Fnatic India today announced a content creation partnership with streaming platform Loco, as well as revealed some more details about their flagship mentorship program called India Rising.
Loco, which used to be a live trivia show app where users could make money by correctly answering quiz questions, has recently pivoted to streaming after seeing the massive influx of audience thanks to easy accessibility through mobile gaming and affordable devices and internet. Its parent company, Pocket Aces, a digital media company operating through the likes of FilterCopy, Gobble and Dice Media, announced its intentions in the gaming space today by partnering with arguably one of the world’s largest gaming companies, Fnatic.
The event, which was streamed live on Fnatic player Owais’ Youtube channel, brought forward the different ways in which Loco would leverage this partnership, including streaming on their platform, creating mini-documentary series on the lives and careers of the Fnatic roster, as well as a fictional web series whose details were not clear, as explained by Founder Anirudh Pandita.
The biggest announcement for the event, however, which saw the likes of CEO Sam Mathews, Owais and Fnatic India head Nimish Raut in attendance, was the details of the long-awaited talent grooming program of Fnatic India, called Fnatic Rising. As Nimish explained, this program is intended to find the 10 biggest upcoming gaming talents of India, aged between 18 and 23, for a chance to be groomed as a future Esport content creator and influencer by the Fnatic management and the players. The registrations for this 8 and a half month program will begin on 25th June, which will see the winners have their content streamed on Loco, as well as be part of the Fnatic competitive stream if they showed promise.
When we asked Nimish whether the Fnatic Rising was intended only for content curation, or would pave the way for a Fnatic Academy Lineup, he said “The Fnatic India Rising program takes its inspiration from the Fnatic UK Rising program which is for the League of Legends Academy team. The aim is to find that one superstar who we can identify after 8.5 months who can not only be a great influencer and connect with his fans but also who plays great competitively and has a chance to compete for a spot in the main lineup.” (edited for readability).
Sam Mathews, Founder and CEO of Fnatic continued, “We have had a lot of academy programs in League of Legends and CSGO, and many of our best players like Reckless have come from the Academy setup itself. The scouting will help uncover a lot of new talent, who can hopefully get their 5 minutes of that fame, and by helping them with the gaming gear, environment and coaching support, we can hopefully help them become a pro and hopefully document it and create some exciting content to watch. For us, our mission is not just to help the pros but also the youth of tomorrow and how we can build them up to be superstars.” (edited for readability).
Apart from these 2 major announcements, there was little to be revealed in terms of the road ahead for the main Fnatic lineup amidst a flurry of questions by the media. Owais, though, was hopeful and said that while they did not meet everyone’s expectations by not qualifying for the PMWL, the squad was reimagining the ways they were approaching their gameplay and were grinding it out for better performance in the upcoming tournaments. He was tight-lipped about the changes in the current roster, with the famous ‘T’ sign of Nimish Raut preventing him from revealing a tad too much, he did say that the changes, if any, would be communicated to the community in a couple of days.
