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A university town where you earn credit by playing games

Internet giant Tencent plans to build an ‘e-sports town’ complete with university to train the next generation of professional gamers

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A screenshot from Honor of Kings, Tencent’s popular online role-playing game. Photo: SCMP Handout
Meng Jing

Playing video games on your smartphone during lectures is undoubtedly frowned upon at most colleges.

But imagine a university where fine-tuning your League of Legends strategy or honing your dragon-battling skills in Honor of Kings is actually encouraged. In fact, it’s the reason you’re there and after lessons finish you can head off and enjoy a white-knuckle ride based around your favourite online games at a theme park just a short walk away.

Sound far-fetched? It could soon be a reality under plans by internet giant Tencent to build an ‘e-sports town’ in China dedicated entirely to competitive gaming.

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The project would include a theme park, tournament venues and even a university to train the next generation of professional gamers.

The move by Tencent, the world’s largest video game company by revenue, comes amid a nationwide frenzy to get competitive gaming recognised as an official sport at the Olympic Games.

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The planned ‘e-sports town’ will be located in Wuhu city in Eastern China’s Anhui province where Tencent has inked a framework agreement with the local government to create a string of online gaming offerings.

It is only natural for Tencent and other gaming companies to build e-sports towns since their core business is based on gaming
Kenneth Chang, China Universities E-sports League
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