Thug, former Team 8bit player

Animesh Agarwal, known as Thug, is an Indian esports figure whose playing career is the footnote to a much larger story: he led Team 8bit at the PUBG Mobile Star Challenge 2018 as a competitive player before retiring from play. Team 8bit is his page-linked team on this wiki. Born 5 March 1996, he is one of the oldest names in the Indian circuit's first generation.

After retiring as a player, Thug founded 8Bit Creatives and became co-owner of S8UL Esports, the organisation that won Esports Awards 2022 Content Group of the Year. He is an active BGMI caster and streamer with over a million YouTube subscribers, and his name carries enough weight that Krafton added an official Thug voice pack to BGMI in July 2022 for 250 UC.

He also hosts the THUG Invitational tournament series, whose Season 4 in early 2022 drew 108,000 concurrent viewers on Loco with a ₹5,00,000 prize pool, won by TeamXSpark. Records list him among players; he is published here as a retired ex-player because his competitive identity is certain and 8bit is a published team, while his prominence today is as an owner and caster.

Thug's verified record is the birth date, the Team 8bit playing stint, the 8Bit Creatives and S8UL ownership, and the THUG Invitational hosting. His player-era earnings were never recorded.

Las Vegas gave Thug the biggest individual honour of his career in November 2025, when the Esports Awards named him Esports Personality of the Year, ahead of nominees such as Caedrel, Nadeshot and Disguised Toast, on the same night S8UL lifted Content Group of the Year for the fourth straight year.