Today, NODWIN Gaming is one of India’s leading esports companies, but when Akshat Rathee, Co-Founder & Managing Director, NODWIN Gaming, began his journey, gaming wasn’t seen as a serious business. Long before esports became mainstream, Rathee was driven by a childhood passion for gaming and a belief that India could one day become one of the world’s leading esports nations.
In a recent episode of the iQOO Quest Talk podcast with Nipun Marya, Rathee reflected on how his love for gaming eventually turned into building one of India’s biggest gaming companies. “I was always a gamer. My parents gave me my first Super Nintendo when I was just three years old. While I was building different businesses, my business acumen kept growing alongside my passion for gaming,” he shared.
The turning point came from an unexpected failure. “One of the first LAN tournaments I attended was a complete disaster. But that’s exactly where the idea of NODWIN was born,” he recalled. The early years, however, were anything but easy. “For the first three years, there was practically no business,” Rathee revealed. At the time, India’s gaming ecosystem was still in its infancy, with very little infrastructure or marketing support for the industry. “The biggest challenge was that there were no marketing companies in India that understood gaming. I realised the real problem wasn’t just brands, it was that the gaming community itself wasn’t large enough.”
Instead of waiting for the ecosystem to evolve, Rathee decided to build it himself. “The question for me became, how do I build a community large enough? Once we started doing that, everything changed.” That strategy eventually helped NODWIN secure its first major brand partnership. “Our first client was Coca-Cola, and by then we already had a million gamers interested in what we were building,” he shared.
For Rathee, gaming has always been much more than just playing video games. “Gaming is a passion. I see it as interactive entertainment,” he said, explaining why he remained committed to the industry despite the challenges.
Looking at India’s gaming landscape today, Rathee believes the country still needs to take bigger bets on the industry. “Investors in India still lack the appetite to take risks. I genuinely believe gaming has the potential to become bigger than movies but only if we’re willing to invest in it,” he said. As India’s esports ecosystem continues to grow, Rathee’s ambition extends far beyond building a successful company. His vision is clear: “I want India to become one of the best esports nations in the world.”
