21st Century Business Herald reporter Cai Shuyue reported from Shanghai
2023 is recognized as the "big year of esports" in the eyes of esports practitioners. On the one hand, the resumption of offline events has boosted the recovery of the industry. On the other hand, after e-sports became an official competition event of the Hangzhou Asian Games, the level of sports and professionalism of the mainland e-sports industry has also been steadily improved.
On December 20, the 2023 China E-sports Industry Annual Conference was successfully held in Nanshan District, Shenzhen. At the meeting, Tang Jiajun, Deputy Secretary-General of the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association, Secretary-General of the Game Working Committee, and Chairman of the E-sports Working Committee, officially released the "2023 China E-sports Industry Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), which comprehensively elaborated on the overall situation of the mainland e-sports industry in 2023 from seven perspectives: actual industry income, user scale, type of gameplay, number of events, event distribution, club distribution, and e-sports going overseas.
"This year's Asian Games successfully held in Hangzhou took e-sports as an official event for the first time, and the Chinese e-sports national training team performed well in the Asian Games, showing the style of Chinese e-sports, creating a good ecological atmosphere and development opportunities. On this basis, the mainland e-sports industry is further pursuing high-quality development, showing a trend of standardization, mainstreaming, and internationalization. Tang Jiajun said.
There is still room for growth in the number of esports users
In 2023, the overall revenue of the mainland esports industry will decline slightly. According to the data of the report, the revenue of China's e-sports industry was 26.350 billion yuan, a decrease of 1.31% compared with 2022, which was the second consecutive year of decline, but the decline narrowed. In terms of revenue composition, live streaming of e-sports content accounted for the highest proportion of 80.87%, while events, clubs, and other revenues accounted for 8.59%, 6.42%, and 4.12%, respectively.
The decline in revenue was mainly due to the decline in live streaming revenue of e-sports content, which accounted for the largest proportion. At the same time, with the increase in offline events and the increase in the popularity of attention, the revenue of e-sports events and club income has increased year-on-year this year.
(Caption: E-sports industry revenue in 2023 Source: "2023 China E-sports Industry Report")
In terms of user scale, there will be about 488 million e-sports users in mainland China in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 0.1%, and the growth rate is not significant. It is worth noting that in the three years from 2021 to 2023, the scale of e-sports users has changed by no more than 1%, compared with the nearly 10% increase in the scale of e-sports users in 2020, the growth of e-sports users in the past three years has slowed down significantly.
However, the injection of fresh blood into the esports industry may help to achieve the next round of growth. Tang Jiajun pointed out in the analysis at the conference that with the emergence of some new products and new categories of e-sports games this year, and the successful holding of the e-sports event of the Hangzhou Asian Games has attracted more public attention, it is expected that the scale of e-sports users may have some room for growth.
The report also mentions the corresponding proportion of the current e-sports gameplay types in mainland China. Among them, shooting games have the largest number of games, accounting for about 28.0%, followed by multiplayer online tactical competition games, accounting for 15.9%, and sports games accounting for 12.2%, ranking the third largest type of gameplay. In addition, role-playing, card-playing, racing, and fighting are also relatively popular types of e-sports gameplay.
On the other hand, mobile games accounted for 58.5% of the total, client games accounted for 29.3%, esports games with both mobile and client versions accounted for 8.5%, and web games accounted for 3.7%. In addition, the top 20 e-sports game products in mobile terminal turnover and the top 20 e-sports game products in client popularity in 2023 are concentrated in multiplayer online tactical competition (MOBA), shooting, sports competition and card categories.
Shanghai, Beijing, and Hangzhou are the top three in terms of the number of offline events
Due to the strong spectator nature of e-sports events, the holding of offline events is a vital part of the entire industry chain, and also plays a role as a bridge between the e-sports industry and the public.
In terms of event data, the report shows that in 2023, the number of non-performance Chinese e-sports events held by professional players at or above the provincial level will increase year-on-year, with a total of 127 events held. Among them, 46% of the events were held offline, 32% of the events were held in the form of a combination of online and offline, and another 22% of the events were held online.
From the perspective of specific regional distribution, the host cities of this year's offline e-sports competitions are concentrated in the first- and second-tier cities in the mainland. Shanghai, Beijing, and Hangzhou are the top three cities in terms of the number of offline events held this year. Shanghai accounted for 25.5%, Beijing and Hangzhou accounted for 7.6% and 6.8% respectively.
(Caption: Distribution of cities hosting China's offline e-sports competitions in 2023 Source: "2023 China E-sports Industry Report")
As of December 2023, there are currently 188 e-sports clubs available in China, and cities with more than 10 e-sports clubs include Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou. Among them, Shanghai has the largest number of e-sports clubs, reaching 52, while Hangzhou has seen a significant increase in the number of e-sports clubs.
Among the 188 e-sports clubs, 64.6% participated in only a single event, 12.1% participated in two events, 9.1% participated in three events, and 14.2% participated in more than three events.
In terms of e-sports going overseas, the report shows that the mainland e-sports industry will continue to expand overseas markets in 2023, and the influence of events held in Southeast Asia and other regions is expanding year by year, and some events have become one of the most popular local e-sports events in Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries, and the peak number of spectators in a single game of the head event even exceeded 5.06 million.
其中，影响力较大的出海电竞赛事包括腾讯“Arena of Valor International Championship 2023”、网易“KNIVES OUT PRO LEAGUE”、沐瞳“M5 World Championship”以及心动网络“2023《香肠派对》海外交流赛”等等。
Tang Jiajun believes that in 2023, with the support of the government, social attention, and the joint efforts of the industry, the mainland e-sports industry will show a positive development trend and good development prospects, and achieve "standardization, mainstream, and internationalization" development.
"We have reason to believe that with the healthy, orderly, high-quality and sustainable development of China's e-sports industry, it will play a more important role in the domestic and international arena and assume the mission and responsibility entrusted by the times. He said
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