Does the community really care or its just that it loves giving reasons?
Yes, we are not happy and its not because we lost the Mountain Dew Indiachampionship but because we could only see a handful of people around.
The venue was Kingdom of Dreams and for us gamers in India it was always a dream to have a production like international tournaments which we did achieve, thanks to NODWIN Gaming, we also dreamt of getting Esports into mainstream media so that big companies jump into it, we have atleast got a step closer to that thanks to our GadgetGuru Mr. Rajiv Makhni and Mountain Dew. We also wanted to be treated as stars so this time Mr. Akshat Rathee and Mountain dew gave us that opportunity as well. We had an event management team present there at the venue doing rehearsals with the hosts, gamers etc and planning their entrance on stage. Everyone from the organising team be it the gang of Nodwin group, Mr. Anup Dustakar, Mr. Gautam Virk or our sponsors SoStronk. All of these guys were running everywhere, coordinating on walkie talkies to start things on time and making sure everything is perfect. They made sure the star element was present there every time and wanted the players to feel like one.
The teams were called early morning for few hours so that they could do the rehearsals for their entry on stage and the most important thing, they had to give their setup to the admins. Every team had an assigned admin who would setup their pcs and make sure they are not facing any issue or discomfort during their game.
We surrendered everything to the admins and went back to the hotel after doing our rehearsals. Our call time was 1 hour before the match and we made sure we were there. The venue was amazing, fully air conditioned, there were 2-4 Mountain Dew refrigerators making sure everyone is hydrated without making anyone pay for it. Also the entry was completely free for everyone who wanted to watch the games with a chilled bottle of Aquafina or Mountain Dew.
We might be wrong here but we think the capacity of the venue was around 300-400 people. When we first entered the venue in the morning and spoke to few journalist and other gamers, they were pretty confident after seeing the setup and said that this Esports event for the first time in Indian history will have a housefull auditorium. We were still sceptical because we have seen many tournaments and we know what happens but we didn’t say anything and were hoping and praying for the venue to get full, atleast in the evening.
When we came for the grand finals we could merely see 50-60 people sitting and a few waiting outside. We thought let the grand finals begin we will hit the numbers then. The match went live and the number increased by another 10. We couldn’t even fill in 100 seats and there were only 500 people watching on the stream as well.
Our question is when we have 10,000 fans, the Entity gang has 4 teams so that is approximately another 10,000-15,000 fans followed by FIFA followers, the CSGO India group itself has another 15,000 people and Dota2 group has above 20,000. The total here is around 60,000 people who love playing CSGO, DOTA2 and FIFA. Our question here is where do all these people go when there is something this big happening in the country? We are not saying we wanted those 300 seats in the auditorium to be full and 40,000 people watching on the stream but atleast a few more numbers would have helped.
The reality is we couldn’t event fill in 100 people in the auditorium which was air conditioned and had beverages on the house, nor could we get a few thousands on the stream to watch. As a team we tried to get as many people as possible, as an organiser the Lordnod gang tried their best, as a big brand Mountain Dew did their best but what about the community? As community did you guys do your best? We are not saying you had to fly from wherever you are to Gurgaon and watch the games. Those of you who were staying in different cities could have watched the games on stream and those who lived in Delhi could have come down. It was a Sunday afterall and still we couldn’t get in 100 people.
Normally as a community we are very active, we are the best in cribbing, crying for sponsors, putting allegation on organisers, fighting amongst each other, making posts on social media regarding bad setups, blaming the tournament, defaming brands etc but we wont press few clicks and support the game or teams that we love online nor would we go to meet the teams or appreciate the organisers for their efforts.
The Esports structure that we want to get in our country wont happen without the support of the community, we as Brutality alone cannot do it. Its a spectator sport and we need spectators for that. We want fans cheering for their favourite teams in the tournaments, we want the tournament streams crashing with the Indian numbers. If this happens then only we can say that we have improved. For now its almost still the same like it was before few years back. The only change now is that tournaments are gaining pace and are coming in short intervals with increased prices.
As a community we want to know your take on this, the 10,000 people that have liked us, we want to know why weren’t you there, why didn’t you click the live Twitch link, what is that you want.
If you guys help us know that, we can definitely put it up in front of the organisers. Should the organisers start giving prizes to the spectators as well? Should we have a prize pool of 3 lacs for spectators also? What is it that will help us to get you guys to the streams and auditoriums? We cant just always blame the organisers or our country or say that we don’t have enough sponsors. Why would a sponsor want to invest in lakhs for a event worth 100 people? Have you ever thought of that.
Everyone wants Esports to grow, everyone wants to play games, everyone wants to participate in giveaways, but when it comes to viewership everyone backs out and only a few die hard fans come forward. You guys need to change this.
We are trying our best as players but are you as a community?
