Even if KRAFTON, the South Korean video game developer that created Battlegrounds Mobile India or BMI (the sanitised sanskari version of the banned PUBG), has not announced its release date yet, potential players across Delhi-NCR and beyond are already lined up.
The Indian gaming industry has seen its flood gates opening ever since pre-registration for the game went live on Google Play Store for fans on May 18. It received 7.6 million pre-registrations on its opening day, and has just crossed an eye-watering 20 million pre-registrations, within two weeks.
“This comes with no surprise as Indian esports lovers were eagerly waiting for it. The highly anticipated game is welcomed by the esports gaming fraternity, as they seek to enjoy a similar rush again. This opens a whole new possibility for our gaming content creators who will be able to engage and entertain their followers as Battlegrounds Mobile India tends to have a dedicated following base,” notes Shivam Rao, Co-Founder and COO of Delhi-headquartered Trinity Gaming, one of India’s leading gaming talent management firms, adding, “For gaming and esports content creators, it will be a new route to explore more new content and also engage with the new set of followers of BMI.”
“The pre-registration phase has marked great success with 20 million Indian gamers which will continue to grow. We can easily forecast that the game will have above 50 million gamers in the first quarter of its launch,” asserts Tarun Gupta, Founder, Ultimate Battle, India’s first-ever one-stop online esports platform.
Indeed, professional teams across the country are already readying the rosters of their pro-gamers for the tournaments that are sure to be announced in coming weeks (watch this space for more) and further details are dropped. “The cult for this enormous success came as it’s the favourite game of Indian gamers which is making a much-awaited coming back.
The game is surely going to revolutionise the Indian gaming and esports scene, it’s simply history in the making to fuel the Indian esports ecosystem,” points out Gupta, adding, “We are looking forward to the launch of BMI as we strive to provide the esports community with gaming events, content, and more through our online esports platform which caters to over 300,000 registered gamers.”
Speaking on the response by Indian fans, CH Kim, CEO of KRAFTON, Inc. and developer of the original PUBG, said in a statement, “We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our Indian fans for their overwhelming response to the Battlegrounds IP, first developed by me and my team in 2017. The Battlegrounds IP received love and acclaim from players worldwide, and KRAFTON will continue to build on the IP. That effort includes bringing amazing content to BMI, and providing an incomparable Battle Royale experience to our players.”