China’s video gaming giant Tencent touts global esports ambitions ahead of Asian Games

Tencent Holdings, the world’s biggest video games publisher by revenue, sees a larger role for its esports business on the global stage ahead of the upcoming Asian Games, and with China’s recent easing of regulations on the industry.

“The League of Legends S11 finals had over 73 million [peak] viewers … which is comparable to the world’s top sports events,” Mark Ren, chief operating officer of Tencent, said at the 2023 Global Esports Summit and Tencent Esports Annual Conference in Shenzhen on Friday. “I believe that in the upcoming Asian Games, esports will definitely attract the attention of global esports users again.”

At the conference, Tencent released the latest annual tournament plans for its 11 titles, including League of Legends and Honour of Kings, and revealed two new titles for esports, including Valorant, the hit first-person shooting game developed by its subsidiary Riot Games, which had its debut in mainland China on Wednesday.

Eric Feng, director of TJ Sports and head of Valorant Esports, said on Friday that they are in the process of preparing for the highly-anticipated tournaments in China. TJ Sports is a joint venture company established by Tencent and Riot Games, which Tencent acquired in 2011.

“We are three years behind other regions [which have] very high user scale and maturity in professional clubs,” Feng told the South China Morning Post, adding that he was confident of catching up in a short time.

Ren said that esports, which has become “an emerging sport with truly global influence”, has entered a critical “shaping period” in its development.

Kenneth Fok, president of the Asian Electronic Sports Federation, said it would be a “historic and touching moment” when esports debuts as an official medal event at the Hangzhou Asian Games this year. “We never gave up on our dream to make esports a recognised sport … I believe this will be where our efforts and hard work finally pay off,” he said.