Research study details

The esports has great economic potential across the globe. It generates revenues in Asia Pacific with US$78.4 billion, accounting for 49% of global game revenues. China, South Korea and Japan are Big 3 of esports in Asia. While China and South Korea both officially recognized esports as early as 2003 and 2000, Japan rather had a slow start of esports in 2018. The development of Japan’s esports industry was rather compromised by restrictive regulations, referring to preventing esports tournaments from offering cash prizes of more than 100,000 yen (around HK$7,200). But the Japanese government encouraged the formation of the Japan eSports Union (JeSU), which in turn overcame the esports players’ hurdles of entitling to prize pools.

Similarly, the South Korean government devoted emphasis to the cultural and creative industries from 1997 onwards, which sprouted the ‘Korean wave’. It is supplemented by a widespread culture of PC bangs. Another highlight in Korea is the formation of The Korean eSports Association (KeSPA) in 2000, which requires esports teams to offer mandatory 1-year contracts to their esports players with a minimum salary of 20 million KRW (around HK$115,000).

As compared to Japan and South Korea, China is the largest esports market in 2020, followed by North America and Western Europe. At first, gaming was associated with criminal activity and mental health risks. The popularity of esports in China, however, led to policy adjustments to coordinate esports. Esports events were included as one of the top 10 transformations and upgrades in 13th Five-Year Plan for Sports Development. And E-sports Hall of Fame were set up to honour the professional players who have made significant contributions to the Chinese esports.