The first China E-sports awards ceremony was launched on Oct 18 at Beijing Jingyuan Art Center.
Li Xiaofeng, the first title defender for World of Warcraft (WOW) worldwide, also known as Emperor or WE.IGE.SKY, and Bian Zhengwei, the champion commander in WOW, were honored with e-sports icon awards.
The China e-sports development center initiated the e-sports awards with the purpose of commending e-sports athletes and related employees nationwide. During the ceremony, eight grand prizes were announced and distinguished guests were invited to distribute the awards.
E-sports derived from the game industry. They combine both sport and entertainment, and span the fields of Internet, traditional media and mass consumption. The State General Administration of Sports officially authorized young people’s favorite e-sports as the 99th sports athletic event on Nov 18, 2003.
With the rapid development of the e-sports industry, e-sports culture progressed as well. Over 36 million individuals watched the “League of Legend” world final last year. In addition, the live webcast stemmed from production and interpretation of the game video. Computer game peripherals, including hardware devices, dolls and animation videos, have achieved good markets as well.
“E-sports have created a unique culture boom and stimulated a flourishing of e-sports in return,” Zeng Daqin, vice president of the Jingyuan art center, said in an interview. “The China e-sports industry will enter into the phase of faster development through live webcast platforms, VR and GPRS”.
E-sports have driven approximately 136 million young people, mostly men, into its fever globally, bringing in 30 billion yuan (about five billion dollars) for China to date. Associated products, like VR, have also been rapidly creating new technologies to help spur the e-sports culture industry chain and satisfy surging demands.