Tencent Sports CEO interview: epidemic forces esports to go online, but does not affect long-term development

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Affected by the epidemic, the 2020 e-sports competition ushered in a slightly difficult start. Due to offline venue control, the two most important events of this spring, the "League of Legends" professional league (LPL) and the "King of Glory" professional league (KPL), have been postponed and moved online. The spring event held in February this year also Postponed to March. As the best e-sports in China, LPL is the only channel for domestic League of Legends clubs to enter the global finals. After winning the world championship for two consecutive years, China has become the world's first branch of the League of Legends. This year's S10 will also be the main battle. The main role of League of Legends in Mainland China is Fang Tengjing Sports, a joint venture of Fist Games and Tencent Interactive Entertainment, responsible for the development and operation of League of Legends professional events. Under the circumstances that the crowd cannot gather and the competition cannot be held offline, LPL will face many challenges before the start of the competition on March 9, such as: competitions with sponsors, loss of offline ticket revenue, venue rental cost recovery, event broadcast Team operations, etc. Officials need to improve online competition rules, ensure the safety of players, ensure fair competition, and stabilize business revenues within a month of delay. On March 2, Song Lin, CEO of Tencent Sports, was interviewed. Overall, Song Lin believes that offline-to-online competition has brought about changes in execution and operation. However, in terms of the commercial value of League of Legends, the epidemic will not have a long-term impact on competitive revenue. For LPL, holding online competitions under fair conditions is a challenge, not a retreat. On February 26, League of Legends TV and major live broadcast platforms launched the League of Legends Online Public Training Contest, which lasted a week. Players use their own or club equipment to participate in the training and transfer the inter-team training game to the Internet so that the audience can watch or replay it live. Song Lin explained that this is an early exercise for the official competition on March 9. For event organizers, the event has changed from offline to online. The biggest impacts and changes lie in three areas: First, changes in operating modes and reductions in offline execution modes. Great changes have taken place in the construction, management and audience diversion of the original offline venues. Online players are mobilized, and audience sentiment is directed rather than offline. The second is the change in technology. At the technical level, the competitive environment previously operated by offline servers was replaced by the network. This model tests the stability of communication systems, process systems, and networks, and is the reason for holding open online training competitions. As a test method, open training competitions can solve problems that may be encountered in formal online competitions in advance. The third is risk management. Compared with offline games, the biggest difference in offline games is that they cannot be controlled on the spot, including technical risks and fair risks. For example, professional competitions have strict rules on the range of ping-pong values. Only when the ping-pong values ​​are low and consistent, both sides of the game must ensure that the online game is fair. The so-called ping value refers to the speed at which the computer sends and receives data to the network server. The smaller the value, the higher the network speed. In professional electronic games, small deviations in par value will affect the result of the game. This is a test for the organizer to control the parity of the two sides in the online game. In addition, in order to stabilize the broadcast system of the League of Legends game, the broadcast position (ie, the viewing position) of the live commentary can see all the conditions on the field, and the God's perspective of the audience of online games-also needs to achieve stability of dozens of indicators Sex. To this end, the organizer should take the remote production center as the main control station, make some changes in management and processes, and further control many uncontrollable processes in the past to ensure the smooth progress of the online competition. In order to keep up with the game schedule that was delayed by one month, LPL announced changes to the online game schedule on March 2nd: In addition to two games on some days, there will be three games on other game days, the second and third games Will be postponed. For both parties, this is a more tightly competitive process Except for two games on some days, there will be three games on other game days, and the second and third games will be postponed. For both parties, this is a more tightly competitive process Except for two games on some days, there will be three games on other game days, and the second and third games will be postponed. For both parties, this is a more tightly competitive process

Song Lin, a model, said that "League of Legends" is just a type of electronic competition, and electronic competition is actually a common "a model", that is, the form of online and offline competition. He doesn't want to divide e-sports into online and offline competitions. In the interview, Song Lin described a relatively ideal e-sports player ecosystem: "E-sports is a comprehensive experience. For example, players and friends participate in a weekend party. Offline is a very good occasion. Offline participation will be very long. It ’s memorable for a period of time. This is the same sense of scene as sports. At the same time, through the online channels and watching group wars of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of players, the electronic characteristics of e-sports can also be reflected. ”In the long run See, if the epidemic situation can be controlled in time, the LPL games after the Spring Festival can be held below the regression line. In Song Lin's view, the change to the online competition model caused by the epidemic is actually a test of the online ability of electronic competition and a test of live broadcast and broadcast technology. The future trend is still the game mode and live webcast of the Tropic of Cancer. At present, the biggest loss in online competition appears to be ticketing. Song Lin claimed that apart from ticketing, LPL's revenue was largely unaffected after the event went live. According to Tengjing Sports' "League of Legends China E-sports White Paper 2019 Edition" (hereinafter referred to as the "White Paper"), ticketing will account for 8% of total revenue in 2018, which is the same as in surrounding areas. LPL's main sources of revenue are copyright and sponsors. This part is not affected in the spring as it has nothing to do with offline. For the implementation of the home and away plan, Tengjing Sports is very cautious. Song Lin revealed that LPL's home and away plans were forced to stagnate in the first half of 2020. However, in the original plan, progress was not officially announced in the first half of this year. Currently, LPL is still at the stage of exploring business models and negotiating with the team. According to the "White Paper", the main income of e-sports owners currently comes from tickets and sponsorship. Due to the instability of club records, these two aspects are highly uncertain. The main business model for home and away matches is the combination of the club's main stadium and commercial complex, establishing consumer landmarks for younger groups, and the combination of esports intellectual property and theme parks. However, by the end of 2019, the above model has not yet been realized on a large scale. In special times, LPL cancelled offline matches and temporarily established rules for online matches. In order to prevent cheating, supervision and punishment measures have been established. Some players who cannot leave Hubei are also excluded from the LPL spring game. Song Lin said frankly that hosting an online competition "is definitely imperfect, but in the face of these imperfections, I hope there are still good things to see." Wen: Lin Beichen