For League of Legends, which is about to usher in the doorstep event, the Asian Confrontation is a comprehensive training before S7.
Kaohsiung Exhibition Hall, located in Kaohsiung's multi-functional economic and trade park, 4.5 hectares of land in the Sinopec Chenggong Factory area, is an exhibition hall that can accommodate 1,500 standard stalls. Whether in terms of building area, capacity or geographical location, it is the venue in Kaohsiung No.1.
When the mainland is discussing the most prohibited order in the history of Honor of Kings, a grand e-sports competition is held here: the 2017 League of Legends Asian Confrontation.
Yu Xishun is a staff member on the scene. In the third day of the competition, his task was to stay outside the media interview room and review the documents of the people entering and leaving. He has successfully passed the postgraduate entrance examination at National Kaohsiung University and is also a League of Legends player in his spare time. His rank has reached luxurious platinum. From the first day of the competition, he has held various positions on the spot and earned nearly NT$1,500 a day.
Yu Xishun was very dedicated. He could not see the big screen at the scene where he was at that day, but when there were bursts of shouts at the scene, he would still subconsciously look up and aim at the big screen through the crack of the door.
And the same mood as him are the audiences sitting around the stage holding posters and support slogans. Riot did not announce the number of people entering the event in the four days, and Lazy Bear Sports counted on the spot, with a total of more than 4,000 seats, which basically covered most of the space in the exhibition hall.
This League of Legends Asian Confrontation brings together the three strongest regions in Asia: LPL, LCK, and LMS. Each division has won the top four teams in the spring season, representing their respective divisions and competing for the final championship.
This year is undoubtedly a very important node for Riot and League of Legends. The year-end S7 finals are about to begin, and LPL's performance in the World Championships has always been unsatisfactory. At the same time, LPL is trying a series of reforms, and there is an increasingly powerful Honor of Kings around. In the second half of this year, Riot and its League of Legends will undoubtedly be very busy in China.
Fortunately, for LPL, the result of this first Asian Intercontinental match is not bad - the LMS and LSK won the Cup after winning the championship. Hopefully, this is a good start.
The sense of opposition between the competition
Speaking of the original intention of setting up the intercontinental confrontation, the head of Riot China, Ye Qiangsheng, explained the goal very clearly, firstly, to more international events and promote exchanges between various competition areas, and secondly, to make different competition areas have a more "opposition".
From the current global schedule of League of Legends, it is mainly divided into four events: spring season, summer season, and global mid-season invitational and finals.
Ye Johnson thinks this is not enough: "There can be more exciting competitions between regions to our audience, and it can also promote communication between various competition areas."
"Overall, this event has activated new attention from major competition areas, and the effect is quite good." said Jin Yibo, head of Tencent League of Legends brand and e-sports. What is more interesting is the "confrontation between the competition area" that Ye Johnson valued: "This will have a more sports atmosphere."
So they chose to use the competition area as the participating unit rather than the team in this intercontinental match. The top four teams in each competition zone represent their respective battle zones to participate in this event. One, two and three teams were decided in the group stage two days ago. Then the two and three teams first played a Bo5 team match with each other, and the winner and the first place started to compete for the championship.
The sense of opposition between the match range is the theme that Riot wants to create the most.
does have a strong sense of opposition on the scene. Whenever the team in the LMS or LCK area makes a wonderful kill, you can hear the cheers in the audience in the media room. Before the final day of the final, the Korean coach even made a harsh statement: "If there is no 3-0LPL area, we will all go back to South Korea."
may have been stimulated by the Korean coach, or for the glory of the LPL area, the coaches of the LPL team spared no effort. Riot told Lazy Bear Sports that they hold meetings every night until 3 a.m.
These are exactly what Ye Johnson is eager to see in the competition.He said that although the event also has championship bonuses, the amount is not worth mentioning. What they can compete fiercely between the competition areas is that honor.
In addition, Riot has also considered organizing a team with a country or region to play a World Cup-like event. However, I think this model may be very immature and the audience may not buy it, so they did not adopt it.
Perhaps this strong sense of confrontation between the competition has presented many wonderful scenes for this event. EDG, who performed poorly in the first three days, was reborn in the last day's game and faced the strong enemy SSG and dared to fight and win the first game; while WE, who was previously recognized as the world's number one team, was beaten by SKT, in the final, was unlucky in defeating his opponent; when RNG finally removed the MVP's crystal, mainland peers screamed and rushed out of the media room. Corresponding to this are the live audience who left the scene in a hurry, as well as the silence and lament of the LCK media room.
These pictures are what the audience wants, and their fists are happy to see them. "If you want to be able to develop a good sports, the most important thing is competitiveness and exciting events," said Ye Qiangsheng.
In order to give a better viewing experience on the spot, the organizer also opened a player interaction area on the spot. There are sales of peripheral products, interactive experiences with anchor commentary participation, and cultural and artistic displays of the League of Legends game. "This can help players integrate League of Legends into their lives and add points to our core e-sports experience," said Ye Johnson Ye.
However, at this stage, Johnson Ye still wants to make the excitement of the event itself good. "I think it is OK to do a good job in professional sports and then do pan-entertainment," he said.
The growing Taiwan e-sports
Lazy Bear Sports came to Kaohsiung, the competition had already ended the competition for the group stage. Judging from the results, Taiwanese audiences were undoubtedly happy in the first two days - LMS performed well, surpassing LPL in terms of results and ranking second in the group.
It can also be seen from the excitement of the audience: the second day's competition ended at nearly 10 o'clock in the evening, but there were still many fans gathered in the venue, waiting for the opportunity to take a photo with the idol contestants to sign.
After the competition, many fans still stayed and waited to take photos with their idols.
Ye Johnson told Lazy Bear Sports that when choosing a location, the mainland region already had this year's S7 finals, while the South Korean region was unwilling to host this event due to their internal reasons, so he settled in Taiwan.
When it comes to Taiwan e-sports, a name that must be mentioned is Jay Chou . This star, who has been dominating the Chinese music scene for decades, acquired the TPA team that once won the S2 world championship in April 2016 and changed it to JTeam, a very Jay Chou name. At the same time, Jay Chou is now also the "star summoner" of "League of Legends".
"He really loves e-sports." Ye Johnson said, "He even said halfway through the meeting, "I'm sorry I have a fight, I'm going to play. When I'm very busy at night, he will also play."
Although the atmosphere on the scene is good, there are still many empty seats in the back row of the two audience areas. The day before the final, there were still remaining tickets for sale on the official ticketing platform FamiTicket.
There is a video about Taiwanese internet cafes on the Internet. A foreigner visited Taipei and was amazed at the complete facilities of the internet cafes here, with 5-to-5 e-sports rooms, and accommodation, showers, etc. However, Yu Xishun told Lazy Bear Sports that there is no such Internet cafe in Kaohsiung.
I found an internet cafe called "Metropolis" in the city center of Kaohsiung. Yu Xishun said that this is the largest chain of Internet cafes in Kaohsiung. But he looks no big difference from ordinary Internet cafes. The staff of the Metropolitan City told me that in Kaohsiung a few years ago, there were many Internet cafes similar to them, but they gradually disappeared. "Many Kaohsiung people are still willing to play games at home," he said.
After investing in the Taiwan team, Jay Chou opened his song Mojie Esports Hall in Shenzhen, which seems to confirm this.
"In fact, there is still a big gap in the e-sports atmosphere in Kaohsiung compared to Taipei."A Taiwanese media colleague told Lazy Bear Sports.
This is similar to Lazy Bear Sports' feeling when she was wandering in Kaohsiung City . Most people here don't know this e-sports event, and they are more willing to talk about where the beef noodles are more authentic, where the milk tea is better, and where the night market is more lively.
However, now the Kaohsiung Municipal Government has begun to pay attention to the development of the e-sports industry, which can be seen from the importance of this event. The third game day, that is, the day when LPL and LMS fight, Kaohsiung City Chen Ju came to visit the set. At the pre-match press conference a few days ago, she revealed that the Kaohsiung Municipal Government will establish the first large-scale e-sports industry base in Taiwan at the Pop Music Center to promote the cultivation of e-sports talents and the construction of professional e-sports halls.
In Ye Johnson's view, although the development of Taiwan's e-sports industry is not that mature, it is also slowly catching up, and more "giants" are needed: "Just like the LPL region's JD and Suning can join, and after they come in, they can implement some enterprise management of the team. "
S7 training
If this Asian confrontation is an important step in developing the e-sports industry for Kaohsiung and even Taiwan, then for the LPL region and Riot China region, this is a comprehensive training before this year's S7 finals.
Before that, the LPL region had an overwhelming historical record advantage over the LMS region: 17 wins and 2 losses. However, in this Asian confrontation, although LPL won the final championship, its overall record with the LMS region was a bit miserable: 4 wins and 5 losses.
Fortunately, he won the championship in the final. The failure of the game is also full of teaching significance. At least before the S7 event was held, the LPL team could further understand the opponent's true strength.
Looking back at previous international events, except for EDG winning a championship in 2015 MSI, the teams in the LPL region rarely have two results. This also makes the outside world very worried about whether the host can be proud of the upcoming S7 finals.
Ye Johnson bluntly stated that the competitiveness of the LPL team is the most worrying issue for him now. His words even sounded a bit heavy: "If we can't even win a bo5 in the international event, then this e-sports will not be worthwhile in a few years. "
. In his opinion, the current LPL team is not disciplined, which is the biggest problem that affects its strength. "Some players are very impetuous and often say that they want to retire and play live broadcasts. The coach can't control the players either. This is a problem with the team's management method," said Ye Johnson. "I even want to find time to gather the team's bosses together. It doesn't matter if I scold them once. "
In addition to team performance, what is more worthy of attention is the changes in the entire LPL. After the end of this spring season, the LPL announced that it had begun to reform the league, abolished the relegation and added the home and away system. (Related reading: Following the NBA, LPL is really this time.)
"The events at home are both pressure and motivation. We have invested a lot in LPL this year. "Jin Yibo said, "The cancellation of relegation is for the purpose of leagueization, while the home and away game is for the purpose of offline. If e-sports wants to be sports-based, offline is a necessary process. ”
From this we can see that what LPL wants to do is to develop towards a more professional sports league, and S7 at the end of the year is undoubtedly their best opportunity.
On the third day of the Asian Confrontation, when LPL and LMS were fighting fiercely, the KPL Spring Finals of Honor of Kings also opened at the Oriental Sports Center in Shanghai, with 13,500 positions on the scene close to full.
The KPL finals were also held at the same time as the Asian Confrontation.
Someone compared the number of people online in several mainstream live broadcast websites. In addition to Douyu , in the live broadcast room of Panda and Huya, the number of people watching KPL events exceeded the Asian Confrontation. The biggest gap between Huya live broadcast is 1.78 million. From this perspective, perhaps League of Legends is still the top spot in e-sports events, but the opponents behind him are gradually catching up.
"We do feel the pressure from Honor of Kings. "John Ye said frankly.However, he believes that Honor of Kings and League of Legends are two e-sports projects that can coexist: "We think we are a more professional competitive sports, and they are an entertainment-oriented game viewing experience."
"What we want to do most in the short term is to let players of Honor of Kings, regardless of whether they have played League of Legends or not, understand that League of Legends has a deeper competitive, operation and gaming experience." Ye Qiangsheng said.
and Jin Yibo seems to be more confident. "Overall, League of Legends is ahead in the field of e-sports in China." He said, "What we need to consider is how to continue to do better in the field of e-sports."
In addition, another thing may also cause concerns among Tencent and Riot, which is the recent hotly debated controversy about the harm of e-sports to minors.
Jin Yibo is also optimistic about this: "We will pay great attention to protecting minors. At the level of promoting e-sports, we will hope to convey positive energy and positive meanings so that they can feel the positive spirit from it. This itself is the charm of e-sports."
There is no doubt that as S7 is coming, if LPL cannot achieve good results in this global e-sports event, or if Riot and Tencent cannot further upgrade the League of Legends event brand, then there will be controversy over e-sports before and the pursuit of Honor of Kings later. The days after League of Legends are probably not going to be easy.
(At the request of the interviewee, Yu Xishun is a pseudonym.)
