Restart life

Chapter 592 0580 [Opening Up the Market]

The officially recognized year for the beginning of esports in China is 2004.

Because at the end of 2003, e-sports was listed as the 99th sports competition item by the General Administration of Sport.

Therefore, in 2004, the General Sports Federation took the lead in establishing the CEG (National Electronic Sports Games). The first batch included four games: Counter-Strike, Warcraft, FIFA 2004, and StarCraft.

However, development is difficult.

In 2008, the General Administration of Sport integrated sports projects and re-established e-sports as the 78th sporting event.

The following year, the size of China's e-sports market increased by 4800% year-on-year.

This data is rather absurd, as it includes the revenue of related games in mainland China. For example, since "CrossFire" has become an officially recognized esports title, its game revenue is also included in the esports market size calculation...

This is what we've been doing for the past few years!

Otherwise, how else can we collect statistics?

If it weren't for a large influx of wealthy second-generation individuals investing in esports clubs purely out of interest, more than half of China's esports clubs wouldn't be able to pay their salaries. With esports players still eating instant noodles, how much of a market size can you even estimate?
Chen Guiliang vigorously promoted online live streaming, which increased the income of some e-sports players, but only a very small number of top players were actually able to make money.

Now Chen Guiliang is using the S2 tournament to create a frenzy of hype.

Online and offline media outlets, having received payment, have been promoting "Oracle Era" as a global phenomenon, with the grand finals being broadcast simultaneously in dozens of countries worldwide. It's almost reached the level of national pride.

With those trending topics, esports has finally broken into the mainstream, and many casual viewers are now aware of its existence.

Youke is losing money on this!
To expand the game's influence, the OE Season 2 tournament will be streamed and broadcast globally for free, open to any interested platform or individual. This means that licensing revenue will not be generated.

The brand sponsorship fees are not very high, and are negligible compared to the expenses of hosting the event.

They also invited celebrities to the opening ceremony and spent a fortune on media promotion.

However, the effect was obvious, with a significant increase in global attention for "Oracle Era" and an overall increase in traffic on major domestic live streaming platforms.

AcFun's live streaming platform has been separated from AcFun and is now called ByteTV.

Ranked by daily active users, they are: ByteDance TV, YY Live, Bilibili Live, 6rooms, 9158...

Actually, only the first three are doing game live streaming, while the rest of the platforms are mainly for entertainment.

Tao Chenggang's involvement is quite high; he holds a small stake in YY Live, and Bilibili Live is entirely his.

With the group stage concluded, all three Chinese teams advanced to the quarterfinals, and traffic on the three major domestic game live streaming platforms surged even faster.

Tao Chenggang is quite something; he actually invited Zeng Xiaoxian and Zhang Wei to livestream themselves playing games and watching matches.

YY Live was not to be outdone, so they invited Lin Junjie to stream the game.

In the knockout stage, IG was the first to be eliminated.

Principal Wang posted a period on Weibo.

OMG was subsequently eliminated.

Of the three Chinese teams, only the Royal Club remains.

Even before the semifinals started, Weibo, Tieba, and forums were already buzzing with excitement.

The original haters would relentlessly attack players who performed poorly, and the eliminated teams and players would line up to take the blame.

Fans of different teams were hurling insults at each other.

Fans of teams that didn't make it to the finals also jumped out, saying that IG and OMG wasted their spots and were just occupying the position without doing anything.

Royal Club, the only team to make it into the semifinals, is under immense pressure. If they fail to win the championship, they will face a barrage of criticism and insults.

At this very moment, a large number of brands came to seek cooperation.

Seeing the surge in attention surrounding the S2 tournament, they wanted to become a joint sponsor or a sponsor of a team before the semifinals began.

They were all rejected!

All business partnerships must be finalized before the competition and cannot be changed or added at the last minute.

……

The first snow of the year has been delayed, but the temperature is unusually cold.

The reason it's not snowing is due to insufficient moisture.

Bian Guanyue's due date is approaching, and Chen Guiliang goes home to be with his wife whenever he has free time, staying at home with her to enjoy the warmth of the heating during the winter.

A recording is playing in the music room.

Bian Guanyue sat in a chair, holding a small notebook in her hands.

She listened and took notes, and then played the recording again after listening to it once.

Bian Guanyue's current research topic is: Study on the steady-state characteristics of Yangzhou Qingqu (a type of folk opera).

This involves using quantitative statistical methods to analyze the stable forms of common phrases, structures, and melodies in Yangzhou Qingqu (a type of folk opera).

This project required extensive fieldwork, but Bian Guanyue couldn't travel around during her pregnancy. So Chen Guiliang spent money to hire people in the Huaihe and Jiangnan regions to find inheritors and record on-site, while also copying and collecting old recordings from archives.

Bian Guanyue listened to a recording copied from an old cassette tape more than twenty times before finally pressing the stop button and getting up to go for a walk.

Chen Guiliang sat at a computer not far away, quickly browsing various documents and reports.

"Are you done with your work?" Chen Guiliang asked.

Bian Guanyue paced back and forth in the room: "There are still hundreds of recordings that haven't been analyzed. The people you hired are too responsible."

Chen Guiliang smiled and said, "I contacted the chairman of the Yangzhou Qingqu Heritage and Development Research Association. They have been doing research, sorting and recording work since 2006. However, their funding and manpower have always been limited. This time I sponsored a large sum of money, so of course they are very enthusiastic. They are not only helping you collect it, but they will also keep a copy for themselves."

Bian Guanyue couldn't help but smile: "My doctoral research project is quite easy. There's a professional research association helping me collect materials. These hundreds, nearly a thousand recordings are enough for me to write more than a dozen doctoral dissertations."

It's nice to have money.

If it weren't for Chen Guiliang spending money to hire people to collect the data, it would have taken Bian Guanyue several years to complete the fieldwork himself.

Once Bian Guanyue has fully digested all of this, she will definitely become an expert in Yangzhou Qingqu (a type of folk opera) research! The two strolled into the living room and snuggled up on the sofa to chat.

Chen Guiliang would occasionally put his ear close to listen to the child's movements.

As they chatted, Bian Guanyue started browsing Weibo. She also liked to follow gossip and gossip, but she rarely expressed her opinions publicly.

Chen Guiliang is watching the live broadcast of the game; he makes time to watch one game every day.

Today's semi-final is an all-South Korean battle.

SKT1 vs. Najin Black Sword.

The match was incredibly exciting, and it's now tied at 2-2.

Both sides are currently in the ban/pick phase. The three commentators, two men and one woman, are quite professional, acting as strategists for the teams on the field, leading the online audience.

Chen Guiliang switched out of the official live stream and was surprised to see another live stream with two beautiful women.

Xu Fengyin and Tao Xue...

Xu Fengyin is a comic book and game enthusiast. Today is Saturday, and she dragged Tao Xue to watch the semi-finals. They even went live to "show off their affection".

"It's the decisive game, and I think SKT1 has a better chance of winning," Xu Fengyin said. "This team has fought their way from the group stage all the way here and has only lost one game. Especially mid laner Faker, his skills are amazing!"

Tao Xue cracked sunflower seeds and said, "Mmm-hmm."

Xu Fengyin glanced at the live stream chat: "What's my rank? Platinum. I don't play often, just a little bit on weekends. The girl next to me is Silver, and I'm the one who carried her."

"Ha!" Tao Xue yawned, looking like she was forced to work.

Xu Fengyin continued, "Double-books? I stopped drawing them a long time ago... I never draw double-books! If you want a double-book, go find one yourself, don't come to my live stream asking for money... Don't give me any tips, I won't say thank you if you do, just send some free gifts... What? Dilraba is live streaming? What's the room number? I'll go check it out."

Xu Fengyin quickly searched for Dilraba's room: "Wow, a beauty too... What do you mean I drool when I see a beautiful woman? I'll say it again, I like men, my sexual orientation is normal!"

Compared to other beautiful women's live streams, Xu Fengyin's style is noticeably different.

"Master Xu, stop making excuses."

"I've been a fan of yours for six years. Many of the doujinshi you drew back then were about girls and girls."

"Sigh, what a pity, what a waste of beautiful women."

“Every time I think about Master Xu’s sexual orientation, I don’t know whether I should masturbate or not.”

"Master Xu, your girlfriend is jealous."

"..."

Bian Guanyue leaned closer at some point and asked curiously, "Are they really lesbians?"

Chen Guiliang said, "Maybe."

Bian Guanyue actually felt a little guilty: "Could it be that Tao Xue only started acting recklessly after we got our marriage certificate..."

“It has nothing to do with you,” Chen Guiliang said.

Bian Guanyue looked at Dilraba's live stream in Xu Fengyin's live stream room and said, "I'm not available for the next few months. If you want to, you can go to Tao Xue, but don't go to those female celebrities."

“Uh…” Chen Guiliang didn’t know how to respond.

Bian Guanyue said, "Last month, you brought Dilraba to the S2 opening ceremony, and the rumors spread to my mother. She called me and talked for more than an hour."

Chen Guiliang held Bian Guanyue in his arms and gently patted her shoulder.

ByteDance assigned Dilraba an agent, and it was her agent who arranged for her to do this live stream.

To put it bluntly, it's just to ride on the popularity.

While the hit drama "Silk Road Smoke and Dust" garnered her a large fan base, the opening ceremony of Season 2 nearly doubled Dilraba's Weibo followers. Now, she's doing live streams to attract fans from her countless gaming enthusiasts.

While watching the live chat comments, she did the newbie quests: "I've never played this game before, it seems so difficult, even the newbie quests are this hard... Don't talk nonsense, there's nothing between me and Mr. Chen. Mr. Chen is our boss, but he's very approachable, like an older brother to us..."

"The artists in our company all have great relationships off-screen. Jiang Xin also signed with us this year. Jiang Xin, Zhang Hanyun, and I are best friends. We often go shopping together. And we all love to eat, haha, I can eat whatever I want without gaining weight, but the other two have to lose weight..."

"The match has started? Let's go watch the match first..."

During the decisive game between the two South Korean teams, the number of viewers in the official live stream surged to 150 million!
The actual number of people can be roughly calculated by dividing by ten.

But 15 people watching the game is still terrifying, because this is only the official live stream; other live streams also have a large number of viewers.

Moreover, viewers are watching the game on other platforms as well!
Unprecedented live stream traffic.

The comments were all hoping SKT1 would lose, because if SKT1 won, it would be even more difficult for Royal Club to win the championship—Faker had already exhausted the Chinese players.

Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned, and SKT1 ultimately won the decisive game.

Even after the match ended, the live stream's popularity didn't wane, and viewers were diverted to other live streams. The streamers made a fortune, seizing the opportunity to sell products via live stream; pork floss cakes sold like hotcakes, and some were even selling sex toys.

Esports and live streaming were both ignited by S2.

Of course, it also owes much to the accumulation and preparation of the previous few years.

YY Live's executives are holding an emergency meeting. After analyzing the situation, they believe that YY Games Live should be separated from YY Live and operated independently.

They even came up with a name: Huya Live.

Principal Wang was also watching the live stream. He repeatedly studied the traffic data of various platforms and felt that this was a promising opportunity. He decided to create his own live streaming platform.

Many brands are also eyeing this opportunity and plan to start sponsoring the season from next year's spring season.

Some investors, on the other hand, want to invest in live streaming platforms or esports clubs.

The esports market has finally opened up.

It will get even more exciting when the Royal Family loses the game and the Koreans win the championship.

Shame!
(End of this chapter)