"The competition is coming soon, and the spring of chicken-eating is here!" On June 21, Zhang Dan (pseudonym), who runs a chicken-eating team in China, sent a message in the circle of friends.

One day ago, the "Peace Elite-E-Sports Development Plan" was officially launched. It will establish a subdivided competition system including global finals, professional leagues, city open competitions, popular competitions, and all-scenario competitions. He also proposed to build an alliance and take multiple measures to help the club build blood, etc.

"Tencent, which has finally obtained its version number, will not only satisfy the current situation, but will definitely accelerate the development of the game. Holding events is undoubtedly the best solution." Dabai, an investor in the domestic e-sports industry, said .

Unlike the excited Zhang Dan, Aguai (pseudonym), who also runs the Chicken Fighting Team, is a little helpless. In Aguai's view, these measures are more aimed at well-known clubs. For hundreds of domestic grassroots teams, it seems that the future still cannot be seen. "Big clubs can develop rapidly by relying on measures, but small teams are still in the 'three nothings' stage of being unable to play games, have no exposure, and have no income."

1

Acceleration Behind the creation of the event: Chicken eating ushered in late realization

"After waiting for so long, I finally waited for the official event. I really can’t persist if I don’t start." On June 21, Sichuan YSY Peace Elite Team The person in charge, Lao Lei, said.

In 2018, Lao Lei took a fancy to the booming chicken market and invested 1 million yuan to build a team. But the official match has yet to be seen, and the team members' patience is exhausted while waiting. In the following period, the team members submitted their resignations to Lao Lei. Today, his team has only 4 people left from the original 11 people.

Wang Ke (pseudonym) from Guizhou also had the same experience as Lao Lei. Unlike Lao Lei, he had disbanded the team a month ago. "The teams have been disbanded, so it doesn't make much sense to have official competitions now," Wang Ke said.

In May 2019, Peace Elite was announced to be online, which means that Tencent’s “chicken-eating” game has begun to monetize after more than a year of delay.

"Previously affected by organizational reforms and the suspension of version numbers, many game companies have been unable to obtain version numbers." Dabai analysis said, "Games that cannot be monetized not only consume huge bandwidth, Operation and other costs are more likely to divert other game markets and users, including Honor of Kings, and even gradually destroy users’ payment habits. ”

The huge traffic makes chicken eating become another game after Honor of Kings. The inability to monetize a hit game also affects Tencent Games’ revenue.

Official data shows that Tencent’s game revenue fell from 28.7 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2018 to 24.1 billion yuan in the fourth quarter, and the year-on-year growth rate dropped from 26 to -1. Liu Chiping, president of Tencent Holdings, explained at the 2018 annual performance conference that the suspension of game version approval has made it impossible to monetize games including the popular "Chicken Eating" game.

In fact, since the beginning of the "Chicken War", although Tencent's exciting battlefield is more popular than NetEase's Knives Out, the commercial monetization ability of Knives Out, which holds the version number, is far behind. lead.

According to Sensor Tower data, NetEase Knives Out attracted a total of US$465 million in global App Store and Google Play during 2018. According to industry media reports, due to version number restrictions, Stimulus Battlefield can only obtain certain profits in the domestic market through event authorization, resource replacement, etc.

Not only does its monetization lag behind its old rivals, but Tencent’s own game PUBG Mobile is far better than Stimulus Battlefield in terms of monetizing profits.

In March 2018, PUBGMobile began to go overseas and launched in-game purchases in its international version in mid-April.

Sensor Tower data shows that the game generated $149 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2019 alone.

"Tencent, which finally got the version number, will definitely accelerate the development of the game." Dabai said, "And holding competitions is undoubtedly the best plan."

2

Various competitions are growing wildly: maintaining the popularity, hiding chaos

In fact, before the official competition of Peace Elite was released, the market was flooded with various chicken-eating competitions.

Previously, due to the failure to obtain a version number for Stimulating Battlefield, the game was unable to create official professional events led by Tencent like League of Legends and Honor of Kings. However, the popularity of the market is noticed by many third-party game practitioners. Dozens of chicken-eating competitions launched by live broadcast platforms, hardware manufacturers and other companies have emerged in the market.

Ah Liang said that in the past, the club would receive competition invitations from similar platforms at any time. He once led the team to participate in 2 or 3 competitions within a month, and the organizers of each event were different. "My favorite is definitely the Knives Out event organized by NetEase. After all, it is also a gaming giant and is more reliable than other platforms." A Liang said.

In addition to traditional game manufacturers such as NetEase, live broadcast platforms such as Huya and Douyu have also held events. "There are even some malls and shopping malls that organize competitions when they open or celebrate stores, and use competitions to attract popularity."

But most of these competitions are irregular. "Many of them are just for fun and you will die. Even if you don't get it, you will die." If the results were expected, the game would probably end hastily in the middle," A Liang said.

A Liang once led a team to participate in a competition organized by a mobile phone seller. This competition was claimed to have 100 teams participating, but in the end there were only more than 10 teams, many of which were improvised grassroots teams. . "During the competition, I discovered that my opponent was openly using cheats." An angry A Liang went to the organizer and asked for a solution, but the organizer told him, "There are not many teams in the first place, and if we expel the team, there will be no one left."

At the end of 2018, a well-known domestic live broadcast platform held a competition. But when all the teams, including Qingjiu, arrived at the scene, they learned that the organizers required that each team could only send 2 team members, and the other 2 team members were anchors designated by the platform to participate.

Only then did Shanji discover that it turned out that the platform wanted to promote the popularity of the anchor by creating an event. "This directly leads to a decline in the level of the competition. Players are unable to perform to their normal level. Fans may feel disgusted when they see players paired with anchors, and they may even feel disgusted with 'making money by cheating'. We do not even rule out the possibility that both the platform and the players will lose fans." Shanji believes, " Without giants to standardize the industry, allowing the market to be flooded with chaotic events can only cause a damaging blow to the brand of chicken competitions. ”

3

90 grassroots clubs have no income. Those who can't persist can only disband

"The top priority now is to recruit more high-level players and reach the standard as soon as possible." On June 21, Lao Lei continued to arrange tasks for the club leaders and coaches. .

Previously, due to the frequent turnover of club personnel and the low level of the team, there were not many fans and monetization capabilities.

Since its establishment, Lao Lei’s team has been in a state of loss due to the lack of any results and the delay in finding investors to inject capital.

It is understood that the income of domestic e-sports clubs mainly comes from sponsor fees, commercial income such as e-commerce platforms, and live broadcast income signed by clubs and live broadcast platforms. However, usually only well-known clubs such as OMG and 4AM are favored by major sponsors. This has caused many small and medium-sized clubs to focus their income sources on the signing fees of live broadcast platforms.

Many e-sports clubs have focused on live streaming platforms as their source of income. In addition to signing a contract with the live broadcast platform, he also participates in events organized by the platform at any time.

"The total prize money for events held on the platform is usually between 100,000 and 200,000 yuan, and the champion can get tens of thousands of yuan." Aguai, the person in charge of a chicken-eating team in Beijing, explained, "But Due to the level, don’t even think about the championship bonus. It would be good if you can get a few thousand yuan.”

The platform does not always award cash. "Some platforms will directly give cash, but most of them use the team's promotional expenses on the platform to offset the bonus." Previously, Aguai had led the team to participate in an event organized by a well-known domestic platform. Although he eventually won A good ranking also comes with a bonus of 8,000 yuan, but the other party requires that the team must live broadcast on the platform for a certain period of time. "Tell me that the bonus will be distributed in the form of gifts during the live broadcast." But Aguai's team has already signed a contract before I chose another live broadcast platform. If I live broadcast on that platform again, it will involve the risk of default. "In the end, I can only give up the money, just play a game for free, which can be regarded as showing the face of the team."

"It is actually very cheap for platforms to sign clubs. Most domestic clubs are not well-known, and platforms only need to pay 10,000 to 20,000 yuan to sign a club." Industry observer Guo Weiling said, "But for many clubs, every year My income may only be this amount. Once it is spent, I can only supplement it by myself."

4

Will it be the next hit? Some players have moved to international servers, and grassroots teams are worried about the future

In less than a year, Peace Elite has gone through the development process of many e-sports games.

In early June, Sinolink Securities released a research report on Tencent Holdings, which mentioned that the current DAU of "Peace Elite" is stable at 40 million-60 million, and the average daily revenue is stable at 20 million-30 million yuan. , is Tencent's most popular mobile game besides "Honor of Kings", but the revenue volume cannot provide sufficient support for the company's performance. According to Sensor Tower data, within 72 hours of the launch of Peace Elite, Chinese players spent more than $14 million on the App Store, with an average of more than $4.7 million per day.

According to the May 2019 global game revenue list released by mobile data and analysis agency App Annie, "Honor of Kings" ranked first in both the IOS China revenue list and the global revenue list, with less than 1 The Peace Elites ranked third each month.

"We have learned from competition leagues such as Honor of Kings and League of Legends, hoping to create a better environment for the Peace Elite Club." said Liao Kan, director of Tencent Interactive Entertainment Photonics Market Center.

In fact, long before Tencent launched the official competition, the third-party live broadcast platform Huya had already launched a half-month "Elite Challenge", with its anchors paired with professional players and senior players to compete. .

"In the entire sports industry, whether it is traditional projects or e-sports events, if you want to make the market bigger, you will inevitably need to unite clubs to build alliances." Guo Weiling analyzed, "NBA basketball and e-sports in traditional events The League of Legends and Honor of Kings in the competition have a professional league system that includes many management links such as registration, transfer and supervision. ”

“But these prerequisites are star teams, which are not suitable for grassroots teams like us. As far as the team is concerned, there is still a huge problem in how to make money,” Aguai said.

In addition to the concerns of small and medium-sized teams, in the early days of the launch of Peace Elite, some players were questioned due to the modification of its game screen and some settings. According to multiple industry media reports, players have criticized the game for being overly modified and losing the pleasure of playing chicken.

Dabai said, “In fact, Tencent has also made subsequent adjustments, and the newly revised version of the game does not affect the viewing and excitement of the game.

"

Hu Lin (pseudonym) plays for an e-sports team in Sichuan. What worries him from time to time is that although the game is about to launch a league, will players who are skeptical about the game be able to buy it?

Also anxious like Hu Lin is Dahua, which runs an e-sports team in Hunan. Half a month ago, Dahua decided to shift the direction of the team to the NetEase Wilderness Project. He even planned to enter the Japanese market.

“How future leagues can bring players’ enthusiasm back into the game is what event organizers need to consider most urgently. "On June 22, senior industry observer Guo Weiling said.

"But what can be predicted is that future events will become more and more formal and there will be more and more. " Shanji analysis said, "There were no official events in the past. If a third-party platform held one, even if it was held once a month, there would be concerns about sustainability and other issues. But now if Tencent creates events, it will inevitably be similar to Honor of Kings, League of Legends, etc. competitions and create various subdivided competition systems. For professional players, this means gradually increasing exposure and a greater chance of future success. ”