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On November 25, according to multiple media reports, OGN, the organizer of Korean e-sports events, may end all operations on December 31, 2020. The program was broadcast and its e-sports channel was closed, withdrawing from the Korean e-sports scene.
In China, on December 2, many netizens found that the official website of the game Fengyun could not be opened. Not long after, BBC and 117, former backbone members of Game Fengyun, respectively posted a commemorative Weibo, which seemed to confirm the speculation that Game Fengyun had "retired".
Although Game Fengyun’s official Weibo is still in operation and uniformly replied “Still”, Game Fengyun’s deputy general manager Zhu Jiayi also made further clarification on Weibo: Game Fengyun has encountered great difficulties, but Game Fengyun has encountered great difficulties. The storm is still going on, and some people are holding on.
The big brother based on traditional TV media seems to be no longer suitable for the "version" of this era.
OGN and gaming: It started with TV traffic bonus
In March 2000, Tooniverse's first StarCraft League "Hanaro Telecom Starleague" began to be broadcast. This event allowed the organizers to see the potential and huge commercial value of e-sports on media communication channels. . On July 24 of the same year, the OGN e-sports channel was officially established, which broadcasts e-sports content 24 hours a day.
South Korea, which has a developed entertainment industry, already had its 64th officially recognized event as early as 2006. In 2005, OGN TV station began to build the OGN E-sports Stadium for e-sports events, and most of the OGN e-sports events in the past fifteen years have been held here.
The Monza WCG World Finals held in October 2006 was the first event to be broadcast live using satellite. Due to the popularity of the competition, OGN had access to more than 13 million households in South Korea that year, while the total population of South Korea in 2006 was only more than 47 million. In 2007, OGN TV station began to produce e-sports leagues for DNF and Assault Storm, which was not limited to RTS games and expanded the field of games.
Taking the OSL League as a pioneer, OGN produces various game shows and competitions. These not only unveiled the history of e-sports, but also laid the foundation for the establishment of the OGN dynasty, and also made Korean e-sports at the forefront of e-sports development.
Back in 2004 in China, GamesTV was quietly established in a cafe. Through the unremitting efforts of Zhang Zhexi, one of the founders, GamesTV obtained the free live broadcast rights of the WCG 2005 World Finals. At that time, the vast majority of e-sports enthusiasts in China experienced simultaneous viewing for the first time, which brought attention to e-sports. Huge increase in speed.
player Li Xiaofeng also won China's first WCG world championship in "Warcraft 3" at the finals. The name "Human Emperor SKY" resounded among all circles of domestic e-sports enthusiasts.
Since GamesTV is always a non-governmental organization, it does not have relevant audio-visual and business licenses. Although there was no official rectification at that time, it was almost as if the Sword of Damocles was hanging over our heads. Fortunately, in 2006 GamesTV merged with the Game Fengyun channel of Shanghai Media Interactive Television Co., Ltd. SiTV, and the original team of GameTV joined Game Fengyun to prepare related programs needed by the channel.
Game Storm is similar to OGN, both rising from the dividends of the overall TV channel. Although the experience of practitioners in the e-sports field has improved the overall quality of e-sports content, the station's excellent production environment, rigorous content team, sufficient program budget, and professional technology have all contributed to the spread of positive content. E-sports content provides the platform foundation. Professionalism has also nurtured the abilities and quality of practitioners. Well-known e-sports figures such as Zhao Mingyi, 117, BBC, Haitao have emerged from the gaming scene.
In the early days of the development of e-sports, four content production companies, NeoTV, PLU, Game Fengyun, and GTV, began to appear in the eyes of e-sports players. Game Fengyun’s G League, related events hosted by PLU, NeoTV’s WCG, etc., are all A high-quality eSports content exporter.Together with South Korea's OGN and MBC Game, these six content producers have created an industry-specific content ecosystem for e-sports in the past decade.
is trapped in transformation, and content competition has entered the next battlefield
The good times did not last long. The rise of the Internet gradually changed the viewing habits of the audience, and traditional TV media also gradually declined. The gaming landscape is now encountering difficulties, but there are still people who are persevering. OGN may withdraw from the Korean e-sports scene 20 years after its rise. Some classic e-sports scenes will remain deep in the memory of players. The G League organized by
Game Fengyun was in a state of burning money in the first few years. At that time, the e-sports market was not as hot as it is today, the penetration rate of digital TV was low, and there were very few sponsorships for the competition. After capital entered, the rise of a large number of competitions also caused the G League to lose its status in the e-sports industry. Factors such as lawsuits and the departure of key personnel have also caused Game Fengyun to enter a "retirement" state.
Although the G League organized by Game Fengyun has won many praises in the industry, due to the late start of the domestic e-sports environment and the low popularity of digital TV and the Internet, few advertisers are willing to invest. The gaming industry and G League, which have been developing steadily for many years, failed to seize the transformation opportunities brought about by the rapid development of the market when the industry emerged. Therefore, as the ecosystem was gradually established, it lost its specific positioning in the industry and its competitiveness began to decline.
Looking back at the "big brother" OGN, the absence of the competition ecology also makes it unable to recover. The StarCraft 2 event held by OGN in 2012 was withdrawn by Blizzard. This is the first time OGN has been unable to hold an event due to copyright reasons. Subsequently, the tournament organizers tried other popular projects, such as League of Legends, Overwatch, PUBG, APEX, etc. However, the copyright of the tournament was subsequently reclaimed by various manufacturers year by year.
In the early days, e-sports events were held by early manufacturers only as a means to promote their own games, and broadcasting on TV platforms with convenient communication and a wide audience is also a good way to promote their games. As the influence and audience of the event increase, the importance of e-sports events also increases, and copyright becomes more and more important in the ecosystem.
In 2018, Riot took back the right to host LCK events, and OGN had to abandon the League of Legends project and start other games. Although OGN successfully hosted PUBG's PKL league, unfortunately, Blue Hole officials abolished the PKL league this year.
In the media FOMOS breaking article, many relevant people revealed: "Due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, coupled with the sharp reduction in production content, OGN's advertising revenue has shrunk severely."
Times are changing, and today's TV stations have long been the same as before. The stars are shining brightly at the moon. In order to survive this big wave, some traditional TV stations have begun their transformation. Under the pressure of transformation, TV stations have embarked on the road of innovation. The launch of Hunan Satellite TV's "Where Are We Going, Dad", " I Am a Singer", and Zhejiang Satellite TV's "Extreme Challenge" and other programs have all failed. Ratings have skyrocketed; short videos are on the rise, and many media and TV stations have settled in short videos. Among them are the TV media systems of related categories such as Golden Eyes, which became popular with the "1818 Golden Boy Group".
Comparing OGN and Game Fengyun under the TV media system, Gyro Esports believes that comparing the penetration rates of digital TV in China and South Korea, the penetration rate of broadband networks and digital TV is higher in South Korea. South Korea's game viewing habits have made a smoother transition to traditional TV viewing. Unlike the decline in competitiveness in gaming, the closure of OGN is due to the gradual loss of copyrights for popular events, resulting in a direct gap in content production capabilities.
With the development of time, only NeoTV and VSPN are left among the four major domestic e-sports content producers in the past. They have become a part of the e-sports industry chain, providing event-related services to manufacturers. From a certain perspective, the copyrights of e-sports game manufacturers are becoming the next "Sword of Damocles" for companies outside the ecosystem: after the ecosystem gradually gains a foothold, if it fails to find a correct positioning, the possibility of survival will become worse. Come lower and lower.
Conclusion:
These pioneers who created the e-sports ecosystem have not yet reaped their own glory in the rise of e-sports. Even OGN, which relies more on the event ecology, has not been able to continue to persist.
Flowers will bloom again, and no one will be young anymore, but at least the many event ecology and practitioners hatched by them are also using the personal abilities brought by this experience in the industry. As ImbaTV Haitao said in the circle of friends, gaming is where his and many ordinary e-sports enthusiasts’ dreams began.
