Tencent Holdings Ltd. recently had a pair of victories for its franchise of League of Legends, with a successful e-sports tournament that drew more viewers than ever before and a strong debut for a new Netflix video series.
An anime series based on the League fantasy universe titled “Arcane,” recently debuted to a success in China, garnering 130 million views in just a few hours and becoming the most searched item on Tencent’s streaming platform. The show, which was co-created by Tencent-owned game developer Riot Games Inc., is available to watch on Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.’s Twitch.
Tencent recently benefited from a popular video game show and the success of an esports tournament. It is one of the companies attempting to cope with Beijing’s crackdown on the industry. Last August, Chinese authorities announced that children could only play video games for three hours per week in most cases, causing Tencent and other companies’ stocks to plummet.
Riot used a live premiere event in Los Angeles and advertisements posted at bus stops throughout the city to promote “Arcane.” Tencent-owned Epic Games Inc. even debuted a League hero in its popular Fortnite game.
According to Esports Charts, the League of Legends World Championship set a new record with over 4 million concurrent viewers tuning in earlier this weekend. That’s without factoring in Chinese viewers, who provided the winning team for this year’s competition and have watched a replay of the match more than 11 million times on Tencent-backed Bilibili Inc. The streaming service stated that total views of the finals night increased by 20% over the previous year without specifying the exact figure.
Chinese supporters erupted in cheers across bars and university campuses after the Edward Gaming team’s victory, with some even streaking. Videos of college students waving flags and chanting in celebration of the victory went viral quickly.
The Communist Party Youth League of China stated that they are not happy and impressed, saying that fans should react rationally and exposure that is indecent would result in them being detained saying that it is not worth it, and that it is not right to break the law and increase your chances of contracting the virus.
After the said tournament, Chinese esports stocks rose with the topic of the home team winning being viewed more than 3 billion times on the microblogging site Weibo Corp. Both Dalian Zeus Entertainment and Hangzhou Electric Soul increased by the daily limit of 10%.
Tencent has invested heavily in expanding its lead as China’s go-to games publisher and platform into a broader entertainment ecosystem. The company is investing in talent agencies, streaming sites (including Trovo Live, its own version of Twitch for global markets), and tournament organizers in order to build the infrastructure needed to transform pro gaming from a niche into an important part of the industry’s growth.
The mutually reinforcing effects of shows like Arcane, which benefit from a large built-in audience to gain notice and then use that notoriety to introduce more people to the game, are key to the strategy. League of Legends has a global player base of over 100 million people. Riot Games is also making Arcane clips available for people to remix and create new online content with, effectively leveraging the game’s fan base to increase promotional reach.
