More business models will emerge in the e-sports industry in the future.
Xinhua News Agency, Chengdu, December 31 (Sun Xiaohui) not long ago, at the global press conference of the International E-Sports Federation held in Singapore, the International E-Sports Federation (GEF) was formally established, this news caused a shock in the e-sports circle, and the outside world speculated one after another: is the pace of e-sports entering Austria approaching?
With the development of the Internet and its deep penetration into social life, e-sports players have increased rapidly, and the public’s prejudice against e-sports has also changed. Newzoo’s 2019 global e-sports market report points out that in 2019, the global e-sports audience will exceed 0.45 billion and the core e-sports enthusiasts will reach 0.201 billion. Among them, China will have the largest number of core e-sports enthusiasts, with an estimated number of 75 million.
The vast market space, the “naming” of relevant government departments on e-sports and the continuous broadcasting of major streaming media on e-sports events, it shows people the role and value of e-sports as “competitive sports”, and the e-sports industry has gradually gained people’s general recognition.
Aiming at topics such as e-sports industry and talent cultivation, one of the earliest companies in China to develop e-sports industry is Perfect World. Its senior vice president and spokesman, wang Yuyun, chairman of Perfect Education, explained his views to Xinhua sports.
Take responsibility and eliminate prejudice
as a A- share listed company whose main business is games and film and television, Perfect World performed well in the capital market in 2019, with the market value increasing by more than 60%, on the 31st, it closed at 57 billion yuan.
In the e-sports industry, Perfect World is one of the earliest enterprises involved in e-sports business in China. After 2012, he has successively obtained the exclusive operation rights of well-known e-sports products such as DOTA2 and CS:GO in mainland China. Since 2015, he has hosted three DOTA2 Asian Invitational tournament, DOTA2 Super Championship and CS:GO Asia Invitational Tournament and other international large-scale e-sports professional competitions, and in August 2019, they helped VALVE to hold the e-sports competition of the single e-sports event with the highest prize amount in the world-2019 DOTA2 International Invitational Tournament.
At present, Perfect World is promoting the maturity of various commercial forms such as comprehensive e-sports carnival. This year’s TI9 opening ceremony performance will integrate elements representing Oriental fans into it. Chinese folk music and symphony music blend together, showing the cultural soft power promoted by the combination of e-sports with Chinese culture and Shanghai city culture. “We hope to promote global youth exchanges through e-sports, so that e-sports will no longer be limited to purely recreational and competitive events, but become a bridge to promote cultural exchanges,” Wang Yuyun said.
Although the public’s “prejudice” towards e-sports has improved, there are still voices of resistance and opposition to e-sports entering the school and e-sports entering the Olympics, wang Yuyun believes that to further eliminate social prejudice and misunderstanding about e-sports, it is important to actively promote the healthy development of e-sports and spread the positive energy of e-sports.
Wang Yuyun said that on the one hand, e-sports enterprises should better shoulder the cultural mission, strengthen positive communication and value orientation, and emphasize the sports competitiveness and team spirit of e-sports; On the other hand, they should also fulfill their social responsibilities, implement the protection of the healthy growth of teenagers, cooperate with the competent authorities to introduce the system, and strictly regulate and restrict the problems such as the strong social reflection of teenagers indulging in online games and excessive consumption.
“The e-sports industry chain should unite to strive for more social recognition, promote the development of a series of e-sports such as e-sports entering the Olympics, and with the help of the influence of large-scale events such as the Asian Games, let the public recognize the sports status of e-sports, and then bridge the relevant differences.”
Self-made system for training talents
Although e-sports has a broad market and user base in our country, it lacks a systematic and formal talent training system, the shortage of talents is the bottleneck that restricts the development of domestic e-sports industry. To solve this problem, in Wang Yuyun’s view, Perfect World Education is carrying out four major layout work of e-sports education.
First of all, for those who want to know about the electric competition and the game industry, prepare the free content of “Decrypting the electronic competition” series, and strengthen cross-industry and cross-field cooperation; Secondly, determine the post assignment for technical talents, start with actual competitions and games, clarify the Post requirements, and introduce job training standards and corresponding teaching materials that conform to the actual and development; Third, it is to integrate specialized talents, that is, to combine new knowledge at the forefront of the industry with higher education.
“We combine our latest understanding of the operation mechanism of the e-sports league and our experience in large-scale entertainment programs and activities with the majors of business administration, marketing and so on in colleges and universities, we hope to create professional compound talents who lead the development of professional league system and business model.” Wang Yuyun said.
And fourth, it is to build an open platform for research-oriented creative talents, allowing colleges and universities, scientific research institutions and all kinds of innovative creative enterprises to access valuable data and content, it provides a research platform of “basic science” for the development of China’s e-sports industry.
When talking about how to cut into the idea of e-sports education from school-enterprise cooperation. Wang Yuyun summarized some experiences and experiences: both sides of the cooperation must have matching ideas and values, achieve highly standardized curriculum output, and actively cultivate cross-field and cross-professional talents, and give the talent resource platform, and finally achieve the effect that 1+1 is greater than 2.
“We cooperated with the Central Academy of Fine Arts to build a” collaborative innovation laboratory for game design in the future media center “, focusing on the development and cooperation of” functional games “, and standardized solutions for functional game design projects, then send it to other schools; Cooperate with Beijing Normal University to launch the first talent growth evaluation system in the industry to help reduce the cost of talent screening in game enterprises and strengthen the efficiency of talent selection…… I think like this, it is a perfect combination of making up for each other and getting what they need.”
Wang Yuyun said that at present, Perfect World Education has jointly established international games and e-Sports College, Shanghai Information Management School, Shanghai Qunxing vocational and technical school with Sichuan media School and enterprises, shanghai Institute of electronic information technology and other universities cooperate with enterprises in E-sports education; Cooperate with Thailand’s Ministry of Education to build e-sports talent majors with Thailand’s xuansuna Royal University and other universities.
E-sports industry will emerge more business models in the future
E-sports, as an emerging hot industry, all major companies related to the industry are facing practical problems of commercialization and profitability. Wang Yuyun admitted that China’s e-sports industry chain has not yet formed a good linkage profit effect, and the huge potential market value has not been fully explored.
She believes that the breaking point of the e-sports industry stems from the rise of fan economy. E-commerce, variety shows, live video broadcasts, brand endorsement, etc. have enabled many e-sports practitioners to find new profit models and channels, “With the gradual improvement of the e-sports industry, users’ demand for competition content, hardware products, derivative peripheral products and other aspects will be a major development opportunity for integrating upstream and downstream industrial chains, predictably, with the continuous exploration of practitioners in the future, more business models will emerge in the e-sports industry.”
Wang Yuyun also pointed out that for the upstream and downstream enterprises of the e-sports industry, two points should be paid attention to in the process of pursuing commercialization: first, fully tap the potential needs of users and expand more subdivision fields, at the same time, the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain should also cooperate fully and deeply to integrate high-quality industrial resources so as to create a healthier and sustainable e-sports ecosystem. Second, e-sports has special attributes as a cultural industry, enterprises should shoulder their due social responsibilities.
When asked how 5G, VR and other technologies integrate with e-sports, Wang Yuyun said that 5G combined with cloud computing will become the biggest technological driving force to change various industries in the next decade, users can completely get rid of hardware restrictions and cooperate with more and more mature virtual reality technology. In the future, e-sports events and live events will provide subversive experience.
“For example, hyperviewing, with the development of AR, VR and other technologies, the audience can go beyond the first perspective to watch the competition; For example, hyperinteraction allows the audience to directly participate in the competition, even interact with the player’s competition environment immediately. In turn, the experimental application of new technology in e-sports will also activate and feed back the development of technology. These will completely break through the current e-sports business model.”