The top Indian esports business developments in August 2020

We take a look at last month’s biggest stories from the world of Indian esports. This includes a renewed effort to promote Riot Games’ titles between the company and PFG, along with the potential implications of a ban on the nation’s most popular title, PUBG Mobile.

These are the big stories for the month of August, in collaboration with AFK Gaming

Loco signs live media content and streaming deal with Marcos Gaming

Marcos Gaming, one of the leading Indian esports organisations, signed a partnership deal with Pocket Aces’ Loco for live media content streaming, facilitated by Marcos’ marketing agency Baseline Ventures. This partnership will showcase Marcos Gaming team top athletes streaming exclusive content on Loco.

Garena Announces Free Fire India Championship with PFG as sponsor

Garena announced the Free Fire India Championship with a prize pool of 5M INR(~GBP51,000). The tournament will be the largest Free Fire tournament in the region and features Paytm First Games as the title sponsor. It will be held entirely online given the ongoing global pandemic.

Free Fire India Championship
Credit: Free Fire

Loco strikes deal with NBA 2K League to stream games in India

Indian streaming platform Loco announced that it has signed a multi-year agreement with the NBA 2K League to stream official games on its platform. The move adds to the growing list of media rights deals that the platform has struck in recent months, including Fnatic India, Red Bull, and Marcos Gaming – along with other gaming content creators.

Team owner and content creator Thug announces sponsorship via CORSAIR and Gigabyte

Animesh “Thug” Agarwal, owner of Indian esports organisation 8bit, announced a partnership with CORSAIR and Gigabyte Aorus. The partnership with AORUS will see Agarwal help create a variety of content-led brand activations such as giveaways, product reviews, PC-building sessions, talk shows, and tournaments like the on-going AORUS cup.

The partnership with CORSAIR allows Thug to explore both PC-related activations and mobile-related ones through the Elgato line of products.

AFK Gaming is India-based esports media and content company that aims to provide quality and consistent coverage about teams, players, tournaments and competitive video games with a primary focus on the Asian region.