Zhang Shule is a columnist for People's Daily Online and People's Post and Telegraph

To become a national movement,

The premise is that it is convenient for everyone to participate.

Well, esports really does.

The cooler the weather, the hotter esports becomes.

There is growing hope of becoming a national movement.

Yes, esports is a sport, not a game.

How hot is it?

More than 30,000 people entered the venue, many surrounding hotels were full, and 3.222 million people were online at the same time in the live broadcast room of the official event......

At 6 p.m. on November 16, the 2024 KPL (Honor of Kings Professional League) annual finals officially kicked off at Beijing Workers Stadium, which is the return of the KPL series of events to Beijing after three years since the 2021 Honor of Kings World Championship Cup.

E-sports competitions have become a new consumption scenario with huge traffic, which can not only obtain event income through tickets, live broadcasts, brand sponsorships, etc., but also attract audiences from all over the country, driving consumption growth in tourism, catering, shopping and other consumption.

On the afternoon of the 16th, two hours before the start of the game, the vicinity of the Beijing Workers Stadium was already bustling, gathering a large number of young, enthusiastic and energetic e-sports fans.

The e-sports team cultural and creative store, the Storm Dragon King check-in area, the digital growth wall, and the team and player photo frames are all clustered with a large number of fans.

The integration of various forms such as e-sports + cultural and creative, e-sports + animation, e-sports + music and other forms not only makes the event "trendy", but also makes the audience of e-sports events more extensive.

The media found that the game attracted the attention of many players. Not only did more than 30,000 e-sports fans pour into the Beijing Workers Stadium to watch offline, but tens of millions of players watched the finals through different live broadcast platforms.

According to the "Report on China's E-sports Industry from January to June 2024" released by the Game Working Committee of the China Audio and Digital Association, from January to June this year, the actual sales revenue of China's e-sports industry was 12.027 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.43%, reversing the previous year-on-year decline trend for two consecutive years. In addition, the number of users also reached 490 million, a year-on-year increase of 0.52%.

In addition, according to data from China Business Intelligence Network, the scale of global e-sports revenue is on the rise, and the total revenue is expected to exceed US$1.86 billion in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 13.4%, and the total number of viewers is expected to exceed 640 million.

The continuous explosion of the industry has naturally attracted the interest and attention of many capital and traditional brands.

Some media pointed out that e-sports is gradually replacing traditional events such as football and basketball, and has become the most influential event in the hearts of young people in the Z generation.

As the head IP of mobile e-sports, Honor of Kings not only attracts hundreds of millions of young people to play and watch the game, but also wins the gold medal on behalf of Chinese e-sports at the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games, which highlights its commercial value and is favored by more and more brands.

Take the KPL, the official event of "Honor of Kings", as an example. According to industry media statistics, there will be 16 KPL sponsors in 2024, covering many fields such as automobiles, 3C digital, and clothing.

But on the other hand, in the first half of this year, the main source of income for the e-sports industry was the live broadcast of e-sports games, accounting for 79.45%; Events, clubs and other revenues accounted for 8.86%, 7.35% and 4.34% respectively. Compared with the proportion of revenue from events, live streaming of esports games still accounts for the majority.

This kind of structural problem has also become a slot that has been criticized in the e-sports industry.

How effective is Tencent's continued efforts in e-sports?

Can the continuous enrichment of event construction help Tencent open up the e-sports market?

After the e-sports gold medal in the Hangzhou Asian Games, what are the factors that still restrict the development of e-sports?

In the context of the next Olympic Games and Asian Games, can e-sports usher in new development opportunities?

In this regard, Li Yutong, a reporter from the Daily Economic News, had an exchange with Shule, and the monkey thought:

E-sports in China is one of the most promising industries to become a "national sport", but it is only promising at present.

E-sports events are of great significance to the maintenance of the popularity of Honor of Kings, not only for publicity, but also as a way to activate players' enthusiasm for participating in (cloud gaming).

At present, Tencent's efforts in e-sports events have obvious results, but they still have not reached the top stream, and related events have not really become world-class events, which does not match the revenue capacity of Honor of Kings.

As a vertical field, the blue ocean value of esports is undoubted.

However, the whole is still stuck in a simple industrial chain such as events and teams, and it is necessary to further expand the derivative chain and consumption scenarios.

The core of restricting e-sports events is still the singleness of derivative chains and consumption scenarios.

There is a lack of more experience forms and profit space outside the event. This also limited the tournament to a limited number of teams, and did not become a "national sport" for young people.

In particular, the boundary between playing games and playing e-sports is blurred, and the preconceived premise that non-professional players are "playing games" is restricting its development.

If you can't break the bottleneck of concepts and the limitations of consumption scenarios, entering the Olympics and Asia will only allow more people to see it, but you may not be able to participate.

Just as many Olympic sports other than the three balls are still niche and too professional, lacking mass participation and consumer enthusiasm.

To become a national movement, we need to find a way to involve the masses.

Fortunately, most people have smartphones, and this has a mass base.

The next step is how to democratize esports events so that everyone can participate in their leisure time.

You may not be able to fight the king, but you can also play poker, fight landlords or conquer cities in the Three Kingdoms.

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