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The esports industry in China has not seen any partnerships or sponsorships of note over the last week. Instead, the biggest headlines were on the tech and game development side. A new broadcasting service has been developed for the League of Legends Pro League (LPL) tournament system. Also, the “Auto Battler” strategy game genre has made a major step as an esport, with the PC version of Auto Chess announced at the E3 gaming convention and game makers revealing that they are developing their own versions of the game.
Among the top stories: TJ Sports added a first-person observer service for esports audiences of the LPL Summer Split; game developer Riot Games is developing a new League of Legends game mode inspired by Dota Auto Chess called “Teamfight Tactics;” Drodo Studios and Long Mobile announced at E3 that the PC version of Auto Chess will release soon and be exclusive to the Epic Games Store in the west; and Tencent announced the speaker list for its Tencent Global Esports Summit, including multiple Chinese and western esports leaders from Tencent Holdings, esports teams, and tournament organizers.
Every week The Esports Observer presents the biggest esports business news in China, including investments, acquisitions, sponsorships, and other major news from the region.
Riot Games Developing Auto Chess-Inspired Mode in League of Legends, Auto Chess for PC ‘Coming Soon’
Credit: Riot Games
On June 10, game publisher Riot Games 
announced that the company is currently developing a new “Auto Battler” strategy game mode for League of Legends called “Teamfight Tactics.” According to the announcement, the game was inspired by the popular Dota 2 modification – Dota Auto Chess , which is developed by Chinese game developer Drodo Studios .
According to the announcement, “We’ve always loved strategy games, and recently we’ve gotten into the new auto battler genre – folks around the office has been playing an insane amount of Dota Auto Chess in particular.”
The test version of Teamfight Tactics will be open to the public at the end of June. In addition, the rank system for the new mode will be listed in League of Legends 9.14 updates.
In the past 48 hours, the auto battler genre has been on fire thanks to three different game developers – Valve Corporation
, Epic Games , and Riot Games. On June 10, Drodo Studios and Long Mobile announced that a standalone version of Auto Chess PC will be exclusively listed on the Epic Games Store. On the same day, an early game testing video of Dota Underloads was leaked on the internet. Dota Underloads (a name which developer Valve has not publicly confirmed yet) is a standalone version of Dota Auto Chess. Despite being the creator of Dota 2, Valve and Drodo Studio were unable to reach an agreement that would have them collaborate on a title together, though they will assist each other in areas such as migrating player data between versions.
LPL Summer Split Updates First-Person Observation Service
Credit: TJ Sports
On June 8, TJ Sports
, a joint venture of Tencent Games and Riot Games, announced that a new broadcasting service had been added on Chinese streaming platform Huya and Douyu for the LPL Summer Split. The service allows viewers to watch a game from the perspective of any single player.
According to the announcement, there will be only one point of view (POV) perspective for each game, and that player will be voted on by the audience. Each player will have a limited chosen time and can not be selected twice in the space of two weeks.
The service will be free for audiences between June 8-14. After June 15, the service for each audience member will cost ¥3 RMB ($0.43 USD) per match. In addition, TJ Sports confirmed the revenue from this service will be shared with all LPL esports teams. Similar POV services were recently introduced for the European and North American League of Legends circuits, with one difference being that audience members are charged per split for the service, not per match.
Other Esports Business News
Credit: Huang Xudong
- On June 11, Zhou “Haitao” Lingxiang, the board member of esports production company Imba TV, posted on social media platform Weibo that ImbaTV will be the exclusive Chinese broadcasting production company for Dota 2 The International Shanghai.
