TikTok ban took a toll on content creators, says Tekken world champion Arslan Ash

Pakistan’s top eSports athlete Arslan Siddique, better known as Arslan Ash who recently won the Tekken 7 competition in the first season of WePlay Ultimate Fighting League (WUFL), stated that the TikTok ban took its toll on the users who were using the app to create content. According to him, the efforts of people who had been working for so long on the app have been wasted, and “nobody deserves that”.

“I believe banning TikTok did take a toll on a lot of people, the people who have been working for so long on TikTok, making content and uploading it, making a living out of that content, all that time that they invested has been wasted and nobody deserves that,” said Siddique.

Being a user of the app himself, Siddique said that TikTok is a good platform to showcase one’s work. He said that the short-form video app is used by people from all walks of life and that it has a way of influencing people to make the content as per their interests.

“In my opinion, everyone uses TikTok. It doesn’t matter if he is a doctor or a gamer or a person from any other profession, everyone uses TikTok,” said Siddique. 

“When a gamer puts up gaming content, then obviously other people who are into gaming would be influenced by that gamer’s content and would start creating gaming content for TikTok. That way I suppose gaming content will start to find its way more into the TikTok platform,” added Siddique.

Siddique also talked about how he amassed a large following on the app so quickly. He said at first when his fans found him on TikTok, they were a bit hesitant as TikTok is wrongly termed as the app for just dancing and lip-syncing and due to few people who had uploaded inappropriate content isn’t considered a good platform.

“Even after that my fans support me on the app. When I made my TikTok handle, I reached about 47K to 50K in just a few days,” he said.  

When asked whether there are other gamers on the platform, Siddique stated that there were popular gamers in the world who use TikTok.

“Ninja is a popular gamer who has a TikTok account, where he posts his gaming videos as well as everyday life content. There are Tekken players as well who do the same, but they only have following from abroad, they don’t have much following in Pakistan,” said Siddique.

On the ban, Siddique said that a blanket ban on the app is not the solution. Instead, the authorities should look to remove the objectionable content so as to make sure the other content creators do not suffer.

Speaking on how the gaming scene has progressed in Pakistan, he said that it has changed ‘significantly’ since his victory was announced.

“A lot of sponsors have started to reach out from abroad and local sponsors have also reached out. The government has also taken notice of Esports and has also started supporting it. Now a lot of people are wanting to get into Esports, all of this came into play after my victory abroad,” shared Siddique.

On the emerging gaming talent, Ash said that Pakistan has a lot of talented players in Freefire and Street Fighter and just need a chance to go abroad and play to showcase their talent.

“I know for a fact that the talent we have for Tekken and King of Fightersin Pakistan, they can go abroad and win tournaments,” said Ash.