Facebook will host its first-ever gaming event in India, FBGamingPressStart, the social media giant announced on October 14. The two-day event, to be held on October 19 and 20, will be hosted by YouTuber and stand-up comedian Abish Mathews. The event is aimed at providing game developers, publishers, and creators across India a platform to grow and promote their communities on the world’s largest social media platform.

The first day will be focus on game publishers and have sessions on: Play 101: Facebook Instant Games & Cloud Opportunities, Get In-App Ads Right With Audience Network, and Supercharge Your Game With Facebook Gaming Services. The second day will be aimed more at creators, publishers and e-sports companies and they can check out sessions on Facebook Gaming video programmes, Gaming Creator programmes and Stories of Diversity and Monetisation from popular gamers in the gaming community.

The event will be opened by the trio of Gio Hunt, VP of Gaming Business and Operations, Facebook, Ajit Mohan, Managing Director and Vice President, India, and Manohar Hotchandani, Business Development Director, Facebook.

Facebook has been working on the gaming segment by enabling creators to live stream games playthroughs and for others to establish communities. Creators are able to earn money when fans and followers pay them through subscriptions and donations. The company is competing with livestreaming platforms Twitch.tv and YouTube.

The gaming ecosystem is quickly becoming one of the most lucrative verticals in tech, with creators able to earn upwards of thousands of dollars a month. Facebook has also signed exclusive streaming deals with several large creators in multimillion-dollar deals. Disguised Toast, who is the biggest video-game streamer on the platform with 3.53 million subscribers, was reportedly signed onto the platform for a similar deal.

Also read: Explained: The future of gaming industry in Indian listed space

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)