DreamHack is a gaming festival that was first held in Mumbai back in 2018. We went to the event and loved it loads, it was India’s first international gaming festival with so much to do & explore every single day it was just phenomenal. It’s been held again in Delhi in 2019, where it was smaller than last year but still pretty awesome with fewer issues too.
We’ve asked a similar question to Marcus (Founder of DreamHack) at the first edition of the festival, that will we expect another DreamHack next year in India? All we got was an enthusiastic “let’s see”, making it clear that it does depend on how this year’s festival goes, the nation’s response to it.
DreamHack confirmed to be held annually in India
At the second edition of DreamHack, I interviewed Akshat Rathee, the Founder & MD of NODWIN Gaming (they’ve partnered with DreamHack to make the event happen in India). The interview’s here, and he gave me a ton of insight into the industry and what’s next for NODWIN.
During the interview, I asked NODWIN’s Founder & MD, Akshat Rathee, that will DreamHack happen annually in India? And he said yes!
Satyam: Dreamhack’s second edition looks awesome so far. It’s happening in Delhi this time around, so is Dreamhack now happening annually in India? Will it be held in a different city next time?
Akshat: The answer to the first question is – Yes! DreamHack is going to happen annually, every year in India. If it does really well this year, maybe we’ll do two of them, soon. But which city, that’s not decided yet.
This is great for the Indian esports industry – we’ve come across a lot of roadblocks (players hacking in international LANs, organizations cheating their athletes, to name a few) but thankfully everything’s moved forward well and we have multiple international companies inside our nations esports industry.
AFKGaming reported back in 2017 that Esports in India has a steady growth with a total prize pool of 2 Crore INR being awarded to players in various esports tournaments. Then in 2018, we observed multiple esports tournaments and a gaming festival that combined prize pool that far exceeded those statistics.
DreamHack Mumbai 2018 had a prize pool of 140,000 USD (1 Crore INR) which is an enormous amount of money to be awarded in esports. In that year, we saw a few other esports tournaments happen with a prize pool that huge – ESL One Mumbai 2019 with a prize pool of 300,000 USD (2.1 Crore INR), COBX Masters 2019 with a prize pool of 200,000 USD (1.4 Crore INR) being two instances.
As I expected, this year has been great for the Indian esports industry. DreamHack now confirmed to being held annually is amazing news for everyone – whether you’re a mobile esports player or into PC Gaming esports.
The fact that there are multiple international gaming organizations doing big things in our nation speaks volumes about the industry’s bright future.
Akshat Rathee went on to announce DreamHack Hyderabad 2020 on stage, a day after I interviewed him. The third edition of DreamHack is happening in South India now, and there’s something very exciting happening for CSGO Esports at this event – there will be qualifiers for everyone, every team in India to compete and secure a spot as a team battling out against signature teams at the next year’s CS:GO Invitational.
The Indian gaming community will look forward to Dreamhack, one of the biggest gaming festivals in the world, happening every year in India.
