"MMO also wants to do esports? World of Warcraft can't do it."
This is probably the most questioned voice in the outside world after "Sword Net 3" decided to do e-sports in 2016, and even the players of "Sword Net 3" did not have much confidence in it. So that when other circle-breaking events occurred, a lot of memes were derived.
However, not long ago, the Sword Net 3 Professional League (JPL) won the 8th Game Industry Golden Mouth Award "2021 Annual E-sports Industry Contribution Award". It is understood that this is also the first time that "Sword Net 3" e-sports has won an industry-level award.
The Golden Mouth Award is a selection ceremony held once a year by Game Daily, which lasts for 3 months and is finalized after heavy screening, which has a wide influence and recognition in the game industry. It is worth mentioning that the game daily with the service industry practitioners as the core has also made great achievements in the new media direction in recent years, and has won two consecutive Golden Plume Awards "Players' Favorite Comprehensive Media Award".
Therefore, this time the "Sword Net 3" e-sports award, quite "weight".
Six years of stumbling growth
Today, "Sword Net 3" has built a series of e-sports events with a unique style - the participation of the whole people, representing the highest level of competition masters + club-oriented JPL professional league + gang unit of the martial arts tournament, radiating outward star invitational tournaments, city tournaments, media tournaments and platform tournaments. The strength of the "folk team" can always make people shine.
Guo Weiwei, CEO of Xishanju and producer of the "Sword Net 3" series, once said that e-sports can assume the goal of players' offline social networking, based on this concept, "Sword Net 3" e-sports has been done for 6 years before it has developed the current scale.
However, Guo Weiwei also admitted that "the project did not plan to do e-sports at the beginning", so the e-sports road of "Sword Net 3" is not easy to walk, there is no object to refer to, and it is inevitable to stumble during the period. In the process, the intensity of the game school is unbalanced, the high threshold for watching the event is a permanent problem, the ecological environment is unstable, the club is difficult to maintain, and bugs and other accidents occur during the event.
In order to solve these problems, the "Sword Net 3" event team spent a lot of time on infrastructure construction, including technical changes in products, balance in format, statistics on viewing tools such as data, training of commentary and support for clubs.
"The format is becoming more and more mature and perfect, and it is developing towards more professional top events, such as opening a double-channel competition between professional players and private players, including the rule that one side cannot choose the other side first, which I think is a great improvement and rationality show", Yun Dye Ye, who has been playing on the player's seat for 5 years, commented on the "Sword Net 3" e-sports.
In addition to the above changes, according to the old chicken leg, the participation in the Golden Mouth Award "Sword Net 3" e-sports also came up with a set of data, during the fifth "Sword Net 3" Competitive Masters Tournament, the peak of live broadcast reached 185 million, the total number of viewers during the event was 85.31 million, the number of Weibo topics read was 520 million, and the number of interactions during the event was 60 million. In the end, it was also well deserved to receive this award.
"Sword Net 3" e-sports in the eyes of "Sword Three E-sports People"
Before writing this article, The old chicken leg had exchanges with 28 "Sword Three E-sports People", including 14 "Sword Net 3" professional players, 8 "Sword Net 3" helpers and 6 "Sword Net 3" professional league commentary. In fact, one of the young ladies I did the interview with was also a veteran of Sword Net 3, and her gang had also fought with the champion gang of this year's martial arts tournament, barely ranking 29th.
In the process of chatting with them, I saw the changes brought about by the e-sports of "Sword Net 3", which may not have affected the outside world, but "Sword Net 3" has indeed been changed by e-sports.
The first is that the game environment has changed
Su Yan, who played "Sword Net 3" for 12 years, worked as a professional player, and later embarked on the road of commentary (and also took the "Sword Net 3" professional league director to marry home as a wife) told the old chicken leg that the arena is getting more and more difficult to fight." He feels that since there are professional e-sports competitions, the level of competition of ordinary players has improved significantly, and the era of crushing games that were once "head players" has ceased to exist.
This is not only Su Yan's own opinion, several professional players have talked to the old chicken leg about their kneeling in the arena for ten consecutive years. For Sword Net 3 players, the pro players are not far away, probably opposite themselves, and they are also hanging by their thigh teammates.
The second is that people really like esports
The improvement of spectator data, the discussion posts posted during the event, and the number of active players under the Weibo of the "Sword Net 3" event can all reflect this from the side. Players who have the ability can take the esports stage of Sword Net 3, because most professional players enter the club from the private team. Later, these professional players also showed their love for the "Sword Net 3" e-sports.
Jiang Lang, who failed to enter the e-sports stage of "Sword Net 3" as a player, chose to transform into a commentator because he felt that he could get closer to his e-sports dream; the veteran who is known as an all-round master, Mo Mu, once considered whether to become a coach, but felt that he could not play a game and did not want to do it, and also became a professional commentator.
After being the captain for many years, xia Xiaohua, who is already 29 years old, has been saying "very tired" when chatting with the old chicken leg, but he has never mentioned that he wants to quit, he probably wants to take the two brothers in the group to win the championship a few more times. Lan Xichen, who was absent from the interview, went to work on the subway, he was training during the break, and then the game took leave to play, "playing as long as he can" is his passion.
When interviewing the Nanyu Gang, the champion of the Wulin Championship, the management Hanming said that the reason why they always go to the offline e-sports hotel to compete together is not for what is the so-called "professionalism", in addition to being able to "peek at the screen", there is a very important reason, several conductors themselves are old friends, and this event has also become an opportunity for them to get together every year.
It can be seen that the "Sword Net 3" e-sports has achieved its initial goal, offline social networking. What developments will be expected in the future.