Tencent, the world’s largest gaming company, recently launched an esports development scheme for its popular title Game for Peace.
The scheme will seek to set up professional teams and host different tournaments. Tencent plans to work with local governments to promote city-level competitions.
Game for Peace, published last month, inherited Pubg Mobile’s huge player base. In less than 2 months’ time, it has reached 50 million daily active users, according to Tencent.
Game for Peace is an expansion of the company’s esports roadmap and embodies the company’s “strategic upgrade” for its esports business, Liao Kan, Tencent’s interactive entertainment marketing director announced, via Tencent’s own tech news channel Tencent Tech.
“Game for Peace has a sufficient player base and Tencent has ample experience of running esports competitions,” Liao Xuhua, a gaming analyst at Beijing-based data consultancy Analysys, told KrASIA. Game for Peace has the potential of duplicating King Pro League’s success, he added. King Pro League is a tournament for the game Honour of Kings in China.
Tencent’s plans to develop an esports ecosystem around Game for Peace comes amid Hainan provinces’ push to promote a local esports industry. The Hainan government has vowed to establish an international esports port with measures including setting up an RMB 1 billion esports development fund and exam-free college enrolment for esports players.
China’s esports industry expanding fast. China has 75 million core esports fans and the market volume is forecasted to reach RMB 13.8 billion (USD 2 billion) in 2019, according to Tencent’s own estimates.
“After more than 20 years of development, China’s esports industry has now arrived at its best developmental moment,” Tencent’s COO Ren Yuxin said yesterday at the opening of the Global Esports Summit in Boao, Hainan.