"Repentance", this is probably the voice of e-sports fans who got up at 5 a.m. on October 30 and chased the screen for 3 hours in front of the screen. 2022 League of Legends Global Finals (S12) semi-finals. Due to the last championship, EDG, also from LPL ( League of Legends Professional League Mainland China Division), lost in the quarterfinals, JDG became the only LPL division among the semi-finals. The significance of this semi-finals to domestic e-sports fans can be imagined.
Although this is the first time since the S8 season, there is no LPL team in the finals, it was included in the official competition event of the Asian Games in 2021 and the 2022 spin-off animation theme song " Lonely Brave " broke the circle. The League of Legends Global Finals, one of the most attention-grabbing and commercialized e-sports events in the world, has inspired China's e-sports industry more than a little. Relevant data shows that in 2022, China's e-sports users are expected to reach 450 million, with global e-sports events revenue of US$1.384 billion, and the Chinese market contributed about one-third. Due to the short development time of China's e-sports, the development of the e-sports derivative market is insufficient, reflecting the potential of the e-sports market. In the future, mobile e-sports will be the driving force of the e-sports industry.
JDG is considered a dark horse
"Why is loneliness not glorious? Only imperfection is worthy of praise, who says that a person who is covered in sludge is not a hero?" From the phone call of League of Legends fan Zhou Yang (pseudonym), the melody of "The Lonely Brave" vaguely came from the phone call of League of Legends fan Zhou Yang (pseudonym). Although JDG was stopped in the semi-finals, he "didn't regret getting up in the early morning to watch the live broadcast, it just felt a pity." On October 30, topics such as "JDG stopped at the semi-finals of S12" and "T1 advanced to the S12 finals" were already on the hot searches for Weibo .
In fact, Zhou Yang is not familiar with JDG. When his favorite EDG stopped in the quarterfinals, he began to pay attention to JDG. "I lost in the first game, but JDG won the second game. In the end, it was quite regretful. I will watch the subsequent games, but I won't watch the live broadcast so early."
Zhao Lei (pseudonym) was not originally a fan of JDG, but unfortunately WBG, which he supported, was eliminated early. After that, Zhao Lei basically chased all LPL teams in S12 games. Speaking of JDG, his impression is that "there are many veteran players, rich experience in the competition, and a stable style. He is considered a dark horse. His skills are not as good as others in the semi-finals, and there is no way."
"Our S12 journey ends here. OneOnly, we know that this may be the unique opportunity. Although it is the only one, I am sorry that I failed to make the choice in everyone's heart." As of the time of publication of the Beijing Business Daily reporter, fans left more than 1,000 comfort messages on JDG's Weibo saying goodbye to S12.
In terms of qualifications, JDG is not considered an old senior, just like S9 champion FPX. Both teams were established in 2017. S8 champion IG and S11 champion EDG were established in 2011 and 2013 respectively. JDG person introduced to Beijing Business Daily reporters, "JDG belongs to JD Xingyu, a joint venture between JD and Xinyingcai. It was formerly the QG team. The players who played this time are Bai Jiahao , Chang Xiao, Xu Jinhe , Zeng Qi, Wang Jie , and Lou Yunfeng."
According to data from the League of Legends Event Center, from 2017 to 2022, from 2020, in addition to the 2021 LPL Summer Tournament, JDG's winning rate is basically stable at 60%-70%. This team performed particularly well in 2022, LPL Spring Tournament and LPL Summer Tournament champion.
In the view of Liao Xuhua, a senior consultant of the cultural consumption industry of iResearch Analysis, "Any professional sports team can maintain a high winning rate is a very strong performance, but it also depends on the outcome or honor of key events, which represents the ability to confront top opponents under super high pressure."
Esports ≠playing games
For ordinary netizens, players, competitions, teams... these e-sports business cards made of English letters may be relatively unfamiliar, but the scale of e-sports users is growing year by year.
comes from data jointly released by Penguin Youtu, Tencent Esports , and Asian Electronic Sports Federation . In 2018, the year when IG won the League of Legends Global Finals, the LPL region team won the first championship, the number of Chinese e-sports users was 320 million. In 2021, this number rose to 430 million, and is expected to increase to 450 million by 2022.In 2018, League of Legends was selected for the performance event of the Jakarta Asian Games. At the Hangzhou Asian Games held in 2023, e-sports will become the official competition event of the Asian Games for the first time, including 8 events including League of Legends, Honor of Kings (Asian Games Edition), Peace Elite (Asian Games Edition), Hearthstone, Dota 2, Dream Three Kingdoms 2, Street Fighter 5 and FIFA Online 4.
According to the definition of National General Administration of Sports , e-sports sports is an intellectual confrontation between people using high-tech software and hardware equipment as sports equipment. Through exercise, participants can be trained and improved to think, reaction, coordination ability of mind, eyes, limbs, and willpower, and cultivate team spirit.
For online games, iMedia Consulting CEO Zhang Yi explained to Beijing Business Daily reporters, "Online games are simulations and role-playing in the pursuit of feelings in the virtual world. They usually lack clear and unified game rules, no time and round restrictions. The main purpose is to communicate and interact and entertainment activities between humans and machines or players. It is not necessary to draw judgment results based on confrontation. Usually, netizens participating in the game can gain advantages through recharge."
As an emerging competitive sports event, chaos has also occurred while e-sports is developing. Players play counterfeit games, manipulate games, fans tear each other, and irrational behaviors occur frequently. Although e-sports usher in a "hot trend" in development, problems such as a large gap in professional talents, short careers of players, and limited club management capabilities have also been exposed. Industry insiders generally believe that when e-sports players become idols of young netizens and e-sports clubs face an increasingly large market, only regulations can develop sustainably and explore the commercial value of the event.
market has not been fully explored
returns to the League of Legends Global Finals, "because the League of Legends game itself has a large enough fan base, and the e-sports operation is also very excellent. The League of Legends Global Finals is the most concerned e-sports event in the world, and commercialization and operation are also one of the most mature ones," Liao Xuhua said bluntly.
In addition to the League of Legends series e-sports events, DOTA2 International Invitational , CS:GO Major, PUBG Global Invitational, etc. are also world-renowned e-sports events.
comes from the "2022 Global Esports and Game Live Market Report" released by Newzoo, which shows that the global Esports event revenue in 2020 was US$996 million, which will reach US$1.384 billion in 2022, and this figure will exceed US$1.8 billion in 2025. Currently, the revenue of global e-sports events mainly comes from six parts: sponsorship, media copyright, game publisher subsidies, peripheral products and ticketing, virtual products, and live broadcasts. Taking 2022 as an example, sponsorship is the largest source of revenue for global e-sports events, contributing US$837 million. Media copyright and game publisher subsidies ranked second and third largest revenue with US$208 million and US$131 million respectively. The Chinese market contributes nearly one-third of the global e-sports event market revenue.
Take the League of Legends Global Finals as an example. "The commercial operation of this event is aligned with the top international sports events, including copyright distribution, the combination of event content and sponsors, and the joint promotion of global partners with local partners. For example, the application of data analysis during the event is a very mature sponsor cooperation point for European and American sports events in recent years. S12 has given AWS this year. There are also map advertising spaces, theme song promotions, etc. for stadium advertising spaces."
According to the data on the scale of Chinese e-sports users in recent years, maintained growth year-on-year compared with , but the growth rate slowed down, from 23.1% in 2018 to about 5.9% in 2022. The user market has become saturated. Some people believe that this is a weather vane for the industry toward stability and maturity.
, but the relevant report of iResearch pointed out that since China's e-sports has a short development time, the development of the e-sports derivative market is insufficient, reflecting that the e-sports market has not been fully explored, the e-sports industry structure needs to be further adjusted and optimized. With the gradual implementation of 5G communication technology, the use scenarios of mobile terminals have been further expanded, and the proportion of mobile e-sports industry has been further increased.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Wei Wei
