Gaming
NODWIN Gaming and Krafton India open grassroots BGMI tournament to all players
Registrations open from June 15 to 21 for an open-for-all competition designed to pull the next generation of Indian esports talent out of obscurity and onto a national stage.
NEW DELHI: Indian esports has no shortage of spectators. What it has always struggled to produce is a reliable pipeline of new talent. NODWIN Gaming and Krafton India are now attempting to fix that. The two companies have launched BGMI: Naye Khiladi, an open-for-all Battlegrounds Mobile India tournament with a prize pool of Rs 10 lakh, built specifically to give grassroots players a structured path into competitive esports.
Registrations are open from June 15 to 21 at kraftonindiaesports.com. The tournament begins with in-game qualifiers conducted within BGMI itself, where players’ performances in Classic Ranked matches during the qualification window determine eligibility for Round 1. The competition then progresses through multiple stages, with the top 1,024 teams advancing to a NODWIN Gaming-operated tournament phase before the all-online Grand Finals.
The campaign line, #AbTeriBaari, roughly translates as “now it’s your turn,” and it captures the intent precisely. This is not a tournament for established names. It is a tournament for the player nobody has heard of yet.
Gautam Virk, co-founder and chief executive of NODWIN Gaming, said the next challenge for Indian esports was not growing the audience but discovering and nurturing competitive talent. “Every established champion was once an unknown player,” he said, “and this tournament is designed to help uncover the next wave of stars for Indian esports.”
Karan Pathak, associate director for esports at Krafton India, said the initiative reflected the company’s commitment to building sustainable pathways for aspiring athletes. “BGMI: Naye Khiladi gives emerging players a platform to showcase their skills, compete at scale, and experience the excitement of structured competition,” he said. Krafton India will also support the tournament through promotional activity across its own esports channels to drive participation nationwide.
The numbers behind Krafton India’s investment in the broader ecosystem are significant. Since 2021, the company has put more than $250 million into Indian startups across gaming, esports and interactive entertainment. BGMI itself has surpassed 260 million downloads. NODWIN Gaming, founded in 2014 by Akshat Rathee and Virk, counts Nazara Technologies, Krafton Inc, Sony Group Corporation and JetSynthesys among its investors.
The infrastructure is in place. The audience is there. The only thing Indian esports has been missing is a front door wide enough for everyone to walk through. BGMI: Naye Khiladi is that door, and it is open for exactly one week. After that, the playing starts.
