In the first week after the Chinese New Year, the esports industry in China has seen a number of key breakthroughs in game development, international tournaments, team sponsorships, market development, and even a high-profile player ban.
Among the top stories: Tencent 
Games has introduced strict streaming rules for its gaming content in the country, Alibaba Group acquired 8% shares of Bilibili, the Chongqing government officially banned a TNC player from the WESG Grand Final, ImbaTV and Starladder will host the CS:GO Major at Berlin’s Mercedes-Benz Arena, Razer partnered with esports organization SN Gaming, and Newbee is in a potential partnership with Li-Ning.
Every week The Esports Observer presents the biggest esports business news in China, including investments, acquisitions, sponsorships, and other major news from the region.
Dota Auto Chess Breaks 300K Concurrent Players
On Feb. 16, Dota Auto Chess (DAC) had reached a peak of more than 300K concurrent players and 4.13M subscribers. Compared to the last month, it had a peak of over 130K concurrent players and 1.2M subscribers. The game was first released on Jan. 4, and a new Dota 2 custom game mode was created by a Chinese workshop known as “Big Drodo Studio.” Nevertheless, there are two key issues that still need to be considered.
- A sustainable business model for the game.
- Product plagiarism by another potential competitor.
In the current business model of DAC, players can use “candy” (the virtual currency in the DAC system) to purchase customized in-game items, known as “courier skins.” “Candy” can be awarded to players by the system, if the player wins the game, or can be purchased by players in the real world. There are two issues with the system within the game that could cause problems for the developer:
- DAC does not own the copyright for the courier skins it is selling; they are owned by the Steam Dota 2 Community.
- DAC added a Taobao (a Chinese e-commerce platform owned by Alibaba Group, similar to Amazon) QR code in the game, for players to buy “Candy.” Basically, DAC is using Perfect World’s server to promote its online store, and potentially faces legal issues.
On Jan. 15, Drodo Studio stated on Weibo that it would like to discuss the copyright issue with Dota 2 game publisher Valve, but did not receive a response from the company. The Esports Observer reached out to “ToTo,” one of the members of Drodo Studio. He declined to comment on this particular topic, at the time of writing. For the second issue, on Feb. 15, DAC has removed this function and partnered with a third-party to create the purchasing channel.
In addition, DAC is also facing intellectual property theft by another potential competitor. On Jan. 29, a mobile version of Dota Auto Chess named “Sanjie Auto Chess” appeared on Taptap (like the Gaming App Store in China) and the App Store, but was quickly removed. Regarding these potential copies, ToTo said: “we can’t control it, but we can make [the] game better.”
Despite all the legal issues and barriers, DAC has gathered thousands of players, and appears to continue on an upward trend. “The whole Drodo Studio only has five members,” Toto told The Esports Observer. According to Valve’s official stats, Dota 2 has returned to the top of all Steam games, even beating out games such as PUBG, which has 600K concurrent players and a peak of 867K players, at time of writing. The data is provided by Valve’s statistical system on Steam.
Razer Signs Partnership Deal with SN Gaming
Hardware brand Razer signed a partnership deal with esports organization SN Gaming (SNG). According to the deal, Razer will provide the newest Razer products to SNG’s professional players. In addition, The SNG players will provide advice, and help Razer to develop new products during the partnership. SNG is an esports organization founded in 2017, and title sponsored by Chinese e-commerce company SuNing. The organization currently competes in the League of Legends Pro League (LPL), as well as PUBG.
Douyu announces its PUBG Tournament with $62K USD Total Prize Pool, Top Teams to Qualify for FACEIT Global Summit
On Feb. 15, steaming platform Douyu announces its PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) tournament, the “Douyu PUBG Golden Legends season six.” The tournament will be hosted by streaming platform Douyu, in conjunction production company Banana Culture. The tournament will invite 32 teams from the PUBG China Pro Invitation Season II (PCPI2). All teams will compete from Feb. 26 to March 10, for a ¥420K RMB ($62K) total prize pool. Venue details for this tournament have not been disclosed yet.
According to the announcement, the final top teams of this tournament will represent Mainland China at the FACEIT Global Summit. On Feb. 13, FACEIT announced that the first international PUBG tournament of 2019, the “FACEIT Global Summit,” will be held at London’s ExCel Centre, from April 16-21.
Other Business news
- Esports organization Newbee has potentially partnered with apparel brand Li-Ning. The two organization have not made an official partnership announcement yet, but sources closed to the deal have confirmed this information to The Esports Observer.
- Tencent Games has established streaming rules for all its gaming content, in response to China’s internet governance requirements. The rules are applicable to all gaming streaming platforms, productions, institutions, and streamers, as long as their content is based on Tencent products.
- The World Cyber Games (WCG) has confirmed Dota 2 as the first of its seven official game titles and unveiled a new version of its original theme song, remixed by DJ Steve Aoki. The WCG was a Samsung-backed international competition series that ran from 2000-2013, before its closure in 2014. The brand was acquired by Korean publisher Smilegate in 2017, and plans to host its first event in Xi’an in 2019.
