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In the week leading up to the fall season, the temperature in China has begun to cool down, as has the esports business news in the country. Nevertheless, there were still a number of partnerships and tournament news worth reporting on.
Among the top stories: Edward Gaming’s parent company Super Gen spent $17.6M USD for land in the Shanghai Minhang District to develop an esports complex; tournament organizer VSPN partnered with live streaming platform Douyu to host the first Honor of Kings auto battler competition; Gaojing partnered with car-sharing service Liandong Yun for World University Cyber Games; and NetEase announced that the Warcraft III Gold League 2019 Winter Season will feature $70K in total prize money – the biggest prize money tournament for WarCraft III of this year.
Every week The Esports Observer presents the biggest esports business news in China including investments, acquisitions, sponsorships, and other major news from the region.
EDG Parent Super Gen Holding Spends $17.6M on Real Estate for Developing Esports Complex
On Oct. 21, the Shanghai Minhang District government completed a bidding process for 78,402 square meters (19.37 acres) of land in the Shanghai Minhang District. Shanghai Super Gen Holding paid a ¥1.24B RMB ($17.6M) bid price for the land. Super Gen is the parent company of Chinese esports organization Edward Gaming (EDG).
According to the announcement made by the Minhang government, Super Gen will operate multiple esports business projects in this space, including esports tournaments, film, game design, esports education, and esports live streaming. In addition, Super Gen said that it would introduce at least one esports organization which will take up space in the new facilities. On April 20, EDG confirmed that its home venue would be built in Shanghai at the end of this year. It is highly possible that EDG’s home venue will be set up here.
EDG was founded in 2013 and currently competes in League of Legends, PUBG, Honor of Kings, and CrossFire. In May 2018, EDG raised close to ¥100M ($14.5M) in a pre-A funding round, co-led by Yao Capital. Sponsors include live streaming platform Penguin Esports, apparel brand Li-Ning, Intel, energy drink brand Warhorse, Razer, dumpling brand WanChai Ferry, gaming chair company Victorage, ASUS, and Nvidia.
VSPN Partners with Douyu to Host First Honor of Kings Auto Battler Competition
On Oct. 23, Chinese production company and tournament organizer Versus Programming Network (VSPN) announced that it had partnered with live streaming platform Douyu to host the first esports competition for the Honor of Kings auto battler mode, “Kings Simulation Battle” (Chinese term:王者模拟战). The tournament will feature a ¥300K ($42.3K) total prize pool, and the best players will potentially be offered live streaming deals by Douyu. On August 2, Tencent first released the “Kings Simulation Battler,” and added this game mode into the design system of Honor of Kings.
Another major auto battler game, Auto Chess, will begin its global tournament – the Auto Chess Invitational – this weekend (Oct. 25-27) at Shanghai Zhengda Square. It features a $1M total prize pool, and was co-hosted by tournament organizer ImbaTV, game publisher Drodo Studio, and Long Mobile.
Update: VSPN responded to The Esports Observer, and confirmed the tournament will take place between Oct. 19 – Dec. 20.
Gaojing Partners with Liandong Yun for World University Cyber Games
On Oct. 23, Chinese esports organization Shanghai Gaojing Culture Media (Gaojing) announced that the company signed a partnership deal with car-sharing service Liandong Yun. The deal includes providing transport services for university players and fans who attend WUCG events. Additional terms of the deal were not disclosed.
In this month, Gaojing has signed multiple partnership deals with brands and companies, including travel booking site Tong Cheng, as well as League of Legends publisher Riot Games and Spanish media company Mediapro. The tournament is sponsored by SPD Bank and Chinese sanitary brand Space 7.
Other Esports Business News:
- On Oct. 21, French shampoo brand Clear collaborated with eStarPro’s Honor of Kings player Chen “CatGod” Zheng on a social media campaign on Weibo. Zheng made a video to promote Clear’s events for the Chinese “double eleven shopping festival.” Zheng has 1.11M followers on Weibo.
- On Oct. 18, NetEase announced that the WarCraft III Gold League 2019 Winter Season will take place in Shanghai between Nov. 23-27, featuring ¥500K ($70K) in total prize money, with the winner will taking home ¥250K ($35K). It should be noted that this is the highest prize money tournament for WarCraft III of 2019.
