Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently organised a meeting with seven prominent figures from India’s gaming community. This meeting marked an acknowledgement of the industry’s cultural and economic impact.
Among the attendees were renowned gamers such as Naman “Mortal” Mathur, Animesh “Thug” Agarwal, Mithilesh “MythPat” Patankar, Payal “Payal” Dhare, and Anshu “GamerFleet” Bisht. The meeting was held to discuss the course of the Indian gaming sector and explore ways for its development. This meeting showed the government’s recognition of gaming as a vital component of India’s digital landscape.
India has a gaming population of between 450 and 550 million and the gaming sector generated $3.1 billion in revenue in FY23. The meeting aimed to address key issues and opportunities within the gaming ecosystem.
Game developers who participated in the meeting expressed about PM Modi’s plans, citing his proactive approach as a catalyst for positive change in the gaming industry.
Let’s know a bit about these games:
Animesh Agarwal is known as 8bitThug, with 10.5 lakh subscribers on YouTube and 83.7 lakh followers on Instagram. Agarwal was a professional gamer, his forte is in esports, gaming and luxury lifestyle content creation. He is known as a pioneer in the Indian gaming industry.
Mithilesh Patankar, widely known as MythPat is the ambassador for Intel’s gaming brand in India. He has 34 lakh followers on Instagram and 1.46 crore subscribers on YouTube
Naman “Mortal” Mathur is renowned for his expertise in Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI). He has an extensive YouTube following with 70 lakh subscribers. He won the BMPS Season 1, PUBG Mobile Club Open, and PUBG Mobile India Series in 2019.
Payal “Payal” Dhare is one of the female gamers in India with over 3.63 million YouTube subscribers and 31 lakh Instagram followers.
Payal Dhare is from Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh. She defied societal stereotypes early on to pursue her dream of becoming a gamer. She was introduced to the gaming world by her cousin brothers.
Anshu Bisht, known as ‘GamerFleet’ has 17 lakh followers on Instagram and 38.1 lakh subscribers on YouTube. He is from Haldwani, Uttarakhand and is known for Minecraft gaming.
Ganesh Gangadhar, known as SkRossi, is a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player. Currently, he plays for Revenant Esports. He has 57.5 thousand followers on Instagram and 158 thousand subscribers on YouTube. Was named the 14th best Asian player of 2021 by VALO2ASIA.
Tirth Mehta, is from Bhuj, Gujarat. He is an esports player and won a bronze medal in Hearthstone at the 2018 Asian Games. He has been in esports competitions and programming since 2013. He is also a game developer at Unity as mentioned on his LinkedIn.
