The meteoric rise of esports in India can be tracked down to two main games: Free Fire and Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI). With both games being banned by the country’s government, could the new battle royale on the block, New State Mobile, be the next thing for esports in the country?
New State Mobile’s first LAN shows that migrating existing BGMI players isn’t a big problem
The first LAN event for New State Mobile in India happened from Jan. 26 to 29. Twenty-four teams flew down to Delhi to compete for the champions title at the ESL Snapdragon Pro Series.
In the end, Team XO came out on top. What made their victory even more surprising is that the team was based entirely on earlier BGMI players. This was in contrast to what other major orgs like GodLike, S8UL, and Global Esports did, though. These orgs formed separate teams for New State Mobile.
The victory of Team XO is evidence that migrating to New State Mobile as a BGMI player isn’t the toughest thing to do. This is not surprising at all. New State Mobile is essentially just PUBG Mobile 2. The game has the same mechanics and movements. It also has the Erangel map, although many of the terrain and buildings have had changes made to them.
While it features a lot of additional features like Drone Drops, electric vehicles, and more, learning these as a player of BGMI shouldn’t be a problem.
One of the main reasons why many Battle Royale fans haven’t picked up New State Mobile is because of its botched release. The game was released back in November 2021. At the time, it was called PUBG New State. However, the game’s initial release didn’t go as planned. Players complained about bugs, optimization issues, and also the in-game balancing.
However, since then, Krafton has worked hard to make the game much better and now works very smoothly.
Krafton needs to make a push for New State
Another major reason why New State Mobile hasn’t managed to become popular is that the developer itself hasn’t been promoting it. During the era of BGMI, Krafton tied up with local creators and also developed localized content and events to attract Indian players.
For New State Mobile, however, the developer hasn’t done anything. There is no clear indication as to the reason behind this. The most logical one is that the developer is still trying to bring BGMI back. While there is a possibility it could come back, the lack of communication so far could be a worrying sign. Another one is that it could be fearing that New State Mobile might get banned as well.
However, if they were to promote and launch a roadmap for esports, New State’s popularity will skyrocket. There is a huge market gap in India right now for the mobile shooter genre after the bans on Free Fire and BGMI. Krafton must act now or upcoming games like VALORANT Mobile and Warzone Mobile could make it troublesome for the title.
Lastly, the numbers of the ESL Snapdragon Pro Series are a positive sign for the game. The event achieved a peak viewership of 51,000, per Esports Charts, which is a very decent number.
It does seem, though, as the company might be looking to focus more on New State Mobile in the future. The ESL Snapdragon Pro Series was organized by Nodwin Gaming, where Krafton controls a 15 percent stake. Nodwin has already teased another LAN in an Instagram post.
Major influencers like Global Esports’ CEO Rushindra Sinha and S8UL’s manager Sid have also encouraged players to shift to New State Mobile.
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