that’s well enjoyed across India we have been engaging with the title during various online and offline events. With our portfolio of great gaming products on Legion and LOQ, we feel it’s a great way for Lenovo to be seen and experienced by relevant younger TG who we believe will be glad that we are able to bring a great esports event to India” said Lenovo India director – marketing Chandrika Jain.
The main Convergence event starting from 14 December will be broadcast live in English on Riot’s Pacific Channels and in Hindi on Riot’s South Asia channels. The Esports Club will also carry the broadcasts on their channels.
Bolstering the gaming culture in India, Riot Games has been actively involved in fostering community engagement and enhancing the player experience with multiple initiatives over the past year. Recently, Riot Games celebrated the one-year anniversary of VALORANT’s first ever Indian agent Harbor by conducting a beach clean-up with the Indian gaming community, and also commemorated the third anniversary of VALORANT in India with BHARAT VALORANT celebrations.
The gaming community can witness the live action of the upcoming Convergence tournament through free and paid ticket options. Stay tuned for further details on ticketing set to be revealed in the coming weeks.
MUMBAI: Live streaming technology has come a long way since its inception, and live stream viewers in India are on the rise. From conventional mainstream sports to e-sports, gaming, and online entertainment, live streaming has been used successfully in India in order to bridge the gap between new technology and traditional formats. There are about two dozen streaming services in India like Twitch, Mixer, YouTube Gaming and Hitbox, to name a few; digital subscriptions had risen by 50 per cent to Rs 3.9 billion in 2017, and are expected to hit Rs 20 billion by 2020.
Watch the session here:
During GEMS 2020, industry leaders and experts – Pocket Aces founder Anirudh Pandita, Rooter Sports Tech founder & CEO Piyush Kumar, game caster Raman Chopra and The E-sports Club co-founder Ishan Arya – discussed the future of live streaming in India.
The rise of live casting
Live streaming took off when Hotstar began streaming the IPL live in 2016. It has quickly gained ground since then, with the rise of popular game casters like Dynamo, CarryMinati, ScoutOP, and others. What started as a hobby for these YouTubers soon helped them rack up millions of followers, while also spreading the live streaming bug far and wide.
Raman Chopra started doing live streams by watching gamers on YouTube and Twitch. From being on the platform just two days a week, he started playing games every day. Initially, the gamer had a minuscule audience but it grew quickly and today, he has over 2 lakh 74 thousand followers. Just like Chopra, there are many gamers in India who have made live streaming a fully-fledged career.
With the growing popularity of live streaming, digital entertainment companies like Pocket Aces are helping streamers build their careers and make a profit. Founder Anirudh Pandita said the company has witnessed a whole new breed of content creators cropping up. For instance, there has been a marked rise in the number of game casters on YouTube in the last few years.
To cater to this segment, they’re focusing on building interactivity between gamers, streamers, and audiences through their digital streaming platform Loco. The challenges are many, but so are the rewards, and the team’s developing features and tools around it, said Pandita.
“We know talent very well; we have built some of the biggest live streams on our platform. We also know how to monetize the content, that is how we have built Pocket Aces. It was a very natural offering that we could provide to game streamers,” he further added.
Boosting viewership and scaling
In the live streaming industry, tournament organisers play a big part when it comes to promoting competitive multiplayers. E-sports platform The E-sports Club believes in building an ecosystem where gaming is conducted in a sustainable and scalable manner that is ideal for both sponsors and players.
The Esports Club co-founder Ishaan Arya highlighted that the viewership and excitement level around game casting has increased. As an e-sports organizer, Arya found out that the only way to encourage gamers to participate is by giving them real-life experiences. The company has grown from one event at a time to organising events on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.
Arya said: “The daily-weekly engagement for our content is growing massively. For instance, a campaign we did six months ago fetched us over half-a million views, and on the other hand, for another campaign that we did three weeks ago, we have already touched a million views.”
‘Live streaming next best option to real-life experience’
On similar grounds, Rooter Sports Tech is a social platform that connects sports fans and engages them during live sporting events. It launched its audio and video feature with the start of IPL and world cup matches in 2019. And for the company, the streaming business has been building up for the past 18 months.
Rooter Sports Tech founder & CEO Piyush Kumar said 2019 was a challenging year as the company was deciding to move into sports content. He focussed on building a technology that works in real-time and streaming appeared to be the best option. The reaction of fans that happens in real-time is altogether a different experience because the maximum reaction comes when the match is live.
“YouTubers and Instagrammers used to do commentary here and there to develop some audio-video content so they reached out to us. We built a set up where there are ten languages and different sets of commentators, which has now grown to 100 current commentators while the match is ongoing. It all happened with the help of UGC (User Generated Content),” he explained.
The Covid2019 pandemic led Kumar to think that the logical extension of this product would be to get into the gaming content. He pointed out that 70 to 80 per cent of content in gaming comes through streaming. He built the entire technology in the month of June, and in the last three months, it has scaled massively. The company has added 1.5 million users on its app on a monthly basis.
Monetising content: Experts debate
In Kumar’s opinion, streaming has a well-developed monetisation model. 90 per cent of the revenue made by all the key players is through monetization and the rest 10 per cent is through advertising.
“The system works by paying good publishers to create content for your platform. Firstly, we monetise through advertising which we started last year. So, we have a certain pipeline, brands and partnerships. Post this you provide them the distribution model; it could be on both apps and websites. Like Paytm and Samsung are some of your partners so we decide how to distribute them there. Eventually, take them to a level where they can monetise their content,” he said.
He went on to say that though YouTube has lots of features, it is not customized for Indian audiences.
Reports state that in the next three years, streaming will become 10 to 15 percent of revenue share of the overall gaming market. But more than monetisation, it is important to create engagement that attracts advertisers, put in Pandita.
In a similar vein, Arya said that he believes it is about giving value to sponsors who are investing money. In fact, he has increased the prize money of players by 33 per cent to motivate them.
The panellists came to a common conclusion: that e-sports and gaming is completely different from entertainment, where content could be published weekly. But when it comes to live streaming, the content needs to be created on a daily basis.
MUMBAI: Media Mantra has been awarded the PR mandate for The Esports Club. Media Mantra will manage The Esports Club’s media duties, strategic PR, and reputation management. The partnership between Media Mantra and The Esports Club will serve to bolster the latter by raising public consciousness about the brand. At a time when millions of gamers are idle at home, The Esports Club expects to reach its target audience to let them know about the ample gaming opportunities available online.
The new partnership will help the gaming platform thrive in an increasingly uncertain world that presents both challenges and opportunities. The leadership at Media Mantra knows that the migration to digital platforms has increased substantially. While this presents challenges to some firms, those in the right place at the right time stand to benefit from this dramatic transformation. The PR firm expects to raise the profile of its newest client so it can take advantage of the enormous forces that are reshaping the world. Chief among these forces are the mass exodus to online platforms. Firms that act during this shift stand to gain in the long run and come out winners once normalcy resumes.
Udit Pathak said “We’re delighted to have The Esports Club as our newest client. The firm is already hugely popular, and we will use our expertise to raise its profile in the country even further. Our talented team at Media Mantra has successfully managed firms in a wide range of industries, online gaming being just one. We understand how to articulate a firm’s value proposition to the media such that it receives the attention it deserves. The Esports Club has a very talented team and a great product. With our expertise they will attain a position that is consummate to their product and efforts. In the past, every firm Media Mantra counts among its clients has benefited from its expertise. We help brands along their growth journeys. With our services, brands more easily reach the heights they aspire to reach. The Esports Club will be no different.”
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