Indian eSports witnessed yet another exciting development in the sector with the return of FreeFire India by Garena, a Singapore-based global online games developer and publisher, in collaboration with Yotta. Yotta is an expansive data center facility located in Uttar Pradesh, India, across 27 acres of land. It is scheduled to be introduced on September 5, 2023.
This exciting announcement has been made on the occasion of the Super Blue Moon phenomenon by Mr. Gang Ye, Co-founder of Garena. Surely there is an Indian influence, as we look at it. To add to this, MS Dhoni will be coming on board to become its Brand Ambassador.
Mr. Darshan Hiranandani, Co-founder and Chairman, Yotta, emphasized the strides made in the data center sector in India, stating, “Our partnership with Garena is a strong endorsement of the significant progress in the Indian data center industry. We are pleased to bring our unique data hosting and cybersecurity expertise to the benefit of Indian users. This partnership will foster further India-Singapore technology collaboration.”
Garena has also announced the introduction of the FreeFire India Championship, boosting esports excellence further by signing an MoU with the government of Uttar Pradesh. In addition to this, Singapore is the first country to send nine satellites to ISRO for deployment in space in 2023. Many more rapid developments are coming out of this accord.
Earlier, most of the servers were stationed outside India in places like Dubai and Singapore, which meant that players always experienced high latency during gameplay. This, by default, puts Indian players at a competitive disadvantage. It’s good to see games hosting the servers in India, which gets rid of the latency problems and ensures fast and secure gameplay for the gamers. This is happening because esports in India are growing at a rapid rate.
H.E. Simon Wong, High Commissioner of Singapore to India, said, “Garena’s launch of Free Fire India and commitment to localizing and developing the esports ecosystem locally is testament to the vibrancy of the mobile games and esports space in India, and to India’s potential for global leadership in this area. I look forward to greater partnerships in the digital media, entertainment, and esports fields between India and Singapore.”
An esports competition has also been announced for November, 2023 for the FreeFire series. An international esports tournament will also take place in Uttar Pradesh this December.
Mr. Gang Ye, Co-founder of Garena, said, “India is home to very passionate communities of esports enthusiasts, and we are excited to be able to support our fans from Bharat with the launch of Free Fire India. We look forward to providing an engaging and highly localized experience for Indian users. We believe our partnership with Yotta will ensure that our users can enjoy the highest quality gameplay experience and benefit from Yotta’s expertise in protecting and securing Indian user data. We are also committed to supporting the development of India’s esports and startup ecosystems. The Free Fire India Esports Championships is our first step in building out our platform of esports events and activities in the coming months to empower Indian esports athletes to succeed globally.”
In contrast to the international FreeFire theme, Indian gamers are going to enjoy a plethora of Indian-specific features while playing the game. The company is aiming to create a new league of not just gamers but responsible gamers by introducing features such as parental supervision, gameplay limitations, and “take a break” reminders.
There are many other interesting and popular games that have their own hosting servers in India, including DOTA 2, Valorant, and Counter-Strike, to name a few. Let’s see how this return of Free Fire India impacts the realm of esports in the coming months. Till then, keep playing and stay tuned to iLLGaming for more exciting news.
