Beijing, September 18 (Liu Xingchen) When the world’s attention is focused on the West Lake, on September 23, the Hangzhou Asian Games will arrive as scheduled. As night falls, the lights of the Hangzhou E-Sports Center in China come on. Decorated with colorful light strips on the roof, the technologically-rich building looks like a giant interstellar vortex. E-sports fans have been waiting for a long time to gather together in this venue known as the "Star Battleship".
The picture shows the Hangzhou Asian Games e-sports venue lights up at night, with colorful light strips on the roof like star trails. (Drone photo) Photo by China News Service reporter Wang Gang
As an emerging sport that is deeply loved by young people, e-sports will appear on the Asian Games stage as an official competition for the first time. According to the "China E-sports Industry Report from January to June 2023" released by the China Audiovisual and Digital Publishing Association, from January to June this year, the overall revenue of China's e-sports industry was 75.993 billion yuan, a month-on-month increase of 11.74%. The number of e-sports users in China is approximately 487 million.
With the support of such a large user group, the "fire of e-sports" will be ignited in Hangzhou in the golden autumn.
Jakarta Asian Games Exhibition Match
Talking about the fate of e-sports and the Asian Games, it goes back to five years ago.
On May 14, 2018, the Asian Olympic Council officially announced that e-sports will be included in the performance events of the 18th Asian Games. The selected projects are "Arena of Valor", "Royal Clash", "League of Legends" and "League of Legends". Pro Evolution Soccer 2018, Hearthstone and StarCraft 2.
Inside the Hangzhou E-Sports Center in China. Photo by Zhang Yuhuan
At the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games, 13 Chinese athletes competed in three performance categories: "Arena of Valor", "Royal Clash" and "League of Legends", and ended up with 2 gold medals and 1 silver. .
At that time, e-sports appeared on the Asian Games stage as an exhibition event and attracted a lot of attention. Many players said that e-sports is not the same as playing games. Players who strive for it need both talent and hard training.
7 e-sports projects unveiled in Hangzhou
At the end of 2020, the 39th General Congress of the Asian Olympic Council officially announced that e-sports was approved to be included in the Hangzhou Asian Games competitions.
In November 2021, the e-sports minor events of the Hangzhou Asian Games were announced, including League of Legends, Honor of Kings (Asian Games Edition), Peace Elite (Asian Games Edition), Hearthstone, Dota 2, Dream Three Kingdoms 2, Street Fighter 5 and FIFA Online 4 Waiting for 8 projects to be selected.
On March 16 this year, the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee issued a statement stating that after deliberation at the fifth Coordination Committee meeting of the Asian Olympic Council, it was decided to cancel the "Hearthstone" project. The Hangzhou Asian Games e-sports will have 7 competitions. project.
Since then, 31 athletes have stood out from the Chinese e-sports national training team and competed in the Hangzhou Asian Games. Talking about goals, several coaches from different events said that they should turn pressure into motivation and go all out to win glory for the country.
As the favorite to win the Honor of Kings (Asian Games version) event, the Chinese team's head coach Li Tuo said frankly that the team's goal is to win the gold medal and show the best of themselves. "In order to allow the players to adapt better, we will deliberately increase the pressure in normal training."
According to the schedule released on the Hangzhou Asian Games website, e-sports will have its first competition day on September 24.
"Did you win the lottery?"
Recently, e-sports ticket sales for the Hangzhou Asian Games started. It is reported that the project is sold to the public in the form of lottery registration and payment if the lottery is successful. In other words, whether you can successfully grab tickets has no absolute relationship with the order of registration. Some netizens joked: Grabbing e-sports tickets for the Asian Games requires luck like a "lottery" for a passenger car.
According to the event ticket purchase page of the Hangzhou Asian Games website, the lowest ticket price for a single game of e-sports is higher than that of most other events, and e-sports is also the only event in this Asian Games where spectators can only purchase tickets after winning a lottery.
Image source: Screenshot of the ticketing page of the Hangzhou Asian Games website
It can be seen from the ticket purchase that e-sports is extremely popular at the Hangzhou Asian Games. Fok Qigang, chairman of the Asian Electronic Sports Federation, previously said, "Asian e-sports has become a booming industry, unlocking huge potential and connecting people from different backgrounds, cultures and countries."
As e-sports enters "Hangzhou time", this "official" debut at the Asian Games is expected to further promote the positive development of e-sports. "The preparations for the Hangzhou Asian Games hope to present a wonderful e-sports feast to the general audience, e-sports enthusiasts, and even sports enthusiasts." During the previous test activities of the Hangzhou Asian Games e-sports competition, the Competition Department of the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee Lu Xin, the liaison person of the e-sports project, promised this.
(Reprinted from China-Singapore Sports)