China’s esports market, which is the world’s largest, has taken a hit from the country’s rigid COVID-19 control measures, according to industry insiders, while being little affected by licensing restrictions on new video games, reports the South China Morning Post.
The struggle to keep esports alive and kicking in the world’s largest video gaming market has been particularly tough in terms of staging offline events in cities, hosting audiences and communicating with various clubs because of ongoing pandemic controls, according to Zhao Mingyi, general manager of major game publisher NetEase’s esports unit, which was started in 2017 and now has more than 300 employees.
NetEase has held four rounds of competition for Naraka: Bladepoint, an action-adventure battle royale game released last July, but has not been able to sell a single audience ticket to this event so far.