Abhishek Madhavan – Vice President, Growth and Marketing, MPL

Online gaming has rapidly become one of India’s favourite pastimes, with game downloads increasing 8-10x and the active mobile gaming population growing to approximately 200 million. This hobby is now spreading to small towns and cities of India, as there has been a sharp rise in the number of gamers in these places with increased accessibility to the internet and cheaper data plans. The recent lockdown has also led to many small town gamers looking to multiplayer games like Call of Duty, Counter-strike, Free Fire and Fortnite to keep in touch with friends. Esports platform Mobile Premier League (MPL) has seen this rise and growth in gaming, with small town gamers playing some of the top global titles such as COD, CS and more. Ramesh Kumar Raja caught up with Abhishek Madhavan, Vice President, Growth and Marketing, MPL, to discuss the current gaming trends and how MPL is supporting small town gamers. He also talked about the future of online gaming in India and MPL’S plans for the year. Excerpts:

How do you look at the emerging trend of online gaming in India, especially post COVID-19 lockdown? Gaming was on a steady rise in India even before the lockdown. What the lockdown did was that it accelerated it even further. With people getting more time during the lockdown, they began to play games more frequently and started trying different games and formats. The appeal of gaming cuts across age groups, and with so many quality mobile games now available, this space is where all the action is.

The hobby of online gaming is now spreading to small towns and cities of India. How MPL is supporting small town gamers? A huge chunk of our users comes from tier 2 and tier 3 cities and towns. There are various success stories in the public domain about how our users from places such as Meerut, Nagpur, Surat, etc have been successful on MPL. The first digital sports scholarship we awarded is

to VS Rathanvel from Coimbatore, an international chess master, who also won our Chess Mahayudh tournament in July 2019.

Fantasy gaming has redefined the online gaming like never before. Where it’s moving now? Fantasy sports in India is already mainstream and continues to grow at a very fast pace. It is not just restricted to Cricket and Football anymore, and you have Kabaddi, Basketball, Baseball etc, as fans’ interest grows in these sports.

What’s the way forward for fantasy gaming, particularly in the absence of live sports? Live sports began returning with major football leagues restarting their campaigns in May-june. Now, with the IPL – the biggest Cricket league in the world – poised to return next month and other popular leagues like the CPL etc, Fantasy sport is back.

How has the model of gaming on cloud been

one of the biggest boons of the industry which has helped handle the sudden upsurge? Online gaming on mobile does away with a lot of legacy barriers associated with the gaming space and it is the perfect medium to take gaming to the masses.

How many games and tournaments do you offer on your platform and what have been their responses? What next now? We currently have over 50 games on our platform and multiple tournament/contest formats for all of them. We want to collaborate with more indigenous game developers and help publish their games on the MPL platform. There are some amazing games made by studios right here in our country. One such example is Rogue Heist, India’s first homemade Battle Royale Shooter game, which we launched exclusively on MPL.

What do you do to increase the recall value of your brand among gamers? We have Virat Kohli, the most-recognised face in Cricket as our brand ambassador. Our brand ambassador epitomises what we want our users to experience on MPL- healthy competition and victory. We try to ensure that these core values resonate with our users.

“You may soon see esports in the Olympics.

The Asian Games 2018 had an esports event, where India even won a medal. We need more support for the esports industry so that the talents can be recognised and supported. At MPL, our focus is two-pronged: Support indigenous game developers so that their games can reach a wide audience, and provide opportunities for gamers to play these games and monetise their skills”

Can you please tell us about the whole business of esports in India and how is MPL contributing to the same? Esports have always had a dedicated fanbase in India. What we are currently witnessing is its shift to the mainstream. And this is also a global phenomenon. You may soon see esports in the Olympics. The Asian Games 2018 had an esports event, where India even won a medal. We need more support for the esports industry so that the talents can be recognised and supported. At MPL, our focus is two-pronged: Support indigenous game developers so that their games can reach a wide audience, and provide opportunities for gamers to play these games and monetise their skills.

What innovations and diversifications you are doing to stay ahead of the curve in India, which is a highly competitive market? Our primary and biggest objective is user happiness. We have features like unlimited and instant withdrawals for users to withdraw their winnings, easy chat and social interfaces for users to connect with each other. Our Fantasy vertical has the lowest platform fee and we also run certain contests where users get back a guaranteed percentage of their entry fee. We are also constantly adding more games for our users to enjoy and making their experience on the app seamless and easy.

What are the challenges you see in India from gaming point of view? As of now, awareness is an area that can definitely be improved. Gaming is more than just playing a game for pastime and there are multiple career opportunities in the space.

How do you look at the future of online gaming in India? What are your plans for the year? It’s the next big thing and we are very excited to be in this space. There is a huge opportunity for discovering gaming talent in the country and we will do our best to play a constructive and significant role. This year, we are eagerly looking forward to the upcoming IPL. ■

ramesh@mymobile.co.in