“While I am excited about the arrival of Battlegrounds Mobile India, I feel that we’re still far away from creating a sustainable market for any esports title”: Nimish "Nemo" Raut, former Fnatic India lead

For an esports title that needs to heavily depend on its domestic market, it’s imperative that it gets to create a self-sustaining ecosystem.

And for an “India-exclusive” title like Battlegrounds Mobile India, the need for such a system is at an all-time high. Though Krafton’s latest title was able to live up to much of the hype that was created around it, esports personalities like Nimish "Nemo" Raut are more concerned about the sporting aspect of the game and what it can give back to the community in the long run.

In a conversation with Abhishek Mallick of Sportskeeda Esports, the former Fnatic India lead shared some of the hopes and wishes that he has for Indian esports. He desires a system, where his kids Kyro & Ayla can grow up to find an industry, which is as strong and as fruitful as any of the other major leagues in the world.

Nemo having quality gaming time with his kids (Nemo with his kids (Credits: Nimish "Nemo" Rauth))

To do that, the gaming community will need to put in some years of hard work to make the scene as robust as possible.

Here is an excerpt of some of the things that he had to say.

Nimish "Nemo" Raut on Indian esports and battlegrounds Mobile India

Nemo: There are very exciting times ahead of us, as I think there has been a lot of hype around the fact that the game has finally made a comeback. But what I would obviously like to mention is that for any esports ecosystem to actually flourish, I think we need to have conversations around what the sporting aspect of esports in India actually is or is going to be.

As of yet, I feel that we are pretty far away from building a sustainable sporting ecosystem in India. After having worked in so many areas and facets of the esports industry, and across multiple regions, I won’t be lying if I said that we have not even come close to making the first steps of an independent market. This, to me, is a very sad reality.

I feel some of the things that need to be considered here are team ownership, player contracts, sustainability, as well as dual team ownership. A system needs to be created in such a way that it completely negates poaching, and having a clear transfer window helps in solidifying much of that. Another aspect that we need to consider is, when will monetization happen, especially when it comes to broadcasting rights.

I feel a lot of these questions will be answered in the near future, and this kind of becomes the pillar for any sustainable esports ecosystem around the world for any publisher.

In some of the biggest leagues which I have seen around the world, whether it’s the LCS, the LEC, or the LCK, you can see that it has taken them around 10-12 years to create an ecosystem where teams can be sold for 30 or at times even $40 million USD and players get salaries in upwards of 800K.

The holdup remains Perkz’s buyout, which G2 have told several teams is just shy of $5 million, according to sources. If Cloud9 and G2 can come to terms, Perkz would reunite with @Zven, his former teammate. The duo won three EU LCS titles from 2016-17.

— Jacob Wolf (@JacobWolf) November 10, 2020

Unfortunately, we are not even close to that. At the moment, we are unable to pay the salaries of players as team owners because they are asking for ridiculous amounts and there is no way for a team to meet those expectations as they do not have an avenue to make that money back.

So while I am very excited that the game’s back, I feel that for any title, we need to understand that to build an esports ecosystem it needs to be sustainable, and it needs to have space for everyone to derive profits from.

I am looking forward to, or rather hoping that we as a gaming community can take the right steps towards building this esports ecosystem, and putting in a couple of years of hard work into it, to make it robust.

Hopefully, this happens, and I dream of a day when my kids get to grow up and enjoy an esports ecosystem in India that will be as strong and as fruitful as any of the other major leagues.

Nemo with his kids (Credits: Nimish "Nemo" Rauth)

By 2030 I wish for an Indian esports ecosystem where there is broadcast revenue, where there is merchandising, there are players who are superstars and are being transferred for ridiculous amounts of money.

THAT’s the kind of dream that people should talk about and look to build on as a community from here on out.