“The success of Valorant in India proves that this market has both volume and value for a core game publisher”: Sukamal Pegu

The Valorant Conquerors Championship turned out to be one of the most successful competitive events for the title in South Asia.

The tournament saw one of the highest engagements in terms of viewership and community participation. Fans got an opportunity to witness one of the most intense grand finals that saw Global Esports edge out Velocity Gaming to secure their spot in the APAC Last Chance Qualifiers.

Congratulations @GlobalEsportsIn !!! https://t.co/Ku86gk8QnZ

— VALORANT // India & South Asia (@playVALORANTsa) August 29, 2021

The success of the Valorant Conquerors Championship speaks volumes of the market that the shooter was able to create in the region in just one year. And in a conversation with Abhishek Mallick of Sportskeeda Esports, Sukamal Pegu, Head of Publishing at Riot Games, India, and South Asia, talked about what this success means for the developers and how it will affect the future of the title in the nation.

Here is what he had to say.

Sukamal Pegu, Head of Publishing at Riot Games, India, and South Asia, on the Valorant Conquerors Championship

Sukamal Pegu: After a grueling circuit of 2 months featuring 900+ teams across 7 countries in South Asia, we finally have the winners of the inaugural Valorant Conquerors Championship. Global Esports will now move to the APAC LCQ VCT 2021 event in October.

The grand finals of VCC was one of the most viewed PC esports event in the region and almost felt like a mobile esport broadcast instead, which to me is a HUGE win!

Of course, both finalists, GE and Velocity Gaming, put up a really great show and took the game all the way to the 5th map, making it one of the most nerve-wracking of finals thus far. And while GE showed why they are one of the best in the region, I would like to give a big shoutout to all the teams who participated in the event and made it so very successful. You guys are all MVPs!

One amazing thing that we learned about the Valorant Conquerors Championship broadcast, is that the true regional potential of Valorant in South Asia came from the regional language feeds of Hindi/ Urdu/ Nepali, which contributed to 80% of the overall viewership

This vlog captures our VCC finals journey and all the good and bad bits of it.Do give it a watch - https://t.co/172mCIl8Ne #Gefighting #Trusttheprocess @skrossigg @RushindraSinha @Nghtmre2k @playVALORANTsa @GlobalEsportsIn @lameboredghini pic.twitter.com/jrtlnH91ZB

— Bhavin Kotwani (@GE_HellrangeR) September 1, 2021

So why is this important for a market like India?

1. The success of Valorant in India proves that this market has both volumes and value for a core game publisher and although the volume of mobile-first core gamers is very high in comparison, there is a lot of potential even for non-mobile competitive games here.

2. The other big surprise that came up during VCC was the emergence of non-India-based teams as highly competent and capable of holding their own. Indian teams have a lot of support from a semi-professional setup and so the fact that teams from other countries in the region were able to take away matches from some of the top teams here is an indication that there is a depth of talent in the region which just needs a good platform like VCC to come out and shine.

3. Holding an event of this magnitude across the region where infrastructure can be very challenging is definitely worth talking about. Every regional qualifier went smoothly without any major glitches or delays and that shows that we have the capability to pull off mega esport events in the future.

4. Lastly, we must talk about the quality of the VCC broadcast. NODWIN did a fantastic job and the quality was at par with our broadcasts in EU or NA. It was one of the few broadcasts in the region that garnered a lot of international interest and we even had some popular streamers such as OnScreen in EU holding a watch party for the event broadcasts. Which was just incredible!