Sports competition and e-sports have great similarities as an entertaining competition.
Author | Liu Shiwu
Edit | Siqi
Sky Li Xiaofeng, “The first person in China’s e-sports.” began to engage in e-sports in 1998. In 2005 and 2006, he won the WCG Contest “World of Warcraft 3” project world champion, and promoted the development of China’s e-sports with personal influence.
Sky as an e-sports player must be remembered by many people. In the WCG competition that was restarted this year, he is the new identity of the founder of the e-sports equipment brand “Titanium” and also serves as a WCG sponsor and partner. The role of returning to the main battlefield of e-sports.
From the players to the gold digger of the e-sports industry, behind the changes in SKY’s identity is the process of China’s e-sports from the “edge” to the “mainstream.”
After the era of not being recognized by the public, e-sports has now become a relatively complete professional system, and there have been multiple tens of millions of bonus levels. The official level, with some e-sports projects entering the Asian Games, e-sports has also begun to win widespread recognition and attention. The most iconic event is: Stop the 6-year “E-sports Olympics” WCG restarted recently, the Chinese team finally ranked first with a total of ten medals in four gold and three silver.
E-sports has once again become the focus of public attention. China’s e-sports industry has entered a stage of rapid development in recent years.
The data shows that the global sports industry market size is 1.5 trillion US dollars, of which sports equipment supplies account for 40% of the market share, of which NIKE’s market value reached 123.4 billion US dollars. In terms of e-sports, the global market has reached 35 billion US dollars.
In China, the scale of e-sports industry will exceed 100 billion yuan in 2019, which does not include the e-sports equipment market – only the e-sports equipment market has reached 50 billion yuan. In order to understand the current situation of the e-sports equipment market and future development opportunities.
With WCG 2019, he also chatted with Sky about his “e-sports industry these years.” The following is a partial interview with SKY Li Xiaofeng:
About Entrepreneurship: Using the Personal IP to Drive the Industry
There are no well-known professional brands in China, so I think e-sports equipment will become a market with huge business opportunities.
The reason why I chose to be in the field of e-sports equipment after retiring is mainly because the industry is in the early stage of development, many sectors are not perfect, and naturally there are opportunities. Take e-sports equipment (or peripherals) as an example. Except for traditional foreign manufacturers such as Logitech and Sai Rui, there are no well-known professional brands in China, so I think e-sports equipment will become a market with huge business opportunities. .
After the establishment of Titanium Technology, we began to develop e-sports consoles, headphones, mice, keyboards, mobile games and so on.
As a domestic brand, I hope to inject my professional experience into the Titanium brand. Of course, Titanium is also the only e-sports equipment company established in China by former professional players.
The core of Titanium brand is “Hardware technology and industrial design must be the basis of brand standing”, so most of our products use top materials and crafts, combined with the habits of domestic professional e-sports players, Players provide professional esports equipment to enhance the fun and experience of the game.
Compared to traditional sports, based on personal IP, Titanium” and want to be “Li Ning” in e-sports.
“Sky won the world championship” is a topic that has long been discussed in the e-sports circle and has influenced many people inside and outside the industry. From the perspective of the domestic sporting goods industry, Li Ning, as a brand with its own IP, has a lot of voice in the field of sports. Of course, the difference is that e-sports focus is currently on clubs, events, and professional players, and e-sports equipment is a new breakthrough in e-sports development.
So in general, the creation of “titanium” at this point in time is actually similar to the national sports equipment brand “Li Ning”: when the market is still relatively early, a “strong IP” is needed. Input of market perception. So for Titanium, we will also inject our understanding of e-sports into our products, and the brand will have the founder genes and the perception of the demand for sporting goods from the beginning.
For example, based on the current mobile game trend, Titanium Grey has developed a mobile game headset through the cooperation of mobile FPS games represented by “Peace Elite”, worth mentioning Yes, we also added two core technologies: positioning enhancement and dual-microphone uplink noise reduction for mobile game FPS games. The new Titanium product was designed by Han, a former designer of Alienware, using the DTS acoustic system.
Logging in the science and technology board is also the goal of Titanium Technology in recent years.
Titanium is not just a company that relies on the development of star bosses. We hope to build on technology and product strength in e-sports equipment, build the foundation for long-term development of the brand, and provide products to more users around the world. . At the same time, as the business continues to grow, landing on the science and technology board is also the goal of Titanium Technology in recent years.
Innovative entrepreneurship in the e-sports industry
The e-sports industry is still a space-gathering industry. Except for game makers and upstream companies, most of the money has been taken away by excellent athletes, but there are still many opportunities worthy of startups.
E-sports is now mainly focused on game development, event media, star brokers, e-sports clubs, etc., but it is relatively difficult. Why do you say this? Because the e-sports industry is still a space-gathering industry, the excellent players and anchors are gathered through clubs and brokerage companies. Except for game makers and upstream companies, most of the money is taken away by excellent athletes.
Secondly, it is difficult to survive without sufficient funds to support startups. In particular, most of the excellent games in these years are in large companies represented by Tencent. The chances of small companies thinking of big games are not big. .
Of course, opportunities still exist. For example, the state-supported e-sports education, the new clubs that have been born with the emergence of new games, and new events are all worthy of startups.
About events
The e-sports will develop into a more elaborate special event after it has reached a certain stage.Real and sports events are similar.
Sky: Game developers and operators are starting to do some of the official events of the project, which is the main reason for the disappearance of the comprehensive event. Clubs, contestants, sponsors, and spectators turned their attention to these official events, resulting in a decline in the popularity of comprehensive events organized by third-party event companies.
And the official events sponsored by the developers have unique advantages in the competition system, tournament bonuses, promotion, and player protection. After the e-sports develop to a certain stage, they will inevitably become more elaborate special events. The events are similar.
As a traditional veteran e-sports event, the return of WCG is actually a signal to the entire industry
WCG As a traditional old-fashioned electric competition, this return is actually a signal to the entire industry. Of course, there is still a long way to go before the current comprehensive event, but WCG can provide a good opportunity and model. At the same time, this time WCG landed in Xi’an, which stimulated the development of e-sports in second- and third-tier cities, and also made more users in China feel the charm of e-sports.
For example, our WE (famous e-sports club) is also in Xi’an. At the WCG scene, I also played an exhibition match with TH000, Lyn, and Moon. Thanks to WCG for letting our old friends reunite and spread the event culture.