BGMI has been banned by the Indian government under 69A of the IT Act, the same provision that
was used to ban PUBG Mobile. The recent ban has raised some serious questions about the future of
Esports in India.

In the beginning, the Indian Esports industry was far behind in the market when compared to
countries like the US and Japan. It has been expanded on a huge scale in recent years.
The country's revenue earnings are just 16%. But it can be said that the way gamers are trying to
improve their skills by coming up with new ideas, gradually the Esports industry in India will grow in
the next few years. Yash Pariani, the founder of the House of Gaming mentioned - “Esports in India is
growing fast in terms of both prize pool and viewership numbers.”

At the same time, Kowshik Komandur of AVP displayed the ascending growth chart of this sector. He
has estimated the growth of the viewers to reach 85 million by 2025. The overall industry income
would be around ₹ 1100 crore. According to Komandur, as the number of livestream content is
increasing, gamers are targeting audiences via live streaming platforms. Brands have increased their
ad spending by 30% in the last two years.

Valay Patel, CTO of Gamerji commented on the occasion by saying “Presently the country has 430
billion mobile gamers and it will be increasing in the coming years.” He also added, “During the
pandemic, the sporting events and tournaments like IPL, Pro Kabbadi, League Hockey Pro-league
games, National Games were either canceled or delayed for a long time. Students moved to online
schooling. But these factors were a golden opportunity for the Esports industry to expand their
business as everyone was trying to involve themselves in some sort of activities back then. Another
reason behind the market growth can also be the availability of smartphones and affordable internet
service.”

On the other hand, Asutosh from Esportslive mentioned that there are limited teams or companies
in this field, thus, growth cannot be ensured in this way. There's the same repetition of teams in
every tournament throughout the country. Whereas, promising teams do not get a chance to
participate. 

Asutosh called the ban a nightmare for every BGMI gamer and Esports company. He said while
everybody was rushing toward BGMI, suddenly the game was shut down. It breaks the morale of the
aspiring gamers. For those who take up Esports as their career, this sort of ban will affect them to a
great extent. 

When PUBG Mobile was banned in the country, the viewership degraded by 70% as it was the sole
game that had acquired great popularity. Prohibiting games can never be a solution to a problem or
issue. The government needs to enlist proper guidelines so that the game developers would get a
clear knowledge of the limitations and thus reduce the risk of sudden bans and negative impacts on
the gaming industry.