“Budding gamers can showcase their skills in Gamerji and get a chance to enter into the pro leagues,” says Soham Thacker, Founder of Gamerji on the moto of the platform – Gamerji is one of the leading esports platforms in India as it bridges the gap between amateur gamers to professional level gamers through different competitions. The esports platform is conceptualized in a way where gamers can compete, share content, improve, and win prizes. The founder of Gamerji, Soham Thacker exclusively sat down with Apurba Biswas from InsideSport.IN to talk about its features, plans, Gaming & esports in general, and beyond.
Here are the excerpts from the Interview:
When did you decide to bring Gamerji to the whole gaming community in India?
Gamerji was started with the intention that ideally the amateur gamers or gamers who don’t have the right, so to say, benchmark to start the gaming journey can come, showcase their skills, and obviously participate in multiple tournaments that we host on a daily basis.
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And obviously along with that also kind of make a mark and kind of climb up the ladder of esports. That was ideally the vision for which we started Gamergy. Obviously, the plan started iterating, especially during the COVID times when obviously gaming saw a huge surge, not only in the quantum but also in the quality of the audiences that started entering the gaming space.
So with that particular kind of vision in mind, we started onboarding more and more tournaments, more titles on the platform, and then obviously providing a path to grow to the aspiring gamers.
“Budding gamers can showcase their skills and get a chance to enter into the pro leagues,” says Soham Thacker, Founder of Gamerji, CHECK DETAILS
What were the impacts of the pandemic at Gamerji?
So obviously, esports still I would consider it still in its early days. Gaming though as an industry as a whole has matured over the course of time. But esports is still in its very, very early stages if you compare them with the fantasies or the real money gaming space. But the future is bright, obviously, with the Gen Zs and the millennials looking at gaming as a primary source of entertainment and also a lot of career opportunities that kind of evolve around the gaming and the esports space making it a brighter future in the coming years.
What are the key features of Gamerji and Why do users choose the platform?
So, as a platform, ideally, we always promote newer talent. Obviously, the tournaments that we host are mainly for aspiring gamers. And obviously our partnerships with multiple platforms, obviously, we also promote the same entire vision or the ecosystem all the way around, whether it be Vodafone or whether it be other platforms that we partner with.
So, ideally speaking, when a user comes on GamersE, they get a chance to kind of showcase their skills. And obviously, we monitor their stats and give them a chance to probably enter into the pro leagues. We partner with respective professional teams, the likes of Global Esports or Rurangu Tank or TSMs and etc. And we showcase the talent to them and ideally give the budding gamers a chance to actually make a career in esports.
What are your thoughts on the government of India regulating online games?
Well, it’s always good to have the government take it seriously. There are certain regulations that were very, very necessary, not only in the fantasy space but in the gaming space in general. And fortunately, a lot of the policies that have come out are in favor of making it more streamlined.
Obviously, there were a lot of gray areas before this, what are the do’s and don’ts? Still, it’s in the first draft stages. But hopefully, the government comes up with policies that ideally boost the entire ecosystem. The taxation norms obviously are a little more stringent, especially when it comes to the TDS norms or ideally the taxes on the vending norms. But that is something that can be worked around. At least the government recognizing the entire space is something that is a big boost to the industry in general.
“Budding gamers can showcase their skills and get a chance to enter into the pro leagues,” says Soham Thacker, Founder of Gamerji, CHECK DETAILS
Will it be fair to compare such platforms with major fantasy platforms of cricket?
Obviously, it is comparing two different industries altogether, to be honest. Fantasy or so to say cricket is a second religion in our country. To match those scales is obviously something that will take maybe a long time if at all that happens. And then fantasy obviously relies heavily on the cricket tournaments and the scale at which already cricket or the entire sport has gone. It is very unfair to compare a very new so to say segment with something that is so developed.
But yes, the number of gamers is increasing. We are sitting at about 300 million casual gamers in the country and that is the top five largest audiences that globally any country, a single country can provide. So definitely the future is very bright. You might not be able to compare it to as large as something like a fantasy industry but definitely, an industry which is likely to blossom.
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Yeah, and also I have just mentioned earlier that Gamerji has been partnering with so many brands and also companies. So tell us more about that, the reason behind it and how it can help both parties and also going forward how it can also attract more audience and all this. So ideally we partner in two different ways. One we partner where we integrate our tournament solutions on their respective platforms, something similar to what we did with Vodafone India.
Where what we do is embed our tournament engine within their platform and run tournaments on their behalf or use their user base as well. What that does for us is obviously it gives us access to a much larger audience, especially when you partner with the telecoms or even develop e-coms or gaming organizations. So it helps us reach our targeted audience a lot faster, helping aspiring gamers to participate from all different mediums. Obviously, GamerG as a startup has its limitations to reach, whereas ideally speaking, telecoms that have millions and millions of daily active customers coming on has a much larger reach.
That’s how it benefits us. And when it comes to the client side or ideally the platform that we embed our technology on, what they get is an additional medium of revenue slash engagement for their already existing customers. So that’s how a win-win situation kind of falls into place. Yeah, I have also checked the application of GamerG and I have seen the graphics are also working well also I think it’s so-so, we can say that.
“Budding gamers can showcase their skills and get a chance to enter into the pro leagues,” says Soham Thacker, Founder of Gamerji, CHECK DETAILS
Where are the areas Gamerji working on?
Well, there are a lot of things. It’s always a work in progress. There is not only a user interface standpoint or a user experience standpoint but also a feature-specific standpoint, there are a lot of new features that need to be coming on.
Something as simple as hosting your private tournaments, ideally for influencers or Discord communities which want to organize their private tournaments, we want to open our platform for them. Along with that, obviously embed a lot of content side on our platform where ideally the gamers can follow different other gamers, obviously get to learn from more professional gamers as well, and kind of build that knowledge within the platform as well.
And then last but not least, obviously enhance the stats so that they can look back upon their performances, learn from what their mistakes were and obviously grow as they evolve in the industry. So those are the few features that we are fully working on. You will see a lot of different updates that will be pushed this year, which hopefully are for the benefit of the industry and something that gamers appreciate.
How did the suspension of BGMI and Free Fire impact Gamerji?
No, it definitely was a big impact. Obviously, Free Fire and BGMI were very, very popular games, and certainly not having them available in our country was definitely a big hit.
We saw a lot of user base kind of started churning then. But fortunately, things stabilized as they had to, as always do. There are newer titles that came up, and people started shifting to games like Call of Duty or Free Fire Max that are still there or ideally, the likes of Valorant or CSGO started to kind of pick themselves.
So there was definitely a hit that Gamergy as a platform faced and the industry in general faced sudden bans of both these very primer titles. But again, that’s the world we live in. We never know what can happen tomorrow. But hoping that at least BGMI, which is what I’ve heard, should be back soon and hopefully, it’s there to stay.
“Budding gamers can showcase their skills and get a chance to enter into the pro leagues,” says Soham Thacker, Founder of Gamerji, CHECK DETAILS
How will the return of such popular titles impact the platform?
Well, obviously any popular titles or any titles coming in to help the entire community and ecosystem. And obviously, our platform is a byproduct of that. So if definitely, BGMI comes in, it will be a good boost to the platform. There are no two ways about it. And then any other titles also that start becoming popular, any popular titles that come into India or start becoming popular helps us. So yes, crossing our fingers and hoping for the best.
“Budding gamers can showcase their skills and get a chance to enter into the pro leagues,” says Soham Thacker, Founder of Gamerji, CHECK DETAILS
Can we see Gamerji coming to the Play Store or other platforms?
Well, the thing is we started as an RNG platform and that’s back then when Play Store did not allow real money gaming games to be on there. That’s when obviously we did not get on the Play Store. Now, unfortunately, what has happened is a lot of our user base started the APK route and started having the app.
So for us to now restart ourselves on the Play Store from zero becomes a larger challenge. Though we are still fighting for the licenses from Google to figure out whether it’s going to be allowed or not, because now we are not a real money gaming platform. We have completely shifted out of the cash in cash out model and converted ourselves into more of a virtual currency slash performance-based platform.
So that is something that we are presenting in our case. Hopefully, Google hears us out in the right manner and allows us to be back on the Play Store. But that is something that I really don’t have an answer to that the moment.
Yeah, I hope that Gamerji soon comes back to not come to the Play Store. Hoping for that. At least you will see us live on the iOS store in the next about couple of weeks. But that is something that I can definitely comment on. Play Store is something that we are still trying to figure out.
So, this is all Soham Thacker had to say. Gamers can find more stories on the esports section of our website. So, for updates on Gaming and Esports, follow InsideSport.IN.
