In just a span of two years, South Asia has positioned itself as one of the biggest gaming markets in the world. In 2021, the growth of VALORANT, coupled with the ban on PUBG Mobile, has somewhat helped the cause of PC titles’ growth. In an exclusive interview with Gautam Virk, COO of Nodwin Gaming, we talked about the second edition of VCC, the rising popularity of Valorant in India, and NODWIN Gaming’s latest ventures.
Gautam Virk, COO of Nodwin Gaming also shared how important it is that the community is working so hard along with his views on the VALORANT Esports scenario of South Asia which has seen rapid growth in 2021.
1: Tell us about your experience with VCC 2021?
Well, VCC One definitely blew it out of the park. We got over 900 plus teams to come to play and participate in a tournament. We had really good viewership numbers, and we weren’t expecting so many people to come and tune in to watch. Just the general hype and how excited people were and the teams were to finally get an opportunity to go play in an international tournament from the was special. It was definitely much more than what we started off. Of course, we knew this was going to be important for the pro players and everything, but the way the community kind of got around it along with other key influences, big celebrities in the gaming sphere definitely made it stand apart. It was just one big combined effort and we were just very happy to see the country there.
- What fans can expect from season 2 of VCC?
One thing that stood apart in season 1 is even if there were no Indian teams coming in playing, a lot of people tuned in and we loved every aspect of it. So, this is something that has set even higher expectations for VCC 2. The number of pro teams in our region has gone up since last time. There have been more roster shuffles. There was also a big performance coming in from Pakistan, Nepal, even in Bangladesh last year. So, we are expecting stronger competition coming in from other countries. And of course, bigger viewership numbers, more teams coming playing in the tournament as well. Furthermore, there will be more slots than we had previously – two slots versus one. And this is all thanks to the community only. All thanks to the people who came out to support the tournament. That is the amount of noise that we are making as a region. It’s definitely being heard outside and we’ve been blessed with two slots now. So, double the opportunity for our teams to go and perform and give us double the chances of them qualifying for the Masters event.
This time we will continue to do the Hindi coverage of these teams all the way to Masters or even if they make it a challenger. So, the journey doesn’t end for us at VCC. We were following through with our Indian localized coverage all the way to the Champions basically. So, I’m really hoping this time that the teams from our region perform better and actually make it to the Masters.
And you’ve seen the change now in teams. I think the mentality has changed as well. And we’ve seen teams, especially the Indian teams now hiring coaches. As you know, YB has come back and is coaching Indian teams again. So I’m hoping for a positive impact now, not just VCC past VCC into the APAC qualifiers and then all the way to Master. So fingers crossed.
3- NODWIN has been at the forefront of VALORANT’s growth in India as well as South Asia. From your perspective, how was the title’s run in 2021 in these regions, and going ahead, what are the things that look promising?
Yes, we have been raising the bar with the Agni Series that we did with the influencers in India and then as well as in Pakistan going all the way up to VCC. We’ve seen the ecosystem generally growing very actively compared to how it was earlier for FPS games like Counterstrike. VALORANT has really brought out the fans to come and support the games as well as teams, and now you can see fans tuning in to watch teams like Global Esports and Velocity Gaming aka VLT in action. So we’re really hoping that people continue to come out and support the teams in the future as well and I think the next big key step for the Esports for our region is to have our teams qualify for the APAC region and go play in the Masters key factor for our growth in the future is our teams being able to compete with the best in the world instead of just competing with the best in the region. We’ve kind of established the fact that Global Esports and a couple of these teams are very good and they perform very well in South Asia. But we are having trouble beating the teams in Southeast Asia. So we need to get past that step and go and beat the teams in Southeast Asia and make our Mark on the Masters level.
4- Fans are missing LAN tournaments for quite some time and given that the pandemic is showing no signs of going away anytime soon…so, can we expect NODWIN Gaming to host Further VCC Leg 2 or Leg 3 within a LAN environment?
Yes, Nodwin is missing that as well. Earlier, we were planning to do VCC in Nepal, Dubai, or Thailand because that’s where all the regional teams could come and play. As you know, it’s not easy for Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan to travel to a single location. So we initially did. This was before Covid-19 became such a massive headache. But if the Covid-19 situation improves and numbers decrease we will plan to host LANs. And whenever you think that Covid-19 is going away slowly, it just releases a new patch update and hits us. While Covet has really helped the growth of esports and gaming in general, because more people are engaged from home, gaming, in general, has benefited from it. But yes, LAN events are suffering. And, at the end of the day, it is risky. Not only are they going to shoot up the cost of doing it, the virus now is so contagious and the symptoms are so low that it’s going to be really difficult. We’ve already seen cricket fail at it.
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5 – What are your views on the domestic TOs of India who hosted major VALORANT events throughout 2021?
I think they’re great. It’s more opportunities for players to continue play and practice and compete and improve. We’ve seen initiatives by other tournament organizers for even hosting matches with international teams as well as Southeast Asian teams. It also helps them financially as well if they end up winning something. So they don’t have to wait for big events while smaller events can keep them busy and keep them earning as well. So definitely love the initiative that the others are doing in the region.
6- As Community keeps moving towards blockchain and NFTs, especially when it comes to gaming, it is growing at a rapid rate. Global Esports already entered the market introducing their own NFTs. Is Nodwin Gaming also planning something around it?
I’m not going to say that we are not doing it. Also, I’m not going to say yes to it. Currently, I don’t have any solid strategy for NFTs. But it’s there in our minds. However, we had NFS as part of our couple of events, as Coin Dcx was part of a couple of our event sponsorships for Chess Super League, and they were also part of the Red Bull event as well. So we have close friends and partners that are in this general new area. But I don’t have any big plans right now that I can share.
7- How was your growth in Africa last year?
The growth in Africa has been phenomenal. Now, with the partnership with our game publisher, we’ll be launching more tournaments in Africa by increasing the prize money and even making more zeros there for teams to qualify for international events as well. So the Africa story is definitely growing right now. It’s a little behind what we were doing in India a couple of years back. So, we’re doing the same formula there, activating the community, doing tournaments there on the ground. And I think we have an excellent team there that’s running the Africa office. And we are already looking at growth coming in this year. So more prize money, more games, and more opportunities for teams to move to a higher level tournament.
Few Words for the audience-
Just continue supporting the esports scene in the region. Continue supporting the teams because I feel that the teams really need the community to get behind them and help them out to continue growing for them. We will continue to grow no matter what. I think my words to the fans would be to continue supporting the games that you like, continue supporting the players and the teams, and stay away from controversies and abusing other teams. I’ve seen a lot of Indian fans spreading hate towards other teams these days and we’ve seen it in cricket and we’re getting the same thing in esports as well.
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