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E sports in growing period in overseas…

Experts say that e-Sports (a game that competes with the game through competition) can become a new growth engine for the game industry, which accounts for more than half of our content exports.

However, Korea, which was called `e-sports`, has long been the market leader in North America and China. It is pointed out that systematic support and active investment for e-sports is needed for revival of Korean game industry.

According to the industry on July 20, overseas e-sports market is growing, and professional athletic schools are emerging.

According to market researchers Newju and Superdata Research, the global e-sports market last year was about USD 900 million (about 1 trillion won) from about USD 500 million (USD 544 million), based on differences in league and streaming platforms Market size difference). This is a 45 ~ 52% increase from the previous year. Especially, market researcher Newspaper expects global e-sports market to grow by 41% this year to KRW 781.8 billion and increase to KRW 1.70 trillion by 2020.

Currently, the global e-sports market is dominated by North America and China. According to Newju, North America and China will account for 37% and 15% respectively in the world e-sports market this year. Korea, on the other hand, is only 7%. The remaining small markets are expected to account for the remaining 41%.

Especially, the e-sports initiative is evolving the industry by combining virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies with e-sports (characters in the game are introduced into the real arena with AR technology).

In fact, AR technology has been used to relay MVP Phoenix and OG games in `The International 2` e-sports `The International 2016`, which was held in Seattle in August last year. In the relay screen, two team players selected the heroes (characters) in front of each team booth, and they got a great response from the audience. The Dota 2 heroes that appeared in the real world with AR technology also interviewed the team. It also tried to broadcast e-sports to show this game as a VR video. Users can see the items held by this hero by selecting the heroes lined up on the left and right of the relay screen. Numerical information such as experience of both teams can be confirmed intuitively.

The growth of e-sports in China, which is managed by the government as a national athletic sport, is also getting attention.

Meanwhile, Chinese authorities are holding the local market much higher than those announced by overseas market researchers. It was revealed by the Chinese authorities (China Industrial Information Network, China Water Association) game committee that it recorded KRW 3 trillion in 2014 and KRW 8 trillion last year. In the first quarter of this year, about KRW 3 trillion has already reached more than a third of last year`s scale. Earlier this year, Ten Cent, the largest internet company in the country, unveiled plans to raise the local e-sports market to KRW 17 trillion over the next five years.

E-sports related associations are actively being established in North America and the UK. In the past year alone, major organizations such as the World e-Sports Association, the British e-Sports Association, and the North American e-Sports Association have been established.

It is also helping to train athletes who are the core of e-sports. In the United States, some universities, such as Robert Morris University and Pikeville University, offer scholarships equal to those of existing athletes in the e-Sports Department.

In Japan, where the proportion of e-sports in the global e-sports market is small, corporate investment in e-sports is wriggling. According to the Asahi Shimbun, a vocational school that trains professional e-sports players opens in April next year in Osaka, Japan. It opened an e-sports department at the Osaka Communication Arts University in April last year, which is operated by Ji Kei Group, which opened an e-sports school in Tokyo.

By Kim Soo Yeon newsnews@


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