These youths have turned their love for e-commentary into a career

Nishant Patel casting for DoTA 2 at his gaming studio in Dadar PicSayed Sameer AbediIts around 8 am on a weekday Twentysevenyearold Nishant Patel is getting ready for work Jeans and Tee on he straps on his bag and heads to a gaming studio a few floors down in the same building Therersquos a board on the door that reads ldquoAFK Gamingrdquo It opens to a compact twomonitor setup with a camera on a tripod headphones and microphones Therersquos a green screen a white board light stands and wires strewn around besides plenty of snack packets stacked in a corner This is Patelrsquos lsquowork stationrsquo where he clocks in about eight to 10 hours a dayHe takes on the mike and goes Therersquos an uninvited guest inside the dire base but they are gonna make the most of it as Swifty player gets jumped upon and the Abyssal Blade stops Blizzard player dead in his tracksPatel is one among the growing breed of millenials who have found a way to monetise their passion for gaming by finding a career in video game commentary or casting as it is called in gamingverse Patel like many of his ilk is a selftaught caster who picked up the skill initially by aping international casters for kicks and eventually polished his craft out of sheer interestCurrently Patel and his team of three who are casters for the game DoTA 2 Defense of The Ancients are busy as the 48day long Indian eSports championship is on ldquoThis is a multiplayer game where the players could be sitting anywhere as long as they are connected to the gaming server However it helps if they are sitting nearby the speed is more efficient that way as data gets transferred fasterrdquo he explains Each game has two casters who introduce themselves on livecamera attached to the monitor before the game begins The game cannot begin until the casters have taken positionDoTA 2 we learn is an online battle arena where two teams of five are pitted against each other ldquoBoth teams fight to destroy the opponentrsquos main building which is called the Ancient The entire game is played on a map As casters we have complete control on that map we can zoom in on whichever player we want to focus on a fight of our choice mdash the viewers see the game through our eyes Thatrsquos one way where casting is different from onfield sports commentaryrdquo says Patel who goes by the gaming alias Cloud X Typically a DoTA 2 game lasts for 40 minutes but structurally it doesnrsquot have a time limit ldquoThere have been times when it has gone for nearly three hoursrdquo Patel saysThe commentary is usually of two kinds mdash a hardcore strategy commentary concentrating on the live action and in the more laidback moments itrsquos more of ldquocolouredrdquo commentary revealing insights into the game ldquoThe biggest challenge for us is stamina the audience is more demanding than a liveaction audience and you need to constantly feed them something Every five seconds a fight breaks out on screen Itrsquos highspeed highdecibel talking for about 40 minutesrdquo Patel says Also in this field one needs to be a master of the game ldquoAs itrsquos highly technical you need to understand and play the game really well to be able to do this unlike in real sports where the commentators donrsquot need to be players themselvesrdquo he adds One of the most popular platforms to watch these games is the gaming channel TwitchTV besides live streaming on YouTube One can even watch the game through the game software mdash every game has a play and a watch optionCasting was not Patelrsquos first career choice He used to be an avid gamer in his adolescent years when it was ldquono more than a hobbyrdquo He went on to work in stocks and finances even did a summer school programme at the London School of Economics ldquoI had no idea how to make casting my bread and butter This was in the mid2000s Eventually the gaming scene began to pick up here and slowly some moneymaking avenues opened up I dragged my feet on the day job for a while and then one fine day I quit This was in April 2012 In October the same year I started AFK Gaming with my two friends It took us a while to find some ground beneath our feet But with more tournaments springing up things are getting betterrdquo he addsThe Indian eSports finals are just a week away and ldquoitrsquos an absolute gaming frenzy nowrdquo The team makes around R3000 per game and during peak seasons each day they cover about 810 games ldquoWhatever we make we invest all of it on a lsquoleased linersquo Internet connection which ensures premium connectivity As casters we cannot afford to lose connection even for a second Poor Internet connectivity poses a huge roadblock for Indian casters trying to make an impact on the global scenerdquo he addsIn Bengaluru Sudhen Wahengbam is another big name in the casting circuit both in India and South East Asia A core member of eSports company SoStronk the 29yearold started out as an engineer before taking several detours and finally making this a fulltime career two years ago As a caster for Counterstrike Wahengbam stresses on the importance of breaking down the game for the audience ldquoThere is a constant influx of new audience and if you continue to be highly technical and intense you run the risk of losing them Itrsquos crucial to find a language that speaks to both newbies and the hardcore gamers You need that balancerdquo He points out how many upcoming casters take to swearing that gets them ldquoan influx of fansrdquo Wahengbam has done casting for tournaments in Hong Kong Tai Peh and Malaysia and is now waiting for the ESL ESports League later this monthHaving a Western accent helps and thatrsquos another Achilles heel for Indians in the game Patel points out ldquoThe Indian accent alienates the Western audiencerdquo he says Wahengbam with his pronounced Western accent seems to have got lucky ldquoI grew up in Manipur where we wouldnrsquot speak English at all So I never got exposed to Indian English Whatever I learnt was only from cartoons international sports and movies I happened to internalise that and now I have grown a mixed accent of sorts which works as they cannot pigeonhole me as an Indian voicerdquo he saysPatel adds ldquoThe eSports market is growing here and a lot of commentary that we do is unpaid mdash but that is to generate more audience online Itrsquos a slow process to find people in a highpotential field that also happens to be lowpayrdquo says Patel who with his team started out by taking the live feed from international games repackaging it with their voices and streaming it on their channel ldquoThat gets you the audience and helps your voice get recognised For professional assignments to come to you you need to be a wellknown voicerdquo says Patel who goes by the gaming alias ldquoCloud Xrdquo Wahengbam has us intrigued with his alias ldquoBlehrdquo ldquoEveryone would have these heavyduty names like lsquoTerminator 100rsquo and lsquoDeath Killerrsquo spelt with all these special characters making them so hard to read So I just went with lsquoBlehrsquo as my little rebellionrdquo he says with a chuckle