Team TS clinch Honor of Kings crown in final

Chinese professional e-sports team TS took home the top prize of 13.44 million ($1.93 million) at the final round of Honor of Kings World Champion Cup 2020 held in Beijing on Sunday, attracting more than 350 million viewers online.

The success and popularity of the event showcases the capital's commitment to e-sports which it has been promoting in recent years.

The championship was the first large-scale offline cultural event to be held in Beijing after epidemic prevention and control moved back toward normality, said Liu Shaojian, director of the Beijing State-owned cultural assets management center.

The ticketing platform for the event said it was also the first e-sports competition to resume public ticket sales. Over 2,000 tickets for the final round sold out in just eight minutes when they went on sale on Aug 10.

The hugely popular Honor of Kings is a multiplayer online battle arena and is the most played mobile video game in China. Video games industry analyst Daniel Ahmad told the UK-based Independent newspaper there were over 100 million daily active players during the pandemic. Prior to that, the number was 60 million.

Tencent, the developer the highest-grossing mobile game in China, offered a prize pool of 32 million yuan for the event.

According to The Esports Observer, a source for e-sports business news and insights, Honor of Kings World Champion Cup is the highest prize money tournament in the Honor of Kings e-sports ecosystem as well as in the Chinese mobile e-sports scene.

It is not the first time international e-sports competitions have been held in Beijing. Tournaments of popular games including Cross Fire, FIFA and QQ Speed have been held in the capital many times. In 2017, S7 League of Legends World Championship was held at Beijing National Stadium.

There are more games to come according to Tencent and the Beijing government, as they collaborate on a plan to integrate e-sports into city lives.

"We hope the city and e-sports industry can create mutual success," said Hou Miao, vice-president of Tencent Games and general manager of Tencent e-sports.

China's e-sports industry is growing fast in scale and popularity. According to South China Morning Post, China's e-sports revenue increased by almost 55 percent year-on-year to 71.9 billion yuan in the first half of this year.

yinruowei@chinadaily.com.cn