The future of eSports in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a developing country in the world that has overcome many developments in the field of technology. But many people are not ready to adapt to the recent changes. The world is adapting to eSports, but most Bangladeshi people do not agree to accept it. Instead of that, they only want to stick with traditional sports. Esports, also known as electronic sports, is the competitive play of video games that can include organised, multiplayer competitions played professionally or casually, taking place online and offline.

 

According to Google, in 2022, the global esports market was valued at just over 1.38 billion U.S. dollars. Moreover, the eSports industry’s global market revenue was forecast to grow to as much as 1.87 billion U.S. dollars in 2025. So, it is a great opportunity for Bangladesh to adapt to eSports and use this fortune in their favor. Bangladeshi people, especially the young ones, are embracing the potential of eSports with open arms. On the contrary, the government is not pleased with it, and they are still not ready to accept it with wide arms just because of the lack of knowledge about esports.

Our neighboring country, India, has accepted this potential with wide arms, and their people are enjoying the sweet fruit of it. The average income of an esports player in India is about 143 U.S. dollars. According to Google, a professional esports player in India can earn approximately $1400 to $7000 depending on their skills, experience, and team affiliations. India is arranging many esports tournaments officially to hunt down their young talents and utilize them to do better in international tournaments. As a result, many students in India are able to choose professional gaming as a part-time job along with their studies to support them, though many people have chosen it as their career and became successful. An Indian resident named Naman Mathur, also known as Mortal, has chosen esports as a full-time career, and now his total net worth is 4 million U.S. dollars and his annual income is about 2 crore INR (Tripathi, 2023)

 

But in Bangladesh, the scenario is completely different. Bangladesh is not ready to accept eSports as a sport. The Daily Star published an article titled “Bangladeshi eSports will suffer for what happened in Chuadanga,” where they reported about the incident where local police raided a Lan tournament and many of those players, including veteran PUBG Mobile athletes, were kept in lockup overnight once they went to play an international tournament of PUBG Mobile and represented Bangladesh. Though at that time they played a prohibited game, it has affected the whole esports community and has shroud enthusiastic gamers with a sense of fear associated with gaming in the country. Some veteran PUBG Mobile players have participated in many international tournaments of PUBG Mobile, and they have gained so much fame for our country in the whole world. Rather, Bangladesh has banned this game in our country, calling it harmful and addictive. We have to admit that everything has a positive and negative aspect, and the outcome of anything depends on how we use it. As with other things, PUBG Mobile also has some demerits, so if we use it with proper guidance, a positive outcome will come.

Moreover, many eSports companies want to operate their businesses in Bangladesh. Where other countries are making it easy for them to operate their work in their country, Bangladesh is not taking any steps to make it easy. let alone make it easy. The Bangladesh government is charging a higher rate of tax for them to make any operation in Bangladesh. As a result, they are choosing an illegal way to operate their operations in Bangladesh, and it is very hard for esports players to show their income sources properly and become tax-paying citizens. The Bangladeshi government shows another reason to ban PUBG Mobile in our country: they are taking tons of millions of takas by operating businesses illegally, but the government is also not taking any steps to make it legal. As a result, many Bangladeshi veteran players went to Nepal and participated in the Nepal region.

 

So, here is the question: What will be the future of esports in Bangladesh? Will the eSports players of Bangladesh be able to participate in the upcoming international tournament officially? We must come forward and take some necessary steps if we want to save the future of eSports. Raising awareness and properly describing its benefits to the authority can be a solution to this. Lastly, we can say that if things go like this, the future of esports is not so suitable for esports players.