Indian esports can learn from Australian grassroots development

Indian esports has been taking a few jumps ahead this week. At the day-long conference titled Esports Conference 2022, ‘Rise of Esports – The Emerging Frontier’ organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) last weekend, experts have been discussing how esports needs grassroot foundation to prosper in India.

There is much to learn from nations that have already recognised esports as a potential industry. Darren Kwan, President of the Australian Esports Federation, while addressing the session on ‘Esports- A Global Perspective’, highlighted how grassroots development helped Australia become a successful ground for esports economy and how India can follow the same.

We have educated high school kids about the difference between playing for leisure and participating for competitive esports tournaments

“For developing the grassroots ecosystem, we focused on player communities, high school clubs, and from there, we were able to build monstrous communities. We have educated high school kids about the difference between playing for leisure and participating for competitive esports tournaments, we have made sure that they need to be focused with their studies and other demands and spend quality time for playing esports and this approach has really worked for us.

“About 70% of the professional gamers are University Students and we actually cross-pollinate. Today, esports and gaming is massively popular in Australia and has been the absolute driver as Australians spend over AU$3 billion dollars a year in video games alone,” Kwan said.