Who would have thought a decade earlier that gaming would become a profession in our country? There are many gaming enthusiasts out there who are working hard to make their passion turn into professions. And, gamers are certainly one of them. To help the potential professional gamers of India, Asus has publicly announced the recruitment of six gamers in India to join the ROG Academy Programme.
Asus through their ROG Academy Programme will train these gamers at a professional level so that they can represent the brand both locally and globally. This program will help the best gamers in India to showcase their talent and pursue gaming as e-sports players professionally. Asus will arrange this program with the support from AFK Gaming to provide adequate and proper tutelage to these budding gamers of India.
Asus ROG Academy Program
ROG Academy Programme is a one-year long program divided into four quarterly sessions. This program focuses on the game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, one of the most popular games in esports. Registration for this program will go on from 1st February to 10th February 2021. After rigorous selection procedures, six final candidates will be selected. These final candidates will get Rs 1,00,000 after completing three-month training and a monthly stipend of Rs 15,000 with a bonus during these three months.
Gadgets 360 spoke to Arnold Su, Asus India’s Business Head, and Siddharth Nayyar, Co-founder, and Director of AFK Gaming to get detailed insight about this initiative in India and about the selection process. Based on the questions Gadgets 360 asked them, here is more information about the ROG Academy Programme and the future of esports in India.
Growth potential in terms of the overall gaming market in India
According to Arnold Su (AS), computer gaming can be divided into two sections, hardware, and software. In India, PC gaming has been booming since 2016 increasing the sale of PC gaming units to almost 9 folds in 2020. And, when it comes to e-sports, there are around 17 million active spectators in our country. ROG is mainly focussing on investing in the youths of India. The gaming culture has improved as the data plans have become affordable but still, infrastructure for e-sports has huge rooms for improvements.
Siddharth Nayyar (SN) says that the gaming market, in general, is growing a lot and that people are switching from mobiles to PC gaming for a better experience. More engagement can be expected in the competitive gaming space as companies like Riot and Valve are investing in the e-sports space.
What does the program plan on achieving?
Asus has been conducting ROG tournaments in India since 2017 so there is a scope to find more talents. During the pandemic, the ROG Showdown tournaments attracted a lot of gamers. Due to limitations to choices of entertainment during the pandemic, many people switched to mobile gaming and the mobile gamers witched to PC. The gaming industry boomed during the lockdown which is expected to continue even after the end of the pandemic. This is the reason Asus decided to launch this academy program to train more games and make them skillful. This is a unique program in the e-sports space first started by Asus.
The selection process for the program
Applicants from 16-years old and above can enroll through participants between 16-18 years need parent’s consent to participate. 50 candidates will be selected in the first phase after an online assessment based on the knowledge of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. In the second phase, the selected candidates will play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in teams which will be hosted by a server called SoStronk. 20 candidates will be shortlisted for the third phase from where six top candidates will be selected for the program. The applicants will need a basic gaming setup for participation. Currently, the program is only focusing on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and other games will be added later. The gaming perspective is slowly changing for parents as well. E-sports will be added in the Olympics of 2024 which will motivate more and more gamers to pursue it as a professional training sport.
E-sports challenges in India
Though the overall e-gaming scenario is improving in India, infrastructure and broadband are the two major challenges. The company is trying to reach out to tier-3 and tier-2 markets in India for broadening the gaming base. Siddharth Nayyar also mentioned that gaming culture will skyrocket in India if these markets are exposed to ASUS gaming laptops and good internet.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more