On December 20, the 2023 China E-sports Industry Annual Conference was successfully held in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, hosted by the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association and the people of Nanshan District, Shenzhen, and organized by the E-sports Working Committee of the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association and the Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism and Sports Bureau of Nanshan District, Shenzhen.
2023 is a year of special significance for the esports industry. On the one hand, the e-sports industry will usher in the recovery of offline e-sports events in 2023, and a number of new head e-sports events will emerge, further improving the scale of the industryOn the other hand, after e-sports became an official competition of the Hangzhou Asian Games and achieved excellent results of 4 golds and 1 bronze, the development of "e-sports sports" has achieved remarkable results, and the recognition of e-sports at the social level is getting higher and higher.
In this context, e-sports in 2023 has a new direction to explore, and the value released is becoming more and more diversified, which is especially evident in the 2023 China E-sports Industry Annual Conference. Based on this, Gyro Esports also summarized the focus and new trends of the e-sports industry this year.
1.A new direction under the stock market
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, released the "2023 China E-sports Industry Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") at the event and interpreted the report in detail.
It is worth noting that in order to better present the development law of the e-sports industry, this "report" removes the revenue of e-sports game products, and outputs the development of China's e-sports industry in 2023 from seven aspects: actual industry income, user scale, type of gameplay, number of events, event distribution, club distribution, and e-sports going overseas.
According to the report, the actual revenue of China's e-sports industry in 2023 will be 263500 million yuan, down 1 percent year-on-year31%。In the revenue composition, live broadcast revenue accounted for the highest proportion, reaching 8087%。The proportions of event income, club income and other income are respectively. 12%。
This is the second consecutive year that the revenue of China's e-sports industry has declined, and the report pointed out that the main reason for the decline is the decrease in live broadcast revenue.
According to the financial reports released by Huya and Douyu platforms in the past few months, due to the weak macroeconomic environment, fierce competition in the industry, and the impact of the company's active business adjustment, the revenue of the live broadcast platform has dropped by nearly half compared with the peak in 2021.
In this context, live broadcast platforms have started self-help mode, including practicing the strategy of "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" from 2022, and achieving stop-loss profits through cost reduction methods such as "selective purchase of e-sports copyrights" and "reduction of content revenue and expenditure". At the same time, the live streaming industry is also exploring new business models, such as Huya, which announced that it was looking for new growth points after experiencing personnel changes, and formulated a "three-year plan" for this purpose, with the main goal of driving a shift in commercialization focus by providing more game-related services. In addition, it includes a series of actions such as "self-made content", "membership growth service", and "advertising revenue".
Despite the decline in overall revenue, with the recovery and increase of offline events, the event revenue and club revenue of the esports industry have increased significantly this year. Behind this, players across the country have a strong willingness to participate in the event, and e-sports, as a form of entertainment favored by young people, has become a major theme of entertainment and consumption.
In terms of user data, the report shows that the scale of e-sports users in China will be 4 in 20238.8 billion people, a year-on-year increase of 01%, the increase is not significant.
Since 2020, the growth of China's e-sports user scale has begun to slow down, which to some extent indicates that the dividend of user growth in the e-sports industry is gradually fading and is entering the stock market.
In addition, the "Report Release" announced the "Proportion of E-sports Gameplay Genres", of which the shooting category has become the hottest track this year, accounting for 28%.
This trend is in line with the development of the shooter market this year, such as Valorant, which has opened up the global tournament system, the new CS:GO 2, and a number of new games launched in China, including High Energy Heroes. Judging from the results, FPS and MOBA events are still the two hottest event types.
The report pointed out that with the emergence of some new products and new categories of e-sports games this year, as well as the successful holding of e-sports events in Hangzhou Asian Games, which has attracted more public attention, it is expected that the scale of e-sports users may have some room for growth.
2.Esports in the post-Asian Games era
At this year's China E-sports Industry Annual Conference, "e-sports into Asia" has become a high-frequency word, and the development of the e-sports industry has also been injected with new vitality after completing the transition from niche culture to the mainstream cultural stage.
Sun Shoushan, chairman of the China Audio-video and Digital Publishing Association, said at the meeting that the excellent results achieved by the Chinese e-sports training team in the Hangzhou Asian Games have made the best recognition and appreciation of the overall performance of the Chinese team and stimulated the sense of identity and pride of netizens. After participating in the International Multi-sport Games, e-sports culture has gradually become a popular, mainstream, and international form of cultural communication.
According to the data of Tencent's rights-holding broadcast related platforms, more than 3500 million people** Asian Games e-sports event. According to the "Asian Games E-sports E-sports Empowering City Development Evaluation Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Asian Games E-sports Report") released by Zhejiang University and Central China Normal University, the number of discussions related to the "Hangzhou Asian Games E-sports Project" reached about 4 million during the Asian Games, attracting reports such as CCTV, Xinhua News Agency, People's **, Banyuetan, and China**.
The most intuitive impact of this is the change in the public's perception of e-sports, and the appearance of e-sports and traditional sports on the same stage has made the positive image and influence of the public increasingly increasing, and the demand for watching games has also been further increased. According to the "Asian Games E-sports Report", 92% of the audience said that they will continue to pay attention to e-sports events in the future and support their cities to actively host the games.
In addition, the impact of "e-sports into Asia" is also reflected in the economic benefits, the "Asian Games E-sports Report" pointed out that the economic benefits of the Hangzhou Asian Games e-sports events are about 2600 million yuan, including tickets, licensed goods including direct economic value of 7877530,000 yuan, including catering, culture, wine and tourism and other tourism-related industries The indirect economic value also has 18.2 billion yuan. Because of e-sports, there are 580,000 people came to Hangzhou to consume.
In addition, the Asian Games e-sports events have also played a positive role in the dissemination of local culture. According to the "Asian Games E-sports Report", there are 8943% of the respondents believe that they have been exposed to Hangzhou culture represented by West Lake culture, Hangzhou paper-cutting, and Hangzhou embroidery through the Asian Games e-sports events.
In the process of landing in the city, it will serve not only gamers and spectators, but also city residents. Based on the strong cultural integration of e-sports, the event is put into local cultural and creative activities, which not only meets the needs of local players and fans, but also lowers the threshold for local residents to participate in the rich online experience content, helping the development of the city's cultural tourism industry.
On the one hand, China's e-sports industry will expand to the world with the endorsement of well-known international sports eventsOn the other hand, traditional Chinese culture will also be carried by e-sports to achieve effective dissemination of Chinese culture to the outside world.
Sun Shoushan said at the meeting: "E-sports is an important medium for international youth exchanges, and it is gradually becoming a "world language". When China's e-sports are increasingly moving towards the world stage, it is inevitable to strengthen the international communication capacity of e-sports and form an international discourse that matches the international status of China's e-sports. Therefore, enterprises should consciously practice their cultural mission, and continuously enhance the soft power of national culture and the influence of Chinese culture through the popularity and dissemination of e-sports culture at home and abroad, which is the need of the times, the mission and the expectations of the masses. ”
3.E-sports go overseas
In addition to the entry of e-sports into Asia, "going overseas" is another key word of the conference, and it is also a new direction for China's e-sports industry to aim at in the future.
According to the report, China's e-sports industry continues to expand overseas markets this year, 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 viewers in a single game of the head event even exceeds 5.06 million.
Among the representative events include Mutong Technology's "Mobile Legends: Bang Bang" (endless duel), which has eaten almost the entire Southeast Asian market and built a global framework, esports data platform Esports Charts shows that at the 5th MLBB World Finals that ended on December 17, the ratings data reached a new high, peak** The number of users exceeded 5.06 million, making it the most popular global mobile e-sports event in 2023.
NetEase has also achieved good results overseas. Its "Fifth Personality" has grown into a national game and a leading e-sports event in the Japanese market, and has built a complete event structure. Jiang Pu, general manager of international business operations of NetEase Games, said that after more than 20 years of industry accumulation, the globalization of NetEase e-sports has been accelerating with the process of games going overseas, and has completed strategic layout in Asia, North America and Europe.
In March this year, the international server "Honor of Kings" of "Honor of Kings" officially landed in the Brazilian mobile game market. Before the official launch of the server, the number of pre-registered players in Brazil had exceeded 2 million, and the game topped the local free list shortly after its launch, and won the top 12 best-selling players.
It is worth paying attention to the fact that the ability of Chinese enterprises to host e-sports events overseas has increased year by year. In February this year, the VSPO of Hero Sports, a well-known domestic e-sports company, received a cash investment of 1.8 billion yuan from S**vy Games Group, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth **PIF, which set a new record for cash investment in the history of the e-sports industry. In addition, in October of this year, Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman announced that he would co-host the Esports World Cup with Hero Sports VSPO in the summer of 2024.
It can be seen that China's e-sports industry has been in a leading position in the world at multiple levels such as e-sports game production, event hosting, and event hosting. In the future, under the scenario of first-class support, public recognition and rapid development of the industry, China's e-sports industry will usher in greater development space and market prospects in the world.