India’s 1st premier e-gaming festival organised for the very first time in Meghalaya called the Odyssey Gaming Festival was inaugurated today by Tourism Minister Paul Lyngdoh.
The event is a tournament organized by Mutation Esports in collaboration with Meghalaya Tourism and in association with Call of Duty: Mobile. Teams are invited from Garena and India region at state central library in Shillong.
International (Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore) and National ESPORTS players will battle it out on call of duty: mobile along with other gaming arenas, stalls organised by mutation esports partnered with the Govt. of Meghalaya.
The two day event inaugurated by Tourism Minister Paul Lyngdoh will feature a total of eight teams each consisting of five members, the top four teams are from India .
Talking to media, Lyngdoh said, this is the first ever e-gaming happening in Shillong, organised by Odyssey with an active support from the department of Tourism.
“The main objective is to encourage the State Gamers and introduce them to this platform which is International not localised . We have countries like Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore participating in the tournament. Hopefully with today’s launch Shillong based gamers will also find space for themselves Internationally,” The Minister said.
With the Meghalaya Government trying to introduce gaming culture in the state, Paul said, “Today’s kids are more into gaming and some of them are really good . It is giving them a platform so that atleast let them first get introduced to the gamers from other part of the country.”
Asked, he said, “Each year we aim to explore something new where we have the potential of doing well and from the interest that has been shown as we have local Shillong based lads as organisers it shows that there is ample interest in gaming.”
The Government intends to handhold such initiative till the time they earn profits and become self-sustaining.
During the event Lyngdoh handed over a cheque of ₹40 lakhs to the organisers for the event and also unveiled the trophy.
“The Government has chipped in around 40 Lakhs for the event,” Lyngdoh said.