< Previous20 How do you choose your partners, and what are the most important criteria? We want to work with partners who share our values, partners who work honestly and earnestly toward their goals, and partners who are interested in furthering the esports marketplace as a whole, not just their position within it. In which direction are esports tournaments trending? Esports are trending further up every day. Each new generation is going to be that much more involved in competitive gaming and esports. This is the sport and pastime of the future, and by supporting it now, we plan to be a part of that future. The Bayes esports data report 2020 I Interview WIN Esports lends themselves very well to data collection: The games are all digital, and drawing data from them is relatively simple. There’s no need to track statistics by hand, as many of the numbers we’re interested in are automatically tabulated by the game. Because the esports industry is so new, data is also important in communicating numbers around audience and growth. Even if some potential partners unfamiliar with the space have a hard time understanding exactly what esports are all about, they can still understand the huge audience numbers behind the games. Why is data so important in esports?21 Work with good people who have your shared best interest in mind. Promise only what you can actually deliver. And keep your word; if partners know your word has no value, that’s something that is very hard to recover. Esports as sport and pastime of the future The Bayes esports data report 2020 I Interview WIN Would you please share three tips for smaller tournament organizers? There are always difficulties involved in navigating a new space and a new business. The entire esports industry is still so young, so there are very few established processes and norms. These must often be created from scratch. But while that can make the process challenging, it’s also that very challenge that makes our work in the space so rewarding. What is the hardest part of your job?22 Excursus: Tournament Organization in China 7 1. The gaming license policy in China From March 2018 to December 2018, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television (SAPPRFT) — the main regulator of the Chinese gaming market — started to reform the rules and regulations in the Chinese gaming market, and it stopped issuing gaming licenses to all games. The gaming license is a prerequisite for a game developer or distributor to commercialize a game and earn revenue legally, which means that games without gaming licenses are not allowed to be esportized in China. The nine-month gaming license freeze was like an earthquake in the Chinese gaming market. Some small game developers did not survive the nine-month freeze; the stock value of Chinese gaming giants Tencent and Netease shrank suddenly when the freeze started. After the freeze ended in December 2018, regulators —including SAPPRFT, the Ministry of Education, and the Online Games Ethics Committee — implemented stricter regulations on the Chinese gaming market. For example, game content cannot contain “too much violence”; the number of gaming licenses are limited each year; compulsory anti-addiction systems must be included in mobile games; and so on. Before planning an esports tournament in China, all tournament organizers should visit the official website of the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) to check if the game title that is being planned has been issued a gaming license in China. Here is a list from Newzoo of the “Top 25 Games by Live Esports Hours Watched on Twitch, YouTube, and Mixer.” Not all the games on the list below have been issued a gaming license in China. The Bayes esports data report 2020 I Tournament Organization in China 2223 a) Teamfight Tactics Teamfight Tactics has not been issued a gaming license, but Teamfight Tactics and League of Legends are using the same game engine. So in China, Teamfight Tactics is in the League of Legends PC client as a new game mode, rather than as a separate game title with an independent PC client. In China, mobile devices have replaced PCs and have become the most popular gaming devices among Chinese gamers. In 2020, hundreds of gaming licenses were issued by SAPPRFT, and most went to mobile games. The official League of Legends on mobile devices — League of Legends Wildrift — is being developed right now, and the video teaser has already been released by Riot. However, it is still uncertain if the mobile version of Teamfight Tactics will be a separate mobile app from League of Legends Wildrift. The gaming licenses of the top 25 esports games in 2019 The Bayes esports data report 2020 I Tournament Organization in China24 b) PUBG c) PUBG Mobile Shortly after its launch in 2017, PUBG became one of the most popular games in the Chinese market. At that time, the industry even predicted that PUBG would replace League of Legends and become the number-one game title in China. Unfortunately, without a gaming license, PUBG was only distributed on Steam and did not offer a China server for the mass gamers in China. PUBG gamers in China had to use a VPN or a game accelerator to connect to the PUBG South East Asia server. The inconvenience of playing PUBG in China, PUBG Mobile was launched in March 2018, and within months it became one of the hottest mobile games. PUBG Mobile was distributed in China by gaming giant Tencent. However, Tencent failed to secure a gaming license to commercialize the game. In May 2019, Tencent officially shut down PUBG Mobile in China but transferred all PUBG Mobile users to Peacekeeper Elite (Heping Jingyiing in Chinese pinyin), the Chinese along with no gaming license with which to earn revenue legally and Bluehole’s inability to enforce anti-cheating rules totally corroded the PUBG esports brand in China. In two years, PUBG’s user base in China declined rapidly, and Chinese PUBG esports teams dropped out, one by one, because of financial issues. The viewership of PUBG Championship League (the top-tier PUBG esports league in China, authorized by Bluehole) evaporated, and many PUBG viewers moved their focus to PUBG Mobile. version of PUBG Mobile. With a patriotic title and less violent in-game images, Peacekeeper Elite was issued a gaming license for monetization by SAPPRFT. Compared to PUBG, the Peacekeeper Elite esports ecosystem is much more sustainable: It has a gaming license through which to earn revenue, offers users the convenience of playing and watching anywhere on cell phones, and maintains a massive fan base and top esports teams. d) Console games Consoles have never been a popular gaming device for Chinese gamers. Before China became the world’s second largest economy, a normal Chinese family was not financially able to buy a game console. When hearing the term “game console,” many Chinese gamers are likely to first think of the big coin-operated gaming machines in an arcade rather than a portable PlayStation or an X-Box at home. Another obstacle that blocks console games from entering the Chinese market is the flood of pirated games. Before China opened its gaming market to the rest of the world in the 2010s, downloading pirated games and buying pirated game discs were almost the only channel that connected Chinese gamers and popular games. Even after the 2010s, the consumption habits of Chinese gamers were not suited to the business model of console games. Rather than spending a few hundred yuan for an authenticated game disc, most Chinese gamers would prefer playing a game for free but paying for in-game items, like the skins in League of Legends. In general, China is not a console-friendly market. In 2019, only 23 console games were issued a gaming license. However, EA FIFA is an exception. The Bayes esports data report 2020 I Tournament Organization in China25 e) EA FIFA EA FIFA is distributed in China via Tencent, but as a PC game called FIFA Online rather than as a console game. FIFA Online, developed by Electronic Arts and Neowiz, is using a different game engine than that of the EA FIFA series. For example, FIFA Online 4, launched in 2019, is using the Next field game engine, not the game engine of the EA FIFA series. From many gamers’ point of view, FIFA Online is not the same game as EA FIFA; some gamers even complain that FIFA Online is always a few patch lags behind the EA FIFA series. In China, Tencent operates an esports league for FIFA Online — the FIFA Online 4 Star League. Even though some top Chinese football clubs from the Chinese Super League (China’s top-tier football league) and some famous Chinese esports clubs play in the league, there are few Chinese gamers playing on the stage of FIFA eWorld Cup. The Bayes esports data report 2020 I Tournament Organization in China 2526 The Bayes esports data report 2020 I Tournament Organization in China Table 1. LPL teams’ home cities list Table 2. KPL list 2. Esports-friendly policies Early in 2003, the General Administration of Sports (GAOS), the sports industry’s governing body, authorized esports as the 99th sports title in China. Unfortunately, mainstream culture in the early 2000s labeled esports a “hard drug” that destroys teenagers’ future development. At that time, the environment in China did not support the growth of the esports industry at all: Regulators blocked almost all gaming content in the mainstream media, except for news that criticized the gaming industry. The media exaggerated video games’ harm to teenagers, and parents and educators complained about students spending too much time on gaming. When millennials, who grew up with gaming, started to enter the labor force and become the cornerstones of China’s economy, the esports freeze gradually melted, and Chinese esports teams won many titles on the international stage. In the 2010s, esports gradually became a part of the Chinese mainstream culture, a part to which the young generation is emotionally attached. Many Chinese cities started to implement esports-friendly policies — such as, for example, forming an esports team to represent a city — to attract young people to settle down and start their careers there. League of Legends and Honor of Kings are two of the most popular esports titles in China. In 2018 and 2019, League of Legends Pro League (LPL) and Honor of Kings Pro League (KPL) started home- and-away operations, with each team in the two leagues choosing a home city and a home venue (see the Tables 2 & 3 below).27 In addition to hosting esports teams, some Chinese cities support esports events in different ways. The best example is the 2020 LOL Worlds in Shanghai. At the beginning of 2020, the global esports community believed that it would be cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to industry sources, the Shanghai government offered extraordinary support that enabled the event to go on as planned: Transportation: Partnering with China Eastern Airlines and offering charter flights to bring all the foreign teams to Shanghai: all LEC teams traveled from Berlin, all LCS teams traveled from Los Angeles, and all LCK teams traveled from Seoul. COVID-19 quarantine: After taking the COVID-19 test, players could stay at the hotel and train if their test results were negative, rather than remain in hotel rooms for 14 days with nothing to do. Group-stage venue: All group-stage matches were played in a studio. However, to prevent crowds from gathering, TJ Sports did not reveal the address of the studio. Grand Final venue: The 2020 LOL Worlds Grand Final was played in Shanghai Pudong Football Stadium, a brand-new football stadium with around 35,000 seats. TJ Sports allowed 6,312 lucky fans to watch the Grand Final at the venue, but all participants had to follow stringent rules. For example, they had to keep a strict distance between seats, they had to show their health codes and pass temperature checks when entering the stadium, and so on. The Bayes esports data report 2020 I Tournament Organization in China28 3. Player service on-site When esports teams travel to another continent to play a tournament, they need support for activities like booking flights and hotels, giving interviews in different languages, updating daily schedules, and even for small things like ordering food and buying transportation tickets. When an international esports event takes place in China, three player services might present the greatest problems: visa applications, language support, and medical care. a) Visa application services A prerequisite for producing a LAN esports event is to get all the participants into the host city legally. Visa problems typically plague Chinese esports teams when they travel abroad. The European Union has a no-border policy for EU citizens, which means that EU teams can easily enter a host city within the EU. However, when a Chinese esports player applies for a visa to enter an EU country, the whole process could take up to three weeks. In 2016, a Chinese League of Legends team, Edward Gaming, dropped out of the 2016 IEM KATOWICE because of a visa issue. Whenever a tournament organizer is planning an international event in China, the organizer must learn the latest policies and rules governing foreigners’ entry into the country, because the policy may change from year to year. Sadly, politics can influence esports events in an unexpected way. Back in 2016, it was pretty easy for a North American esports team to get a Chinese visa — it would take as little as two working days. Unfortunately, political tensions between China and the USA since 2019 might present a challenge to American esports players traveling to China for an event, or vice versa. According to industry sources, Team Liquid had to quit the 2019 IEM Beijing because of a visa issue. The Bayes esports data report 2020 I Tournament Organization in China29 b) Language services c) Medical services Chinese might be one of the most difficult languages in the world. If there is an international esports event in China, then the tournament organizer should offer language services to players inside and outside the studio. In the studio, players may need help with translation of the match rules and interpretation for interviews, At most LAN esports events in the past, tournament organizers would have an ambulance on-site to react to urgent medical requests. However, the COVID-19 pandemic pushes on-site medical services to another level. To prevent the disease from spreading, most crowd events in 2020 were cancelled, including most esports LAN events. Though ESL tried its best to keep the 2020 IEM KATOWICE alive by assigning a medical patrol at the venue, offering sanitizers at each entrance, and cleaning the stage before each match, this global esports festival had to be conducted without any on-site audience, following the guidance of the local health department. In China, all crowd events in 2020 are managed by the local Municipal Health Commission — the events must either follow the guidance of the local Municipal Health Commission or risk being cancelled. The 2020 LOL Worlds Grand Final in Shanghai allowed 6,312 people to watch the match. However, all on- site spectators had to follow the rules set up by the local Municipal Health Commission — having their temperatures taken, showing health codes which are mostly done by referees who are fluent in English. Outside the studio, players also need help with daily chores like ordering food, paying for transportation tickets, getting their laundry done, and so on. To take care of players’ needs outside the studio, tournament organizers might assign a team butler to each team. at the gate, wearing masks inside the venue, keeping a strict distance between seats, and so on. The global esports industry survived the COVID-19 lockdown by conducting all events online. However, to prepare for LAN events when everything goes back to normal, all tournament organizers should learn a lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic: It is time to upgrade the disease control measures for LAN events. Though regulators may have already implemented rules to regulate disease control at events like music concerts and football matches, esports events are still unique in some ways, which means that regulators might have to revise some of the above-mentioned rules to fit esports matches. For example, after esports players have used microphones and computer screens for hours, those devices should be cleaned carefully between matches, because millions of respiratory droplets have landed on those devices. Hopefully, tournament organizers all around the world will work with local health departments to draft standardized rules and regulations to manage disease-control measures at LAN esports events. The Bayes esports data report 2020 I Tournament Organization in ChinaNext >