On the evening of February 5, the 2024 CFS Esports Program officially unveiled to the public, which indicates that a new milestone belonging to CrossFire will begin.
Looking back on the past 2023, which is defined as the beginning of a new decade of CrossFire e-sports, the entire domestic crossfire e-sports ecology moved to Chengdu, and with the recovery of offline scenes, the competitive story of CrossFire has been continuously sung; In the distance, the overseas competition area and the cross-regional competition system of CrossFire will usher in further upgrades, which can be described as extraordinary.
At this juncture, Sports E-sports interviewed Chen Jin, the head of CrossFire E-sports business, who proposed three key words to us: "vitality", "influence" and "internationalization", which not only summarize the past but also cover the future.
Chen Jin, head of CrossFire esports business.
Chengdu and the Journey to Regionalization
In the second half of 2022, Chengdu High-tech Zone reached a cooperation with the CrossFire Professional League, and the city, which has played an important role in the development of esports in China, has become the base of the CrossFire project since then.
In the whole of 2023, the CrossFire Pro League and the 2023 CFS World Finals will land in Chengdu, and the entire CrossFire project ecology will come to Chengdu along with the event. After all the CF series e-sports clubs settled in the Chengdu Gazelle Valley Digital Cultural and Creative Industry Base, the comprehensive localization strategy covering economy, culture and talents thrown out by CrossFire E-sports at the Tencent E-sports annual conference was fully implemented.
In the year-round e-sports marketing, CFER was impressed by the linkage between CrossFire and Dalongyi Hot Pot and Wenshu Fang, which was not only welcomed by local residents in Chengdu, but also took the opportunity of the event to let the audience and tourists gathered in Chengdu from all over the world experience the feeling of "double kitchen ecstasy", and also fulfilled the promise of regionalization from the economic and cultural perspective of the city and business district.
In addition, the 2023 CFPL ushered in the label of "Youth Storm", and more and more young players are emerging on the league stage, Chen Jin recognized that this is a gift from Chengdu as a source of excellent e-sports students, and at the same time provides competitive opportunities for young e-sports people, which is also one of the symbols of CrossFire practicing the regionalization of talents in Chengdu, a hot land for e-sports.
Sports Esports:Looking back on the whole of 2023, the most unskippable topic is that the entire CrossFire esports ecosystem moved to Chengdu at the beginning of the year, what was the original intention of making this decision?
Chen Jin:CrossFire Esports has entered a new decade, and we hope that in the future, CrossFire's various e-sports businesses can focus more on forming industrialization clusters.
In the past few years, we have been looking for a good partner, and the first and key reason for choosing Chengdu is the best support; In addition, CrossFire is also very related to Chengdu, we have held many events in Chengdu, and the results have been very good, which also makes us more determined to choose Chengdu, because I think e-sports itself is a fan economy, and the support of users is very important.
In addition to the support of ** and users, Chengdu is also a talent gathering place, it is one of the earliest cities in China to lay out the e-sports industry, Chengdu also has many universities, including many of our partners have branches in Chengdu, which can help the development of clubs and leagues, and is more conducive to us to take root in the city. Based on the above aspects, we feel that Chengdu is the best choice.
Sports Esports:You just mentioned that Chengdu is a gathering place for talents, and you also mentioned at the annual press conference of Tencent E-sports that you want to do the regionalization of economy + culture and talents in Chengdu, can you talk about the achievements in regionalization this year?
Chen Jin:After we landed in Chengdu this year, we have large-scale cooperation with Chengdu's local hot pot brand Dalongyi, as well as Wenshufang as the representative of cultural tourism projects, on the one hand, we can get more attention from users, and on the other hand, we also provide users with a choice other than e-sports, we hope that the cooperation with Chengdu is not only Chengdu to provide us with content. What can we bring to Chengdu? By building star clubs and holding large-scale domestic and international events, players who like CF can come to Chengdu and have a better experience in Chengdu.
In addition, I have to mention the current youth storm of the Crossfire project, there are more and more new players in the competition to show their bright side, thanks to the fact that there are a lot of new e-sports forces in Chengdu, and it is also a manifestation of the regionalization of talents to be able to gain under our youth training, and we also hope that these talents are not only limited to players, but also can cultivate more talents in the industry.
The desire to "walk in" and "go out".
At the same time as the relocation of the main ecological base in China, CrossFire E-sports has frequent overseas actions, and in 2023, there will not only be brand upgrades in overseas competition areas, but also the advent of new event IPs.
At the end of the year, the CrossFire CFS World Finals returned to China, kicking off the CF's most advanced year-end feast, a number of overseas e-sports players and strong teams gathered in Shanghai and Chengdu, among which the most eye-catching is the Brazilian player Goken, who shocked the domestic CF circle with his Tianxiu operation on the highest stage, and completed the official transfer after the trial training of the world champion BS, and staged the CrossFire version of "One Goal Fame".
In addition, as much as the fierce confrontation, there are also off-field stories of foreign CF professional players meeting Chinese culture, creating more cross-regional and cross-cultural background contact and exchanges, actively promoting overseas outstanding players to come to CFPL for training, and allowing domestic talents to go out to support the construction of overseas competition areas in the future, which are all things that CF Esports will focus on in 2023 and the future.
Sports Esports:Looking back on 2023, how would you rate CrossFire's tweaks and effects at the World Event?
Chen Jin:For us, a core part of esports is international competitions, and 2023 I feel like it's time to take a bigger boost. CF has a very stable user base in Brazil and Vietnam, and a large number of talented players have emerged, so we hope to be able to bring more exciting professional events to players in more regions around the world like CFPL.
Last year, the first step of the entire international competition was to establish Vietnam, Brazil, the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the United States to provide them with a sustainable participation league; The second step is to strengthen the exchange between the regions, and we have launched events such as the CFS Asia Series (APAC).
The former is to allow each division to have a longer league to precipitate, so that the club can continue to improve; The latter is to provide more communication opportunities for users and various regions in each quarter and half a year.
In the end, we hope that through these investments, we can bring more exciting world championships to players at the end of the year, and finally we also saw that in this year's world championships, although the Chinese club finally won the CFS trophy, we also found that clubs and star players like Vietnam and Brazil also brought players very exciting game footage, which also proves that our efforts in this year have not been in vain, we have been seeking changes, and we hope to provide more exciting and more exciting games for global users.
Sports Esports:Goken's move to BS was the flashpoint of the offseason, how did the league react to it?
Chen Jin:There are a lot of CF players around the world, and there are also very strong players, we hope to provide them with a bigger stage, to be able to really let these players participate in the world's top CrossFire professional league, and at the same time let their talent and hard work be equal to the benefits, we also believe that with the addition of star players like Goken, more players can see opportunities, It can drive more young players in the region to be more willing to participate in CrossFire events, and are more willing to bring their talents to the world through CFPL, so that CFER all over the world can pay attention.
Sports Esports:Will more foreign players come to CFPL in the future? Including domestic players going to overseas competition areas?
Chen Jin:I think there's definitely a chance. We hope that similar to the Brazilian football players who went to Europe back then, he will bring up a part of the samba culture, so that more people will know how good the Brazilian football players on the planet are, they can participate in the top professional leagues in the world, and then provide wonderful games for people who love football all over the world, which is what we hope to be able to do in the CFPL.
At the same time, we also feel that a good e-sports event is not only about excellent players, but also about the excellent event itself, so maybe in the future, there will be an opportunity for our players, coaches, and clubs to go out and bring a lot of high-quality content from CFPL, a league that has been precipitated for ten years, to Vietnam, to Brazil, to the Middle East, which is a longer-term vision.
In 2024, the world race aspires to continue to sink
On February 5, the 2024 CrossFire event plan was released, and the competition system in the overseas competition area continued to be upgraded, not only refining the division of labor in the World Finals qualification process, but also increasing the frequency of communication in the competition area.
Sports Esports:CrossFire's esports plans for the new year have been announced, and the prize money for the global tournament has been boosted, what is the purpose of this?
Chen Jin:This is not for the sake of promotion, after the precipitation of the previous ten years to 2023, CrossFire Esports has proved its value, and whether the events that fans are willing to go to are exciting enough to drive more participation of users, which can be exchanged for more investment.
We also hope that the prize money can stimulate more competition regions, more actively prepare for the World Championship, and drive other competition regions to participate together, and the increase in the prize money is actually more to express our determination to continue to promote the process of globalization.
Sports Esports:After an upgrade in 2023, what are the official expectations for the new esports plan for 2024?
Chen Jin:All the adjustments we have made are in the hope that not only Chinese players, but also players around the world can see more CF exciting games, and can drive more exchanges between various regions.
We hope that in the future, more players around the world will pay attention to CFPL, and our Chinese players can also pay attention to more exciting content in other regions, so in 2024, we will open more events for overseas regions, including challenges and tryouts.
A new five-year seat system may be coming?
I would give CrossFire Esports 2023 an 85. Chen Jin was blunt.
Under the evaluation that it is good enough but still has room for improvement, Chen Jin believes that the future of CrossFire esports will mainly focus on the three dimensions of "influence", "vitality" and "internationalization", making CrossFire an e-sports project that satisfies participants, is favored by partners, and is talked about by global players.
In addition, in the interview, Chen Jin also mentioned the news about the new seat system of CFPL, which may be another blockbuster upgrade in the crossfire e-sports ecology in the new decade, and the reverie will continue to upgrade in the future.
Sports Esports:What do you hope for in 2024 in the CFPL region?
Chen Jin:At the heart of what I'm looking forward to is the changes in the domestic competition. Last year, the CF event ushered in a youth storm, and this storm will only get stronger in '24, and we hope to see more young people come out when the older generation of players retire one after another, which is a very important part of the innovation of the event.
Then we also hope to cooperate more with Chengdu and have further development in industrialization, which is also our thinking based on Chengdu's regionalization.
In addition, the event itself is a connector between users and partners, so in 24 years, we also hope to have more opportunities to cooperate with more young brands, through the precipitation of CF events for many years and the brand influence and user preference brought by the event itself, we can establish deeper commercial cooperation with more brands, after all, competitive sports will eventually move towards commercial development, and only after commercialization and stability can the event be more durable.
Sports Esports:CrossFire has previously revealed that the subsequent seat system will be adjusted, is there any information to share in this regard?
Chen Jin:From '19 we have a new seat system, and from '24 to '25 we have a new five-year seat system. We hope to create more value with the club in the new five years and meet new challenges.
E-sports does not have a long history, and many opportunities and paths for future development need to be explored by the league official and clubs, and CrossFire is willing to work with our partner clubs to open a new seat system in the future to create more value.
It's uncertain whether there will be any new seats coming in, but our tone for the future is definitely that we want the club and the league to keep the entire CF esports system alive in the next five years.
Sports Esports:If you had to rate your 2023 CrossFire Esports results, how many would you rate? Where else can CrossFire esports improve?
Chen Jin:If it was a full score of 100, I would give it 85 points. This is a score that borders on excellent and could be even better. We have been doing a lot of innovations, and we hope that after 24 years of further development, there will be better improvements at home and abroad, which can create more exciting events for players, create more wonderful moments for users, and let talented people have more stages to show themselves, which can have more room for improvement.
And then another place to improve is the life force. In the past, we focused more on brand cooperation in commercialization, and in the future, we hope to have more forms of cooperation to create more value for brand owners and leagues.
Finally, the improvement of internationalization, whether it is walking in or going out, we hope that the entire CrossFire international event can have more possibilities, and then strive to improve the competition level of each region, so as to create more exciting events for players in the real year-end World Series.
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