In the 2022 Asian Games, postponed until September 2023, Asian esports athletes will have the opportunity to earn official medals. Gamers will have the opportunity to officially represent their country for the first time in the tournament’s history.
The Asian Games are a continent-wide multisport tournament akin to the Olympics taking place in Hangzhou, China this year. Their program includes broadcasting seven professional esports for the first time as an official sport in the competition, in addition to a variety of traditional sports including gymnastics, basketball and others.
One of the games being played at the quadrennial tournament is League of Legends, one of the most popular games in the world owned by Chinese multinational conglomerate Tencent Holdings Ltd, since their acquisition of Riot Games in 2011. Tencent is the largest Chinese company by market capitalization and owns several online services.
This attempt at legitimizing professional video games comes after China attempts to crack down on video game addiction, imposing a three-hour-per-week limit on playtime for legal minors in China.
The Chinese government also artificially reduced Tencent’s market value by over 300 billion dollars. The conglomerate was also disciplined in 2021 by the Chinese government for attempting a merger between the top two Chinese streaming websites Huya and DouYu, with alleged failure to notify the Chinese antitrust body, for which they received a fine, according to Reuters.
Despite China’s attempts to regulate the use of video games, the country still has a large pool of gamers, some of whom have become professional esports players. According to a study about gamers in China published in 2013 by the journal New Media and Society, the line between consumer and laborer has been blurred in China when it comes to gaming. Many gamers in China also end up working on video games as their profession, creating a “dual-role” between consumer and laborer. The article suggests that China is becoming increasingly committed to the gaming economy.
As per the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, “Internet advertising, video games and esports are the main growth drivers for the Entertainment & Media (E&M) industry in China.” They estimated that the value of the E&M industry in China would be 480 billion dollars by 2027.
