Thoughtfulness | With 500 million followers, the sport remains "non-mainstream"

As soon as the list of e-sports events for the Asian Games was announced, a number of relevant information rushed to the hot search. If you carefully read the comments of netizens, you will find an interesting phenomenon: the e-sports circle is hot, but outside the e-sports circle, there is a confused look. Today, despite industry reports that China's esports population is approaching 500 million, awareness of esports is still at an initial level on a broader level. What is holding back the national awareness of esports? Can the Asian Games provide beautiful assists for this thriving sport?

Written by 丨 Horsen

Editor丨 Feng Xiao

Perhaps in the history of Chinese sports, no national team will be as clear as the Chinese e-sports team——

Those who understand really understand, and those who do not understand really do not understand.

At the moment when the list of e-sports national teams in this Asian Games was announced, fans in the e-sports circle instantly turned on the screen mode, and quickly put the topic on the hot search: some people showed the jubilation of "dust settled", some people were dissatisfied that their favorite players did not appear on the list, and some people have begun to study the opponents of the Asian Games...

In stark contrast to the noise of the fans in the circle and the sound of firecrackers, it is the confusion of outsiders "what happened".

This seems to show that compared with traditional sports competitions, e-sports still lack widespread social recognition and recognition.

Esports still has a long way to go to truly complete the "out of the loop".

1 The threshold is so high that it blocks outsiders

Today, the esports industry is getting bigger and bigger, and watching esports tournaments or even working in esports is no longer as difficult to understand as it was a decade ago. However, even viewers who occasionally pay attention to e-sports competitions will be stunned and a big question mark will pop up in their minds when they look at the names of Zhuo Ding, Bai Jiahao, Lu Yao and Luo Siyuan on this list.

These people... Who is it?

If you replace these names with IDs from their respective games, such as "Knight", "369", "Maybe" and "Sea of Flowers", perhaps more people will be able to match memory with reality.

As shown in the lower left corner of the figure, the athlete's name is divided into ID and real name.

It turns out that e-sports players generally use "game ID" similar to "stage name" to replace their real names when they participate, which is by default as a convention in e-sports competitions, but when it comes to serious comprehensive international events such as the Asian Games, they must naturally use their real names.

And this is only the most insignificant aspect of the place where "esports" and "mainstream events" need to be run-in.

Another example is the "e-sports commentary special words" storm that occurred a few days ago.

In the qualifier of the Asian Games e-sports event "Asian Games Journey", netizens were surprised to find that the e-sports commentary actually put away many commonly used e-sports terms on weekdays and replaced them with more formal and harmless words.

For example, "kill" is changed to "defeat" or "defeat", "head" is changed to "points", "killed" is changed to "fall" or "exit", etc... I will not give examples here.

There are many fans in the esports industry who are difficult to understand or unacceptable to such behavior, and some even think that it is a deliberate embarrassment of the event organizer by a higher power.

But in fact, viewers who are accustomed to watching esports should know that almost all of the hottest esports sports currently exist to some degree of virtual violence.

Whether it's "League of Legends", "Honor of Kings" or "Dota 2", players are required to manipulate their game characters in the game to virtually kill enemy game characters.

Any game fan must acknowledge and face this - even after blurring the graphics and sound and light effects, the underlying violence cannot be removed.

It is precisely for this reason that successive IOC presidents have refused to take a tough attitude towards esports entering the Olympic Games, because the Olympic Games have always advocated peace, unity and friendship.

Today, the Hangzhou Asian Games is the first to try to introduce esports, and although the violent element in the game screen cannot be eliminated, it can at least try to reduce the negative impact of this violent factor in other ways.

That's why there's this kind of commentary that makes esports fans feel a little awkward.

For esports to become mainstream, fans must learn to understand and accept this, and show the positive side of esports to the whole society with a more inclusive mind and a more proactive attitude.

2 Brand Identity Need the help of the Asian Games

Of course, there are also many people who believe that the scale of the e-sports industry is now large enough, and it has enough confidence that it does not need to move closer to the mainstream sports circle, but the Asian Games that are gradually declining day by day, and it is necessary to increase the attraction of young people by absorbing e-sports projects.

This statement is not without reason.

According to the 2022 China E-sports Industry Report, a total of 108 e-sports events were held in China throughout the year, with nearly 500 million e-sports people (and most of them young people under the age of 30), and the total revenue of the e-sports industry was about 140 billion yuan.

With such a scale in an industry, of course, it can not care about the eyes of others, just as professional tennis majors do not have to care about the Olympics.

However, the cooperation between e-sports and the Asian Games is not only out of the needs of their own development, but more importantly, to obtain the recognition of traditional comprehensive events such as the Asian Games and even the Olympic Games, which is conducive to e-sports projects to establish their own brands, establish their own images, promote their own culture, and finally come out of niche circles and truly stand on the mainstream.

The legendary player of the League of Legends project Jane (Game ID: UZI) has won many national and international championships, but after he was hired as the ambassador of his hometown Yichang Cultural and Tourism Bureau, the highlight of the text was "won the gold medal in the League of Legends event at the Jakarta Asian Games".

Zhao Jiahao (Game ID: ELK), also a new player in the League of Legends project, was selected for the training list of players for this year's Asian Games, and his mother told him that whether he can eventually become a national team player is enough to glorify his ancestors.

All this is enough to show that moving closer to the mainstream sports circle and joining international sports events can obviously bring great public recognition to e-sports projects.

Even if you don't talk about these ethereal questions of faith, only talk about interests.

At that time, as the most commercially valuable player in the domestic League of Legends project, most of the sponsors it could attract were only manufacturers in the upstream and downstream industry chains in the game circle.

However, after he won the Asian Games championship, he immediately won a Nike endorsement contract.

That's the benefit of moving closer to the mainstream.

03 Esports still has a long way to go

At the Hangzhou Asian Games, e-sports participated in this level of international sports for the first time, which cannot but be said to be a milestone event in the history of e-sports development.

Does this mean that from now on, esports will be able to hitchhike and travel unimpeded on the road "out of the loop"?

Of course not.

The Asian Games just gave esports a broader platform to show out.

Excellent results may be able to attract more "outside" audiences, but to retain audiences and capital, what is needed is a healthy and perfect event system, as well as a professional and standardized market.

Therefore, what e-sports projects need to do is to firmly grasp this "eye-catching" opportunity, and after that, continue to show their most positive side.

The domestic League of Legends professional league has already begun to be deployed here, and the "LPL Theme National Style Day" that has been being created in the past two years is obviously interested in introducing traditional culture into e-sports for promotion.

In addition to the tournament system, what is more important is the image shaping of e-sports players.

In any traditional competition, the commercial value and social orientation value of star players are immeasurable.

In the past, e-sports was a marginal industry, and its practitioners would have more or less certain historical problems, such as the personal quality and life style of some e-sports players, which have repeatedly caused fans in the circle to question.

More serious is the "LPL player fake match incident" two years ago, although the official response was quick and neat, but the damage to the credibility of the event has already been caused.

To solve this, it is necessary to spend more time and effort outside the arena, strengthen the vocational training of players, improve their quality and professional ethics, and show a positive image by participating in public welfare activities, interacting with fans, sharing personal growth experiences, etc., so that more people can recognize the efforts and dedication of e-sports players.

These efforts may enable e-sports to gradually break through the small circle and move towards wider recognition and acceptance. However, to truly put esports on a shoulder to shoulder with mainstream sports, it ultimately depends on the joint efforts of the esports industry, players, event organizers, sponsors, media and relevant government departments to form a joint force to promote the development and awareness of esports.