In the long run, in the past two years, the decision to focus on offline layout needs to be re-examined. In the future, when the industry learns the excellent experience of traditional sports, how to make good use of the characteristics of e-sports online attributes cannot be ignored.
Xinhua News Agency, Chengdu, March 3 (Wang Meng) time entered March, the rapid rising trend of the domestic covid-19 epidemic has been curbed, but the epidemic has spread overseas. All links of China’s e-sports industry chain have also been impacted by the epidemic to varying degrees. The e-sports events that were originally in the rising stage were forced to press the “pause” button, and most of the events were postponed or changed to online.
Xinhua Sports interviewed a number of practitioners in the e-sports industry. They all said that due to the impact of the epidemic, business losses are inevitable in the short term; In the long run, in the past two years, it is necessary to re-examine the decision to focus on the offline layout. In the future, when the industry learns the excellent experience of traditional sports, how to make good use of the characteristics of e-sports online attributes cannot be ignored.
△In 2018 Jakarta Asian Games, e-sports was listed as a performance project.
The e-sports industry is affected by the epidemic
The sudden epidemic has had a great impact on the entire sports industry. As a part of the development of domestic sports industry, it has also been affected to varying degrees.
Throughout the industrial chain of e-sports ecology, upstream game manufacturers are least affected by the epidemic, because the public entertainment demand created by home isolation still gains on the contrary; however, the players, clubs and executive companies in the middle reaches of the offline e-sports industry are seriously affected by the epidemic.
“E-sports, like football basket and other events, also belongs to the sports competition performance industry. Affected by the epidemic, e-sports related events such as LPL (League of Legends professional league) and KPL (King Glory professional league) in the short term also work with the Super League, CBA, f1 Shanghai Grand Prix and other events will be postponed.” Lu Shuting, director of higher education research office of Guangzhou Institute of Physical Education and doctoral tutor, said.
It is understood that 2020 is not only the year of traditional sports, but also the year of e-sports. On February 26, Wang Yanyuan, deputy director of the propaganda department of Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, said at the press conference that more than 400 offline e-sports competitions in Shanghai had been affected to varying degrees during the epidemic and in the first half of the year.
Whether the 2020 League of Legends Global Finals settled in Shanghai can be held on schedule has also attracted great attention. In addition, LPL spring competetion also announced the change to online games on the morning of 28th due to the impact of the resumption of work and the delay in returning employees to the team. KPL, which has been cultivated in recent years in China, announced earlier that it would cancel spring competetion offline matches and change it to online mode.
Because of the restructuring and extension of the event, the main business income of sponsorship and copyright sale is bound to be impacted.
It is understood that some manufacturers have actively sought to make up for the loss of offline sponsorship rights, fixed costs and tickets of e-sports events through replacement. However, third-party competitions, small-scale or newly-entered companies in the industrial chain are more obviously affected.
“In the long run, the e-sports club will settle in the city at home, the construction of e-sports venues and surrounding cooperation projects; Brand owners, sponsors, advertisers and e-sports clubs, alliances, events that have been approached or are being carried out by the event parties; The management of clubs and event-related training personnel may encounter multiple tests such as slowing down, shelving, and difficult coordination.” LV Shuting judged the impact of the epidemic on e-sports.
△ offline live in the 2019KPL autumn finals.
Adjust strategies and tap online advantages
In the past few years, people familiar with the e-sports circle all know that when they perceive China’s huge offline e-sports fan market, after feeling the enthusiasm of more City players, offline and regionalized become the layout direction of e-sports. Now affected by the epidemic, practitioners begin to think about how to make good use of the online attribute advantages of e-sports and adjust strategies to actively meet the coming challenges in the second half.
Originally born in E-sports games online, it is not as imagined and naturally suitable for online competitions. In the previous e-sports online competitions, the phenomenon of cheating by players using the Internet, plug-ins, live broadcasts and so on has been banned repeatedly. However, offline scene matches are more fair because they solve problems such as network delay and fairness.
Therefore, when the event is transferred to the online, from the competition system, fairness, appreciation, to the venue, equipment, network, to players, referees, how to guarantee the health of the staff and the commercial value of the event have become the universal attention question both inside and outside the industry.
Affected by the epidemic, the event turned online, and the industry stroked its scalp and touched the stones across the river. “Not starting the competition means stagnation, which will have a great impact on the whole industry, especially the competition execution companies and clubs.” Zhang Yijia, chairman of KPL Alliance, said, “the first online competition in the industry is to establish effective solutions to maintain the overall commercial value to the greatest extent and minimize the losses of all parties.”
As the executor of many domestic large-scale events, VSPN lost significantly in this epidemic due to the operation layout of offline e-sports venues. Teng Linji, president of quantum sports VSPN, roughly estimated that it should be tens of millions of losses, plus indirect losses, it is not excluded that the loss amount will be higher.
“This epidemic stimulated the management team to think more, which gave us a brand-new understanding of some advantages of e-sports compared with traditional sports.” Teng Linji, president of quantum sports VSPN, said that in the future, more efforts will be made in online competitions and online users’ viewing and interactive experience. “Online interaction is the natural advantage of e-sports, and we will hope to find new opportunities in it.”
△Chengdu quantum photoelectric competition Hall. Figure according to vspn official website
in the future, “Cloud Entertainment” will complement offline events
affected by the epidemic, offline entertainment venues such as KTV and cinemas are all closed, and Spring Festival movies will be collectively withdrawn. However, the duration of online “cloud entertainment” increases, and the trend of online entertainment replacing offline entertainment such as mobile games and long/short videos is obvious. It is expected that this trend will continue in the future, and relevant online segments will usher in development dividends.
Gamma Data “January 2020 mobile game report” shows that during the Spring Festival 2020, the scale of mobile game market increased by 32.9 percent year-on-year, an increase of 24.5 percent from the beginning of the month. According to the research report released by CITIC Construction investment on January 29, Tencent’s most well-known gaming mobile games the glory of the King should be around 9.084 billion yuan in January 2020, a record high.
The bright data performance eliminates worries for the development of the e-sports industry that relies heavily on the user base. In addition, Beijing, Shanghai and other places have successively released favorable policies on the layout of e-sports, which has become another shot in the industry.
Zhao Lei, vice minister of propaganda department of Beijing Municipal Party Committee, said that in 2020, “E-sports Beijing 2020 series activities” will be held, including the first international e-sports innovation conference, e-sports Light exhibition fair, the King honored the World Champions League final (Beijing), built a gaming electronic sports technology consumption experience area, and actively cultivated e-sports consumption scenarios.
And the relevant leaders in Shanghai also expressed that they should speed up the administrative examination and approval of online publishing content products related to e-sports and games.
“The development of e-sports industry has become the established policy of governments at all levels and the consensus of e-sports industry circle and e-sports education circle. It will not change due to the emergence of the ‘influence.” LV Shuting said that e-sports was originally derived from online to offline, and the future online development mode will definitely not disappear. The online and offline combination mode, which is mainly offline and supplemented by online, only in this way can it be more conducive to the development of e-sports industry.