S8UL grew to become the primary Indian esports group to win the highly-coveted Content material Group of the 12 months award within the Esports Awards 2022 on Wednesday.
S8UL’s success has come from understanding what is esports, content material, and enterprise ecosystem – and extra particularly understanding break the foundations of that ecosystem. A big chunk of S8UL’s success and progress over the past yr or so has come from placing their gaming creators within the highlight, moderately than video games and esports itself.
A typical S8UL content material piece revolves round their community of greater than 50 gaming creators collaborating in native developments with cultural twists. They’re additionally not afraid to lean into both Bollywood or India’s very area of interest meme tradition.
This has resulted in them simply tapping into the bigger Indian popular culture scene on YouTube, which has a particular person base that they captured – to the tune of 1.03m subscribers on the time of writing. All of this has helped them develop into the voice of the gaming subculture in India.
S8UL Beat Some Large Names
The Esports Awards 2022 have been hosted in Las Vegas, with lots of the largest names within the trade attending the occasion. S8UL needed to beat some esports heavyweights like 100 Thieves, FaZe Clan, OTK, G4TV, and Tribo Gaules to get their arms on the massive prize, which makes this achievement much more spectacular. The class that S8UL gained concerned public voting, so it’s truthful to say that there was a numerical benefit for a group coming from India. Nonetheless, to garner as a lot assist within the Indian ecosystem which may be very younger and has no world recognition in any respect, is a feat in itself.
PUBG Cellular esports participant Animesh Agarwal aka 8bit Thug, Naman Mathur aka Soul Mortal, and Lokesh Jain aka 8bit Goldy have joint possession of S8UL. S8UL was fashioned solely two years in the past and rapidly grew to become a sensation after a number of the most interesting esports personalities within the nation joined arms to kind the group.
S8UL have a boot camp in Mumbai, with India’s greatest PUBG cellular group underneath their ranks. They’ve additionally had another fashionable Indian content material creators on their roster, like Scout, Mavi, Mamba, and Regaltos.
They’re India’s hottest esports group and have been on the forefront of selling the trade by varied social media channels like YouTube, Instagram, and Discord. Earlier than they clinched the title, that they had already made historical past by being the primary Indian esports group to get nominated for the Esports Awards.
Mortal is taken into account probably the most recognizable faces in esports in India and understandably emotional following the massive information. He has been nominated for Esports Awards in earlier years alongside a number of the largest names within the esports trade like Faker and Goldenboy.
“Phrases fail me as I see our dream as a dream group come true. Seeing us being celebrated by the worldwide esports group, it’s an actual feeling. It’s actually time to pause, mirror and really feel completely satisfied,” he stated.
What Does This Imply For Indian Esports?
There isn’t as a lot resistance in direction of a profession in esports in India right this moment. Many nice esports gamers in India have revealed that their households have been extremely supportive regardless of having reservations initially.
The extra vital problem lately has been making a reputation exterior India. This is likely one of the few events the place an Indian esports group has been acknowledged globally. This second will possible persuade many different gamers {that a} profession inside the esports trade is viable.
A 2022 report from FICCI-EY Media said that the variety of esports gamers doubled in 2021 to 600,000 in 2021, and income within the trade grew by 29% from INR 7.5 billion in 2020 to INR 9.7 billion in 2021.
The report added that these numbers can be better within the coming years. One factor is for sure: S8UL have performed an enormous half within the progress of the esports industry and can proceed to take action.
