The start of an idealistic league

Idealists seem to be forever searching for the meaning of existence; Idealists instinctively like to help others grow and progress; Idealists are great communicators and are seen as catalysts for positive change.

At this time, the audience was very excited, and even had to "shake" when entering the infield to shoot, because the seats were full. We're also excited, because in today's industry context, it's not often that we get to watch a focused esports league go from 0 to 1. At this time, our most curious question is: how far can the VCT CN League go in the future? How high can you climb?

At present, it is difficult for us to find a specific answer to this question, but the "infrastructure" of CNWA in the past period of time still points out some directions - the development process of an "idealistic" league is bound to be "romantic".

Idealists are not derailed from reality.

At the end of last year, Riot Games released the VCT 2023 Year-End Letter to the Gamer Community, summarizing some of the Valorant global esports achievements. The content that has attracted the most attention from the industry is the revenue from esports products and the share of league clubs.

The Year-End Letter mentions that the 2023 in-game item Preseason Invitational Bundle will earn $10 million, and the World Championship Series** will earn $22 million. As a result, Valorant teams in the overseas region shared more than $33 million in proceeds.

These benefits, coupled with the official support for the league team, mean that everyone in the entire Valorant esports ecosystem is living a very prosperous life. In an esports event that is essentially a commercial event, such a result is excellent and attractive enough.

Of course, the above achievements have not yet appeared when the CN tile foundation and VCT CN league were prepared and formed. But it's still easy to see the enthusiasm for this new project.

On July 14 last year, the Global Esports Leadership Summit was held in Shenzhen, and there were two "new faces" in the summit that were impressive, one was Valorant Esports, and the other was the sharer of the former, Feng Xiao (Eric), the general director of Valorant Esports of Tengjing Sports.

After Eric took the stage with Valorant Esports content, I distinctly remember that the topic was a hot topic among many attendees. At the end of the day, several friends from domestic esports clubs and local esports associations chatted with me about Valorant, and their attitudes towards this new project were very unanimous: recognition, opportunity, eagerness, or already laid out.

We also talked to Eric more than once about the development of Valorant Esports, and he said: "The club partners we hope to find are partners with a 10-year cycle, and we don't want those partners who only focus on immediate interests to appear too much in the ecosystem and interfere with the healthy development of the ecosystem." ”

This sentence seems to give the "no seat fee" VCT CN league a higher software threshold. But the reality is that there are many "idealists" in the esports industry who are the same as Valorant esports, after all, in this industry, competition, confrontation, and competitiveness are engraved in the bones, and the lineup formation of the VCT CN League has become very fast.

And when we look at the club lineup of today's VCT CN League, we can find that some of these clubs have specialized in the field of FPS in the past, some have been deeply involved in MOBA projects, and some have been calling for wind and rain in mobile e-sports. The brand-new VCT CN league has become a multi-field club "Huashan Debate".

The professional, competitive foundation and a good ecosystem remind me of another sentence Eric said earlier: "We will focus on whether the ecosystem can help everyone grow better." ”

There's also an "old" story at the Valorant event:

At the previous Tokyo Masters and Los Angeles World Championships, players from the CN region experienced a lot of taunts from their opponents. They are all young guys, and their blood is strong, how can they stand this anger. They asked the alliance staff: "Sister, can we scold back?" ”

The answer, of course, was "no". In the sports arena, the "unspoken rule" of trash talk is that the game is a matter of the game, and the game is decided. Therefore, after the end of the international competition, the domestic boys have always held their breath, waiting for the next encounter with the overseas team, waiting for the shame of using their records.

We're going to care more about whether or not we can help our players become better pros, better people. ”

I don't think [Valorant Esports] is different from most of the esports leagues out there. Eric said.

Specifically** is different, there are a thousand Valorant esports in the eyes of a thousand viewers. Naturally, I have the answer:

I've spoken to the media lead at Valorant Esports many times. Whenever we wanted to tell the stories of the characters in the Valorant arena, she always gave me a list of player IDs and introductions in one breath: this player has a lot of personality, that player has a story, this player is very good at talking, and that player is a pistachio.

Before the Spring Festival, close to the start of the VCT CN League, we had another long exchange, which gave me a deeper understanding of Valorant esports: "Buddhism" and "more truthful" in one.

For the way that other projects and events in the industry have explored in the past, how to live, how to create hot spots, and how to be on the hot search, they are very Buddhist, and even make people feel that they are a little resistant to the entertainment marketing that is very common in the industry today. In turn, she said to me: "Respect good content." ”

This is not a way to cater to the market, but it must be the correct underlying logic and the correct solution for sustainable development.

It's like Eric's hope for Valorant Esports: "There will be champions, and when will there be a question." But in addition to remembering the champions, we will also remember everyone who has the spirit of esports and has the spirit of sportsmanship. I think it's the most important thing to keep our confidence and persistence as esports people. ”

In my opinion, this is an "idealistic" event, top-down, inside-out romance.