With the entries such as "EDG winning the championship" and being selected for the Asian Games competition, e-sports has become a trend among this group of young people. For cities, e-sports is not only a reflection of lifestyle, but also a reflection of the booming creative industry.
In November just past, Hangzhou, which is about to hold the Asian Games, announced that it will build a famous e-sports city. According to the latest "Several Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Hangzhou's Animation and Games and E-sports Industry in the New Era" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), Hangzhou will anchor the goal of building an international animation capital and an e-sports city, and will fully promote the high-quality development of Hangzhou's animation and games and e-sports industry in the New Era. This is the first time that the e-sports industry has been included in Hangzhou's industrial support policies.
From a global perspective, animation IP can often be converted into e-sports IP. Hangzhou has made some achievements in the animation field before, and e-sports companies have also gathered. Can the e-sports dream park built in Hangzhou stun the world?
Hangzhou Asian Games Esports Event (Xinhua News Agency/Photo)
Behind the Esports City
As early as 2003, Esports was listed as the 99th sports event officially launched in my country [1].
There is no doubt that Hangzhou has the convenience of "the east wind of the Asian Games", but its considerations are not limited to serving the Asian Games.
Esports is not a pure sports event. Behind it is an industrial chain with e-sports events as the core and media, brokerage, consumption, tourism, training, etc. From online to offline, from upstream game research and development and operators, to downstream e-sports media, the e-sports industry has a relatively mature operation model and promising commercial value.
"2022 Asian E-sports Industry Development Report" shows that global event revenue is expected to reach US$1.384 billion in 2022. China has become the world's largest e-sports market and will provide about one-third of the revenue for the global e-sports market [2].
Esports, as a new business model under the wave of the Internet economy and digital industry, has also brought considerable benefits to Hangzhou. According to incomplete statistics, there are currently more than 700 e-sports events held in Hangzhou, and the revenue scale of the e-sports industry exceeds 25 billion yuan [3].
Hangzhou E-sports Center Main Competition Venue (Xinhua News Agency/Photo)
This is a good business no matter how you look at it: cities can not only obtain profits through event tickets and live broadcasts, but also attract traffic through event holding, radiating to related industries such as tourism and service in the city.
In recent years, the term "integration" has been common in the e-sports industry policies in various places. The "Opinions" released by Hangzhou this time also mentioned that it will promote the integration and development of the "e-sports industry and digital economy , technology, culture and tourism, sports, modern manufacturing, finance and other industries", and inject new vitality into Hangzhou with the "e-sports +" model.
At the same time, e-sports is essentially entertaining and cultural, attracting the attention of young people.
Major cities introduce e-sports clubs and engage in linkage with games. On the one hand, it mobilizes the regional attention of young people, and on the other hand, it is also cultivating a young, open and inclusive urban cultural atmosphere, improving young people's recognition of urban culture, making the e-sports industry the driving force for urban economic development, and also becoming a unique cultural mark of the city.
May 31, 2022, e-sports players were in the exhibition match. (Xinhua News Agency/Photo)
Hangzhou is ready to come
Hangzhou's city business card for the "e-sports capital" was not a whim, but a years of planning.
As early as 2017, Hangzhou began to focus on the e-sports industry.
In June 2017, China (Hangzhou) e-sports digital entertainment town officially settled in Xiacheng District . In April 2018, Xiacheng District issued the first special support policy for e-sports digital entertainment in Zhejiang Province, "16 Regulations on E-sports".
includes support clauses for hosting e-sports events, e-sports club entry, office space, talent housing, and even covers Internet expense subsidies. In 2020, Binjiang District of Hangzhou City issued the "Implementation Opinions on Further Supporting the Development of Cultural and Creative Industry" to encourage the agglomeration and development of the e-sports industry.
With the advancement of the Digital Entertainment E-sports Town Project, Hailan International E-sports Digital Entertainment Center opened in 2018.Data shows that Hailan International Esports Digital Entertainment Center has signed 113 companies in the e-sports digital entertainment industry chain, including e-sports, game development, event platforms, live new retail, network technology and other types [4].
Currently, there are 166 game companies in Hangzhou, with an output value of and a scale of of 25.358 billion yuan. Among them, Dianhun Network , NetEase Leihun, Yanhun Network, Kaiying Network and other companies have good development trends [5]. Dianhun Network is the first IPO game stock in A shares. Its independently developed " Dream Three Kingdoms 2" was selected as the official e-sports competition event of the Hangzhou Asian Games .
In addition to focusing on the industrialization of e-sports, Hangzhou has also introduced a large number of world-class e-sports events to attract top clubs to settle.
For example, the highest-level League of Legends Professional League (LPL), and the highest-level Tencent , the highest-level King of Glory Professional League (KPL), have successively landed in Hangzhou, making Hangzhou one by one of the few cities in the country that have LPL and KPL dual home e-sports events.
, and the 2021 NEST National E-sports Competition, the 2022 Global E-sports Sports Leaders Summit, and the just-passed 6th National Honor of Kings Competition finals have triggered carnivals among e-sports enthusiasts across the country and even around the world.
event landed in the city, which can bring a lot of attention and exposure in the short term. The development of clubs and talent gathering are another step in promoting the deep binding of cities and "e-sports" tags. There are also many domestic professional clubs rooted in Hangzhou, such as LGD team in LPL and KPL's Big Goose team.
According to data statistics in 2021, Hangzhou currently has 16 e-sports teams of various types [5].
The "Opinions" released this time mentioned that it is necessary to "encourage excellent e-sports clubs and e-sports products to actively participate in e-sports events at all levels, and provide certain incentives according to relevant standards." At the same time, we must also "establish and improve the talent pool of animation games and e-sports in Hangzhou" and "encourage famous players in the animation games and e-sports fields to settle in Hangzhou."
As the main force in the development of Hangzhou's e-sports, Gongshu District clearly stated in the e-sports industry policy released this year that the maximum support for hosting top events is 5 million, and the clubs that won the championship in international professional competitions (total prize amount of 10 million yuan and above) will be rewarded with one-time reward of 800,000 yuan. This is a big deal.
On the other hand, it cannot be ignored that the implementation of events, club entry, and industrial aggregation are inseparable from the support of venues and parks. In response, Hangzhou invested 1.31 billion yuan and took 20 months to build the first professional e-sports venue in China with the standard Asian Games event, the Hangzhou E-sports Center. Its total area is about 80,000 square meters. It is located in the Gongshu Digital Economy Industrial Park and can accommodate about 5,000 seats.
Hangzhou E-sports Center (Xinhua News Agency/Photo)
Since its official launch on May 31 this year, Hangzhou E-sports Center has successively held well-known events such as "A Chinese Odyssey", "Identity V", " League of Legends ", " Eternal Disaster ", and "Honor of Kings" finals. Among them, the "Identity V" 2022 IVL Summer Finals, which sold more than 7,000 tickets in 5 hours.
For young people who love e-sports, Hangzhou has shown the feeling of "paragraph on earth".
"E-sports Capital" will fall to whom
On the e-sports track, Hangzhou is not the only "competitor". Shanghai, Chengdu, Shenzhen and other places have also included e-sports in their local development plans, striving to compete for the business card of the "e-sports capital".
In 2021, Shanghai Jiaotong University released the "Global E-sports Capital Evaluation Report", which gave the first evaluation of 15 cities around the world dedicated to the development of e-sports capitals. The report shows that Shanghai is the highest ranked among domestic cities, followed by Beijing and Hangzhou [6].
As the city with the earliest start of the domestic e-sports industry, Shanghai's development is thanks to the strong support of the government. In 2017, Shanghai proposed the goal of building a "global e-sports capital" and subsequently promoted a gaming industry resource cluster with e-sports as the focus. Minhang District , Jing'an District , and Yangpu District have also issued corresponding policies.
In 2020, Shanghai successively issued the "General Authorization Standards for E-sports Events" and "E-sports Live Broadcast Management Standards" to clearly stipulate the authorization and supervision of e-sports events, which helped the standardized operation of the e-sports industry.
2021 League of Legends Global Finals was held on Iceland Capital Reykjavik . The Chinese team EDG and the Korean team DK fought for 5 games, defeating their opponents 3:2 and winning the championship trophy. The three players, Li Xuanjun, , Zhao Lijie, and Tian Ye, who represented EDG in the final, are all registered e-sports athletes of the Shanghai E-sports Association. (Xinhua News Agency/Photo)
Compared with Hangzhou, Shanghai's top-level design not only provides policy, capital and resource support for the e-sports industry, but also continuously guides the e-sports industry toward standardization.
At present, Shanghai has more than 80% of the country's e-sports companies, clubs and celebrity resources, and more than 40% of the e-sports events are held in Shanghai every year [7].
However, scholars Ma Zhonghong and Wu Yuxuan proposed that Shanghai's e-sports industry is developing rapidly, and its layout is showing a global trend, but local characteristics are ignored. Shanghai culture and Jiangnan culture are almost hidden in the cultivation of Shanghai's e-sports industry.
takes Shanghai as a reference. For the ancient cultural city of Hangzhou, you may be able to find a different approach to the integration of local culture and e-sports. The cooperation between the anime "Fox Demon Little Matchmaker" and Hangzhou is an exploration that can be learned from. By integrating animation elements into the city, launching comic buses, holding pure love tours, and establishing the first domestic animation-themed digital scenic spot in China, the city's cultural heritage and animation culture complement each other.
Zhang Yijia, general manager of King of Glory e-sports, mentioned in the interview that Honor of Kings (Asian Games version) will incorporate elements such as Hangzhou's famous attractions, landmarks, urban culture and other elements into the design.
Compared with other e-sports cities, Hangzhou's advantage lies in the development of the animation industry, with non-small animation IP, and gamified commercial value. The "Opinions" issued by this time is the sixth round of animation industry policies launched by Hangzhou since 2005, which mentions "with IP as the core, encouraging adaptation of works" to guide the deep integration of animation and e-sports.
Data from the Hangzhou Investment Promotion Bureau in 2021 shows that there are 327 animation and game companies in Hangzhou, and there is a natural fertile ground for the integration of "animation + e-sports" [8]. In contrast, Chengdu, which also aims to build the "e-sports capital", has game and e-sports companies such as Tencent, Xishanju , Perfect World , and has also produced phenomenal works such as "Honor of Kings" and " Ten Thousand Kingdoms Awakening ", but its animation resources are slightly inferior.
At the same time, for e-sports enthusiasts who are mainly young, not all anime IP gamifications are bought. For example, the "bear invasion" IP in Shenzhen is not suitable.
, founded in 2005, the animation IP resources of Hangzhou Xuanji Technology are favored. Most of its own animation IPs use Chinese traditional culture and history as the entry point, and involves themes such as Eastern martial arts and fantasy, and are aimed at young people over 15 years old. Its "The Ming Moon in Qin", "Nine Songs of Heaven", "Wu Geng Ji" and other subsidiaries have hundreds of millions of fans at home and abroad. In 2014, "The Ming Yue of Qin" tried to be derived into a mobile game. It only took one year to go online, and the average monthly turnover exceeded 20 million yuan.
At present, there are many domestic e-sports cities, and whether Hangzhou can use local resources to form differentiated tags is the key.
is competing for the "E-sports Capital". Whether Hangzhou, which will hold the Asian Games next year, can seize the opportunity and achieve " overtaking " is exciting.
Reference material:
[1]2021 China E-sports Industry Development Report | Penguin Think Tank https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ehMCog4iGth5FRp-7Owi7w
[2] Asian Games Horizon: An Important Opportunity for Chinese E-sports! https://www.hangzhou2022.cn/xwzx/jdxw/ttxw/202210/t20221007_52863.shtml
[3] Hangzhou Esports: Going on the fast lane|Esports World https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/S2CdPzovqC88J8I8jd9G8A
[4] Esports integrate into Hangzhou's urban development "DNA" https://www.sport.gov.cn/n315/n 20066836/c20590898/content.html
[5] Wu Xuefei, Yu Chao, Teng Yunwen, Zhu Meihong. Countermeasures and suggestions for promoting the development of Hangzhou's e-sports industry [J]. Zhejiang Economy, 2021(04): 56-57.
[6] "Global E-sports Capital Evaluation Report" released: Los Angeles first, Shanghai second https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_15954161
[7] Shanghai, why Or to develop the e-sports industry http://www.ce.cn/culture/gd/202007/30/t20200730_35426691.shtml
[8] Notice on the General Office of the Hangzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China issued the "Several Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Hangzhou Animation Games and E-sports Industry in the New Era" http://www.hangzhou.gov.cn/art/2022/11/22/art_1345197_59069166.html
[9] Feature | Shanghai's sprint for the global e-sports capital: Accelerate talent training, innovative product research and development https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_9807137
[10]Ma Zhonghong, Wu Yuxuan. Urban e-sportsization and urbanization of e-sports in the digital industry trend [J]. Qunyan, 2021(10):34-37.DOI:10.16632/j.cnki.cn11-1005/d.2021.10.012.
Special written by Hu Yiqin
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