23/07/2022
"The great Bangladeshi dream is to leave Bangladesh."
This quote has been roaming around my newsfeed for last one week. It hits me hard. Because I realise no matter how much people loves this country, it is becoming hard for them to live in it. The problems are never-ending and you can't blame them when they say their only dream is to escape.
The incident about e-sports is the latest example. Before I started to write this, I could not manage to find a picture of any high quality e-sports tournament in Bangladesh. At least it's not popular enough to find it in google while there are thousands of pictures of european countries and even of our neighbouring country India.
People complain we are in an era where kids only use phones, play games on pc 24/7 instead of playing outside. They don't realise that majority of the teenagers don't have a single place to play, at least in the capital city Dhaka.
Either there is a small field very far away from your home or you have to rent a turf everyday which most people can't afford. If these kids can make a career or even a small income source by being involved in e-sports, how can you even term it as a crime?
E-sports is growing everyday in the world. It is a billion dollar market and even in Bangladesh, there are players who has great potential to make it grow. My friends have made a career out of e-sports, won tournaments in India and earned over 1 lakh.
I'm happy that I work at a place that realises the value of it. T Sports has a separate e-sports content creator who only makes content about games. Because they know the potential of this industry and soon a video will be made involving the players who where disrespected and harassed.
According to some sources, A1 Esports from Bangladesh donated 44,00,000 BDT to UNICEF and the e-sports industry of Bangladesh donated 7 lakh to help the people of Sylhet during flood.
And this is how you thank them? By arresting teenagers just for playing PUBG, arranging tournaments and terming it as crime? This is unacceptable and plain sad. The policymakers need to act right and act fast. I hope they soon understand the importance of this industry and respect the e-sports players.
Credit : Stories with Saif