LPL's 10th anniversary, will it die due to "winter"?

Image source: @VisualChina

Text|Hedgehog Commune, author|Ouyang, editor|Shi Can

The 2023 League of Legends Pro League (hereinafter referred to as LPL) Spring Tournament has entered the final two weeks, and the selection of the top ten players for the 10th anniversary of the LPL has gradually begun from March 10. On Weibo, one of the popular voting channels, a name that may be unfamiliar to many people came in first with a very high number of fault votes: Sika SICCA.

By March 15, Sika had accumulated more than four million votes on the Weibo channel, and the water friends in the live broadcast room sent out a flower wall to "support" Sika, and Lezi people even brushed the topic #Who is Sika# on Weibo, which gained tens of millions of views.

Screenshot of Weibo related words

For a long time before, many players may only know that Sika is a streamer of Deyunse, and there have been many live broadcast scenes; But a long time ago, he was also an ancient professional player, playing for PE and OMG teams, and won the first summer championship of the LPL.

Of course, this is just the effect of netizens engaging in the program, which accounts for a relatively small proportion in the actual selection, and basically will not have any impact on the final result.

But in a way, the pro from a decade ago inevitably reminds people of the first two years of the LPL, of familiar people, of games that now seem very rough.

It's a reminder that LPL, the professional league that has played an absolutely important role in the history of esports in China, has gone through its decade.

Over the past decade, it has been embedded in youth pop culture as a competitive event. It's a story of influence, commercialization, and esports culture, and the story of many people who are in it.

Inside and outside the arena, people's stories

Back on March 16, 2013, in the LOFT Industrial Design Park in Taicang City, Jiangsu Province, the League of Legends Pro League officially began its first day of competition. At that time, the logo of LPL was still the sword representing Demacia and the axe representing Noxus, and there were wAwa and Joker in the commentary table, and most of the players at that time had left people's sight early.

Many practitioners today refer to Taicang when they recall the beginning of their careers, which was the beginning of their story and a land of opportunity. Before LPL walked out of Taicang, landed in Shanghai and went to the world, countless people who loved League of Legends and e-sports came and went here, and that difficult and creative story was talked about by later generations countless times.

Also in 2013, Wanying, who was still in college, went to watch her first League of Legends Pro League game. She remembers that the competition venue was still in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, and there were only eight league teams, and only a few of them have survived to the present, becoming what everyone calls "traditional giants".

"At that point, I already felt that LPL events were very professional compared to other games. Although it seems that there is still a lot of room for improvement, it was shocking enough for me at the time. Wanying recalled.

Impressive audiences may remember that the early LPL event venue was not small, and there were many audiences that could be accommodated, but the lighting was a little dim, the commentary table was behind the audience, and when the picture was given to the commentary seat, there would always be several spectators with the back of their heads below.

Video material of the first season of LPL, image source iQiyi

Chinese mainland League of Legends Pro League was founded later than South Korea, Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, but for gamers and esports enthusiasts at the time, it was exciting to create an official professional league of this scale.

With the popularity and development of the Internet, League of Legends has swept Internet cafes across the country through low difficulty and mature gameplay, and in terms of essential gameplay, it is the most suitable game for that era. The rapid growth of players provided a large number of new viewers for the professional leagues, which quickly rose in popularity and further ignited discussions with several World Tournament trips.

It's just that since the establishment of the LPL, the domestic League of Legends e-sports has entered a long "anti-Korean era", and the folding of several world competitions has made those years the "dark century of the LPL", but the enthusiasm of the audience has not been eroded, but accumulated. In this context, not only many classic commentaries were born, but also allowed practitioners and audiences to have a common goal, and the playing style and discourse methods are being explored simultaneously.

Discourses such as "Korea's domination" and "over that mountain" have shaped the style of the competition area, and the overall atmosphere has been perfected with repeated exchanges at home and abroad, which to a certain extent also meets the trend and demand of Chinese and foreign Internet foreign exchanges.

The League of Legends game itself and its esports professional league are a dynamic mutual promotion. In the early days of the game, competitive events absorbed a large number of players' attention dividends; In the later stage, the incremental era came to an end, and events became an important tool for the game to periodically pry public attention and attract people to return.

Wanying has maintained a long-standing passion for esports and regards it as her career plan. By the time she graduated, she didn't end up looking for the job her parents had found her, but instead found an esports club on countless job boards and sent her resume. After successfully passing the interview, she also began her own path as an e-sports practitioner.

Every year, statistics say that there are still millions of e-sports practitioners in the country, most of which are functional positions in club and event operations, production and broadcasting. There are multiple reasons for this persistent shortage, such as limited salaries and imperfect industry structure, but the most prominent problem is still the public's inherently negative perception of esports. Too many people are "generating electricity for love", which is also a topic that has been discussed many times.

In the past few years, from IG to FPX and EDG, several teams have successively won championships on the world stage, and regardless of how much commercial benefits these victories have bred, people's understanding of e-sports has been really enriched and gradually positive.

Today, 10 years later, Wanying, who used to sit in the audience and look up at the game on the screen, has become the head of media work for the WE Esports Club, and she continues the journey of the league with her favorite team, looking forward to the day when the club's dream will come true.

"Now I'm in charge of the club's media work, coordinating media relations, doing some day-to-day operations, and although this work has been done for a long time, every game starts it brings me back to the mood I was when I first watched the LPL, and every game is full of passion." Wanying said.

In many exchanges with practitioners, we have heard similar stories: after watching a certain game, or following a certain player or team for a long time, we finally chose to join the industry.

In this industry that belongs to young people, the emotional value that esports can meet is unique enough, and League of Legends esports has just grasped the opportunities given by the times in the past few years, and has resisted several shocks from other categories, gradually expanding its influence and becoming a way of life.

Commercialization and Chineseization

As an industry, e-sports has been positively evaluated and recognized in its development, and practitioners have become more and more positive, due to the expansion of its influence and the improvement of young people's voice and spending power; As an industry, whether you have a positive attitude towards some adjustments in the development of LPL, it is an obvious fact that LPL has made unprecedented breakthroughs in the commercialization and popularization of e-sports, which has important reference significance for many e-sports leagues at home and abroad.

Another of our interviewees, Eddie, now co-founder of The Esports Advocate (TEA), was introduced to esports before League of Legends landed Chinese mainland. From IEM and CEG in 2007 to the later G League, as well as Major and ESL One when he studied in the UK, he has seen countless offline events.

His first participation in League of Legends esports was in the group stage of the 2019 World Championship in Berlin. Eddie was working for The Esports Observer, a Berlin-based international media outlet covering esports events in China, and his good friend and colleague invited him to Berlin to watch the World Championships, just in time to do some interviews.

During his week in Berlin, he interviewed LPL host Yu Shuang and LCK T1 CEO Joe Marsh, connected domestic media with overseas resources such as local e-sports clubs in Berlin, visited and exchanged views at hotels where players trained, and participated in a small party held after the new G2 sponsor, and the overall experience was very good. In 2020, although the audience was not open due to the epidemic, Eddie was also one of the very few media who participated in the S10 offline viewing and went to Shanghai to watch the game live.

Eddie recalls that when he participated in WCG in 2009 as a fan, it was crowded and rushed in to watch the game, and the players who finished the game would be surrounded by fans as soon as they got off the stage, asking for autographs and group photos. Esports is more regulated now, and there is a certain distance between players and fans, of course, out of practical needs, but sometimes he also recalls the feeling of "huddled together" at the beginning, which is also good.

E-sports need to be standardized, which is the demand of the event ecology and the inevitable industrialization of industrial development. This specification includes the whole process of event operation, content production and broadcasting, coordinated communication and information services for clubs and brands, and the construction and protection of the brand of the event itself at the communication level, which involves the shaping of star players and conceptual content.

For example, Uzi's star player image is not only a choice of talent, recognition by fans, but also established by riding the direction of LPL brand building. Even if he is no longer active in the professional arena, he can still cooperate with international brands such as Nike and BOSS Hugo Bosch, and there are no e-sports players in China whose influence can be compared.

Uzi promotes Weibo, source @UziQAQ

Although there are some controversies on star players, it is too much to say that the public has been suffering from "making stars" for a long time. Any competitive event sells stories while selling passionate confrontation, and sports that do not pursue narrative are boring in the world of commercial logic.

On the other hand, the conceptual content such as "National Style Day" and "Canteen Night" further proves the carrying capacity and richness of LPL, the former reflects a sense of responsibility, the latter is the implementation of the culture of the competition area, and the deepening of the content style, whether in creativity or content production, the performance is remarkable. Wearing Hanfu to watch e-sports matches and playing canteen terriers have become a group identity of LPL-style.

Game categories determine the player base, and different competitive projects will form different fan cultures.

Eddie mentioned to us that the peripheral and support phenomenon he observed in League of Legends competitive events was more prominent than other projects, which was a phenomenon of cultural integration.

Because of the unprecedented impact of gaming and esports, when players from different circles become fans of a competitive event, the way to express their love is naturally different.

"Winter" has arrived?

The development of any industry has ups and downs, and since the end of last year, there has been a global discussion about whether the "esports winter" has arrived. In places that went unnoticed, many teams and clubs were dissolved; On the social media accounts of esports executives, there will also be grim discussions about the form of commercial sponsorship this year.

Arnold Hur, CEO of the LCK Division GEN.G Team, said in response to questions from netizens in early 2023, "I've been saying that the winter of esports is coming, but I didn't expect it to be so cold. Now that I've changed my prediction, I think more than thirty percent of the world's esports teams won't survive in the next two years. ”

According to an article compiled by GameLook, the global esports industry has been laying off employees in recent months, and in order to make clubs active, it is reducing capital consumption by reducing costs. Australia's ORDER, US agency eUnited and Torrent have all made cuts.

The esports industry belongs to the cultural industry, which is highly dependent on the financial support provided by the primary and secondary industries. The world is facing a new round of economic crisis, the esports industry is in the downstream link, brands are tightening their belts to live, advertising budgets are decreasing, esports teams have suffered a big blow, and many cash flows have completely disappeared overnight. Viewers familiar with the squad's clothing will notice a slight change, and some clan members' clothes are missing the brand logo, an important reason is that the brand sponsor has withdrawn.

According to the "2022 China E-sports Industry Report" released by the Game Working Committee of the China Phonological Association: "In 2022, the revenue of the mainland e-sports industry will be 144.503 billion yuan, down 14.01% year-on-year, the first decline in five years; The actual sales revenue of the domestic game industry market decreased by 10.33% year-on-year. Due to the decline in domestic users' willingness to consume games, the recharge of game consumption of major consumer groups of online games has been regulated and restricted, the number of new game products launched in the superimposed market has decreased, the number of popular game products has been reduced, and the consumption driving capacity of existing game products has weakened, the market scale of the national game industry has declined for the first time in the past eight years, and the industrial development has officially entered the era of stock market. ”

LPL is deeply affected, coupled with the competition performance of various domestic e-sports projects in 2022 is not very good, public opinion pressure is greater, this year's LPL's commercial performance is naturally more interesting, whether it is sponsors or various league new regulations, have become evaluation criteria.

LPL's current development has entered a stable period, no longer as wild as in previous years, in Eddie's view is a very understandable thing: "Now LPL is more focused on the domestic market, and commercialization is not as hard as before, it is understandable, after all, the macro situation is like this now, which is greatly affected by the financial market." ”

Tang Jiajun, deputy secretary-general of the China Audio-Visual and Digital Publishing Association, secretary-general of the Game Working Committee and chairman of the E-sports Working Committee, said that e-sports live broadcasts, event activities, club operations and other income totaled 26.701 billion yuan, down 4.17% year-on-year. The main reasons are that due to the impact of the epidemic, the operation of venues has been blocked, offline events have been suspended, sponsor enthusiasm has weakened, and spectators have decreased.

Looking at the entire e-sports industry more macrographically, while maintaining the existing players, domestic e-sports may also be facing new possibilities and challenges.

On February 16, Hero Sports VSPO announced that it received a 1.8 billion yuan investment from Savvy Games Group, a subsidiary of Saudi sovereign wealth fund PIF, to further build and expand the e-sports market in the Middle East. On February 14, the 2023 Intrepid Champions Tour Pre-season Invitational officially kicked off in São Paulo, Brazil, and although the FPX and EDG performances of the two Chinese teams had highlights, they still needed to be worked hard; Since the second half of last year, e-sports hotels have attracted many new players, and Tencent and other big manufacturers have also taken turns, which will inevitably launch a series of specifications and explorations on e-sports hotels...

Opportunities and difficulties seem to be brewing in it.

"I think esports has always been a development direction," Eddie analyzed, "just like smartphones, China has popularized, now it is going to popularize Southeast Asia, and after Southeast Asia, there is Africa, and these places have the potential for esports development." For example, we have seen that Brazil and Saudi Arabia have a high level of interest in esports and are booming. I have always maintained a positive attitude towards this. ”

In the long run, the importance of esports to today's young people really deserves this trust.