In the final week of May esports business news has slowed down in the country, but there were a number of market developments worth noting.
Among the top stories: Tencent unveiled its esports plan for Game for Peace; a Royal Never Give-Up League of Legends professional player was featured in a KFC Commercial; esports organization SinoDragon Gaming rebranded its logo and name for the League of Legends Pro League (LPL) Summer Season; PSG.LGD partnered with Monster Energy to host a fan party at the JingDong Gaming (JDG) home venue in Beijing; ESL One Birmingham partnered with Huya to open the Mercedes-Benz MVP voting path to the Chinese Dota 2 community; and Dota 2 The International Shanghai 2019 tickets sold out in 53 seconds in China.
Every week The Esports Observer presents the biggest esports business news in China, including investments, acquisitions, sponsorships, and other major news from the region.
Tencent Unveils Esports Plan for Game for Peace
Credit: Tencent Games
On May 23, Tencent 
unveiled the future esports plan for its mobile game – Game for Peace. According to the announcement, Tencent plans to quickly build a basic Game for Peace esports tournament system, including a professional teams verification process, hiring tournament shoutcasters, and launching the first Game for Peace esports tournament, Game for Peace Tencent Game Arena (TGA), to take place sometime in July in the Chinese city of Xi’an.
For professional teams verification, esports organizations will need to provide company qualification information and register Game for Peace teams on Tencent’s Verification Management System.
It should be noted that the registered capital of a certified organization should not be less than one million Chinese Yuan ($130K USD), and the registered professional player’s age should over the age of 18. If the professional player is between 16-18, a guardian’s consent is required. The verification process will begin in early June, and the duration of the registration period will be one week.
Once a team is verified by Tencent, it will be qualified for the Tencent organized training competition, which can lead to potential qualification for the higher tier Game for Peace tournament. In addition, verified teams will receive high priority recommendation to attend Game for Peace third-party tournament sanctioned by Tencent.
Tencent will hire shoutcasters through online applications and at the university level. Online hiring will start in early June, while university hiring will start in mid-June at three Chinese universities including China Communication University, Zhejiang University of Media and Communication, and Shanghai Theatre Academy.
On May 7, Tencent Games shut down its PUBG Mobile server in China, and released a government-friendly version of the game called Game for Peace, which received approval by the Chinese government. According to a report by Sensor Tower, in the three days after the game was listed on Apple’s IOS platform, Game for Peace gained over $14M from App Store exclusively in China.
The International Shanghai Tickets Sell Out in ‘53 Seconds’ in China
Credit: The Esports Observer/Esports Business Solutions UG
On May 24, ticket sales of Dota 2 The International Shanghai 2019 officially started. During the day of ticket sales, a number of problems occurred, including selling time delay, and technical issues reported by ticket purchasers The problems led to widespread criticism on Chinese social media Weibo.
On May 21, Valve announced that Dota 2 The International Shanghai 2019 would start ticket sales on May 24 at 12 p.m. CST for Chinese fans. Unfortunately, the real ticket sales time for Chinese fans was delayed by one hour to 1 p.m. CST, due to reports from Chinese Dota 2 players that they couldn’t get access to receive their Early Access Code in the Dota 2 system. The Early Access Code was a new rule announced by Valve in order to prevent scalping (buying tickets simply for the purpose of reselling them at a higher price), which could give the holder one-hour early access to purchase The International tickets after the opening time.
According to Damai, the exclusive Chinese ticket sales platform of the event, all tickets were sold out in 53 seconds, and the Grand Final tickets sold out in 27 seconds. It should be noted that 9,268 tickets for August 20-21; 9,268 tickets for August 22-23; and 8,268 tickets for the Grand Final on August 24-25 were available to Chinese customers.
Damai claimed the system was stable during the ticket sales process, but a large number of customers reached out to Damai and game distributor Perfect World to complain. The common complaint was that customers completed the required information (which validates identity) in 20 seconds but failed to get through the system, and received the message, “Internet issues, please try again later” during the payment process.
At the time of writing, the price of the Dota 2 The International Shanghai 2019 August 24-25 two-day ticket has reached approximately ¥15K RMB ($2.17K) each on Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao. The original ticket price was ¥2099 ($304).
Other Esports Business News:
Credit: LGD Gaming
- On May 23, esports organization SinoDragon Gaming (SDG) rebranded its League of Legends team logo for the League of Legends Pro League (LPL) Summer Season, with the new name Dominus Esports (DMO).
