Along with the incipient vaccine and a slowing down of India’s infection rate that gives us hope for 2021, another piece of happy news is that the gamers among us have the chance to earn some cash. eSports and game streaming platform Loco, owned by Pocket Aces, has announced its partnership with video game publishing giant — Activision Blizzard. The two will jointly host India’s biggest Call of Duty Mobile tournament with a Prize Pool of Rs 35 lakhs.
The Call of Duty Mobile India Cup will be live exclusively on Loco and the event will comprise two tournaments- Call of Duty Mobile India Cup Open and Call of Duty Mobile India Cup Pro. Registrations are underway, allowing teams across India to sign up and compete against each other in 5v5 matches in an open qualifier format.
Speaking about how the exit of PUBG from Indian mobile devices led to a resurgence of games like Call of Duty, Anirudh Pandita, Founder, Pocket Aces, says, “PUBG Mobile was a pioneer in cracking open mobile gaming in India and setting the stage for the game streaming and esports revolution here. Today, India is a proven market in terms of gaming demand, both for players as well as viewers. Multiple publishers are now trying to enter the market and provide value to India’s large gamer base.”
“As India’s largest homegrown game streaming platform, Loco continued to stand by our streamers and worked hand-in-hand with them as they transitioned to new games and gaming content formats,” notes Pandita, adding, “We recently announced our partnership with video game publishing giant, Activision Blizzard, and will host one of the largest esports tournaments since the PUBG ban called Call of Duty Mobile India Cup.
This is a good example of the commitment other publishers are showing towards India and we will see this continue next year.” This is especially true given that PUBG plans to return to the country with an India-only version, with Pandita concluding, “With the rumoured re-entry of PUBG, we expect that the competition between publishers will heat up and that will result in multiple innovations from their side, which only means more value for the Indian consumer”.