It is time to take the ‘start’ on India’s growing movement of speedrun gaming, where players race to complete a mission or an entire title. We talk to some gaming content creators about the skills and creativity needed to perfect this high-adrenaline esports
With an ear-to-ear smile, Anshu Bisht settles down at his PC gaming station in Haldwani, Uttarakhand. He picks up his controller and puts on his headset as the livestream starts. Anshu, better known as Gamerfleet, tells the mic — as viewership ticks upwards into the thousands — he has something special planned: an impetus for the popular world-building game Minecraft.
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Speedrunning, as its name suggests, is the play of a video game or a part of it with the intention of completing it as quickly as possible, whether for fun or competition. Geared towards the perfectionist among gamers, it has garnered quite a cult following over the past two decades. Speedrunning, done in both a single environment or the more competitive e-sports space, can be done on a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet, as well as on specific console and PC setups.
Speedrun Gaming gained momentum globally among the Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha communities about two years ago, when US-based Minecraft YouTuber Dream stepped in. His most-watched speedrun video has garnered over 100 million views, and this is where Indian gamers, including Anshu, found room for gaming content to grow over the past year.
As Anshu starts his pace, he runs through a pixelated forest, pausing around in the night to build some shelters to ward off some demons. In a run-of-the-mill Hindi stream, he shares his in-game coordinates with his audience who might want to ‘meet’ him.
Anshu Bisht aka Gamer Fleet from Uttarakhand
Anshu, who broke the personal record of 40 minutes for a Minecraft speedrun in mid-August, shared what inspired him to start running at a faster pace after leaving international creators. “Usually I finish Minecraft in 15 to 30 days, outfitted with the best armor and resources. But when the pace is high, I only do significant upgrades because my current record for beating Minecraft is 45 minutes. And I am trying to improve it every day. Anyone can play the game but only a few can pace the game within a limited amount of time; it requires some practice and skill.”
head in the game
Revered in India’s fast-paced circles, Noida-based Rudransh aka TheRealCCV explains, “Speedrunning isn’t about player-versus-player (PvP) games like direct competition like Dota, League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Is.”
Popular speedrun games include nostalgic games such as Super Mario 64 (1996) and The Legend of Zelda (1998), which kicked off the movement, as well as recent next-gen releases such as Comeback (2021), Control (2020) And Resident Evil Village (2020), Minecraft, however, has been a favorite for speedrun gamers over the years, peaking after Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha joined the iconic Minecraft YouTuber Dream.
Anshu’s YouTube channel Gamerfleet has 1.5 million subscribers. He chooses his speedrun game carefully, explaining, “The qualities I look for in a video game that make it ideal for fast running: There should be enough shortcuts to skip the grinding parts of the game.”
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Known for his outrageous comedy during his streams, the Wales-based Pammi aka Chapati Hindustani Gamer – whose YouTube channel has over 7.2 million subscribers – has a strong connection with his Indian audience, who often visit Roblox and Minecraft. plays. He advises the new speedrunner, “Choose a sport that you are passionate about and that also challenges you; Which will not disappoint or upset you. This will help you create more engaging content. Many pros finish Minecraft speedruns in under 30 minutes.
Wales-based Pammi aka Chapati Hindustani Gamer
He brazenly admits that the fastest Minecraft he could finish was in four hours, about three months ago in August, “embarrassing, but I liked it!”
keep up with technology
Over the past year, next-generation consoles such as the Xbox Series X and S (review here) and PlayStation 5 and more powerful PC, speedrunning has been given a new spotlight so that gamers and developers can show off the racing experience through the game. Pammy says it’s important to speed up a game that has fast loading times.
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“The hardware, like consoles, is built with heavy-duty gaming in mind, and most of the leading gaming equipment brands offer highly durable products designed for professionals,” explains Pranav Panalia, Founder, Delhi-based gaming influencer agency OprahFx. Huh. , Some brands even engage pro-gamers to test-drive their products before launching them to a larger public/audience.”
He also says that there is an important software aspect to it; Some fast-paced games come with some technical limitations; For example, some Japanese versions of video games are slightly faster because they contain less text and load faster. Therefore, gamers in that geography have an unfair advantage over others.
India’s status quo
Speed-running games – powered by high adrenaline – have built up a distinguished and engaging community around the world since the 1990s. Large-scale worldwide events such as Games Done Quick gathered hundreds of thousands of spectators and raised millions of dollars for charity. However, Pranav claims that thanks to Twitch, the community is larger and more active in the West than in India. Despite its initial status in India, speedrunning has become so popular that worldwide events such as Games Done Quick have gathered hundreds of thousands of spectators and raised millions of dollars for charity.
Sindhuja Poorni KS, Coimbatore born and Bengaluru based gamer known as NewtSP. known as
Coimbatore-born Sindhuja Poorni KS – whose Tamil-language YouTube channel NewtSP has over 460,000 subscribers – elaborates that India’s game streaming audience mostly prefers mobile battle-royal gaming. That’s why she hasn’t ventured into the dynamic world yet, she said, adding, “Not every Indian household has the resources for PC gaming; Hence the number of PC gamers is less as compared to mobile gamers. If I went with Speedrun, my audience would be bored, as most of them are new to PC gaming. ,
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The online hub for all things gaming with the genre, Speedrun.com currently amassed a database of over 2.5 million runs across over 25,000 games from 9,24,944 users. The site also features leaderboards, community moderation of games, marathons and schedules, as well as helpful resources for other gamers.
Keen to accelerate more Indian sports, Rudransh has been an organizer and a caster in the small-scale tri-monthly tournament Getting Over It Duos. He, along with four others, organizes the tournament. To date, the organization has accumulated a prize pool of approximately $2,350 in the first four tournaments and has registered over 63 India-based teams and counting.
a possible future?
Stream Winner Mithilesh Patankar aka Mithpati In Mumbai – which has 11 million subscribers on YouTube – agree and are more optimistic, “What is currently happening in YouTube India is what happened in the West only a few years ago. Similarly, global trends like speedrunning will eventually Will be making its way to India in no time as gaming and gaming content is booming right now in 2020.
Rohit Naresh Jagarasia, Founder and CEO, Revenant Esports, speaks on the “profitable” potential of this gaming category, “I think it will be attractive primarily from a content standpoint or from a casual gaming standpoint. In India, mobile titles There’s a huge audience behind the multiplayer games that can’t be paced by the book.”
He continued, “However, people generally speed up games like Battlegrounds Mobile India, Call of Duty Mobile and Free Fire by pushing up the ranks and competing with other leaderboard players. Also counts as speeding up a multiplayer game, so I think India has a huge appetite for this space within gaming.”
It certainly looks like the future is bright and money to move at a brisk pace in India. Mumbai-based Ronodeep Dasgupta – known for his YouTube channel The Rocky Games, which has over 3.1 million subscribers – agrees, “The Internet has drifted away from long-form content with Instagram reels and YouTube shorts, so speedruns.” Will be an interesting event to watch as it will take around 20 minutes. Games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and PUBG can take 40 to 45 minutes to finish. A speedrun could be YouTube shorts of esports.” In 2012, Ronodeep was excited to break his Minecraft speedrun record in under 20 minutes.
He elaborates, “While the Indian fast-running community has seen a steady growth in YouTube over the past year, the true potential of these sports in the country is yet to be explored.”
Looking at this growing wave of content for gamers, Pammi said, “Speedrun gaming content has a sense of adventure, drama, suspense, excitement and gloom. It is a complete entertainment package.”
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