Behind EDG to win the championship
The Myth of Capital in "League of Legends"
▶In the circle of friends, the old people are sending snow, the young people are sending EDG...
▶In the early morning of November 7, the League of Legends S11 finals, the Chinese LPL team EDG E-Sports Club won the championship.
▶The hot search on Weibo this night was almost "contracted" by S11 and EDG.
▶Young people and e-sports enthusiasts cheered for EDG. The peak popularity of S11 live broadcast at station B reached 500 million people. This is a carnival night for young people.
▶Although the S11 finals has ended, this is far from the end of this event. The commercialization of the League of Legends IP is slowly weaving a tight network.
This game with a "mythical story" as the background is performing an unprecedented "capital myth".
In the early morning of November 7th, in the League of Legends S11 finals, the Chinese LPL team EDG E-sports club defeated the South Korean LCK team DK 3:2 and won the championship.
Just a few hours after EDG won the championship, the first animated series of "League of Legends" "The Battle of Two Cities" was launched on Tencent, and the clicks quickly exceeded 100 million.
In the past few days, a reporter from Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News found that, backed by the game "League of Legends", the producer of League of Legends, the fist game, and Tencent are gradually implementing the pan-entertainment development system. In addition to the game matrix and events, they are making a lot of money. Full, it has also spawned many fields such as animation, music, virtual idols, comics, novels, and figures.
In fact, with the advent of the concept of "meta universe", Riot Games and Tencent apparently accelerated the pace of League of Legends IP development. In addition to drama series, there are also variety shows that are being produced.
Zhu Chenghua, managing director of the entertainment business of Riot Games China, said that the launch of "War of Two Cities" is the beginning of the cultural and creative business of League of Legends in the next ten years. Riot Games will deeply develop the entertainment market with Tencent and build around "War of Two Cities". A series of online and offline activities such as different types of game rewards, music, merchandise, exhibitions, etc.
Behind the championship
E-sports popularization trend appears
In the early morning of November 7, the Chinese LPL team EDG and the South Korean LCK team DK fought for 5 rounds.
In the end, EDG, who was not optimistic before the game, defeated DK with a score of 3:2 and successfully won the S11 global finals.
This night, the young man was completely boiling.
According to incomplete statistics from reporters, among the live broadcast platform data of the finals of the event, Tencent Video and Weibo platforms had the highest number of online viewers when the number of live broadcasts was close to 200 million, and the cumulative popularity of live broadcasts on platforms such as station B, Douyu and Huya also exceeded 500 million.
The Moments of Friends and Weibo hot searches on that day were also continuously dominated by EDG and S11 related topics. There were as many as 20 hot searches on Weibo.
CCTV News launched #EDG夺冠# with 3.39 billion readings and more than 4.2 million discussions.
Stars such as Wang Junkai, Fan Chengcheng, Zhu Yilong, Zhang Binbin, Luo Yunxi also turned into "fans" to send congratulations.
Offline, the joy of the boys’ dormitory in Tiannanhaibei spread throughout the night sky.
Many people sigh, maybe only the Chinese football team entered the World Cup with such momentum.
"Although "League of Legends" has entered China for ten years, its influence is still huge, especially among young people." Li Xin, an industry observer, said that this year is China's LPL division following IG and FPX to win the championship. After winning for the third time.
In a sense, in the past, e-sports and games were considered by many people to be unsuccessful, but now with the development of e-sports, games like "League of Legends" will receive more and more attention, and China's e-sports is also Gradually enter the mainstream vision.
According to a report from Xinhua News Agency on November 5, the Hangzhou Asian Games e-sports event was officially announced, and League of Legends and Glory of Kings have been listed as official events in the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games.
It is worth mentioning that this is the first time that e-sports has become an official event of the Asian Games, and the results of the event will be included in the national medal list.
The research report of Huatai Securities pointed out that behind China's e-sports championship and exit is the continuous standardized development of the domestic game industry, and the trend of e-sports popularity continues to appear.
The traffic is astonishing 180 million players worldwide
"League of Legends" is a competitive MOBA online game developed by American Riot Games and operated by Tencent Games in Mainland China.
It was launched on the US server on October 27, 2009, and officially landed in China on September 22, 2011. As soon as it was launched, it was enthusiastically sought after by Chinese players.
In 2018, in the finals of the Asian Games League of Legends e-sports exhibition held in Jakarta, Indonesia, the Chinese team defeated the South Korean team by a big score of 3-1, and won the first Asian Games League of Legends championship. The players were agitated.
How much energy is there for an old IP that has been in operation for 10 years?
"League of Legends" gives a breathtaking answer.
From 2016, the monthly active players of the global mobile game exceeded 100 million, and the highest daily global simultaneous online in August 2019 exceeded 8 million. In 2021, the total number of monthly players in League of Legends has reached 115 million.
The latest data from Riot Games shows that 180 million people worldwide play League of Legends terminal games, mobile games and derivative games every month.
While the flow is amazing, it also brings huge wealth.
According to estimates by SuperData, a US marketing company, Riot’s revenue in 2009 was approximately US$1.29 million, and its revenue in the second year was as high as US$17.25 million.
In 2011, Riot’s revenue soared to $85 million.
In 2020, it brought in revenue of $1.75 billion.
The copyright of the live broadcast of the game is rising
In the industry chain of "League of Legends", the layout of the event is the most important part of its profitability. The ever-increasing number of brand sponsors and the rising competition copyright have all proved the commercial value of the event.
At present, on a global scale, "League of Legends" has a total of 12 competition areas, including China's LPL and South Korea's LCK. Each year there are more than 100 professional teams from each area, and more than 800 professional players participate in the competition, competing for regional rankings and global rankings. Finals points, and then participate in the annual global finals.
Statistics show that the number of LPL sponsors of the highest level of League of Legends professional tournaments in mainland China has increased from 6 in 2016 to 14 in 2020.
In February 2019, Nike became the exclusive clothing partner of the LPL Division for a price of 240 million yuan in 4 years.
Red Star News reporter noted that only LPL sponsors also include Mercedes-Benz, Bright, TCL, Intel, Mobil, etc., covering automobiles, beverages, and digital home appliances.
The high competition copyright is another embodiment of the commercial value of League of Legends.
In 2019, Station B won the exclusive live broadcast of the League of Legends Global Finals 2020-2022 at a price of 800 million yuan, setting a new high for the copyright of e-sports events.
In April of this year, Huya Live obtained the exclusive live broadcast rights for the League of Legends Professional League (LPL), League of Legends Development League (LDL) and LPL All-Star Weekend from 2021 to 2025 for 2.013 billion yuan.
As early as September 2019, Tencent Interactive Entertainment and Riot Games, which owns "League of Legends", announced the establishment of a joint venture company Tenking Sports to fully operate "League of Legends" events.
At the time of its establishment, Tengjing Sports clearly put forward a three-year development goal, that is, the total revenue of the league will reach 1 billion yuan, and the time of watching the league will reach 4 billion hours.
On January 9 this year, Tengjing Sports announced that it has basically achieved the goal of the first phase.
The monthly turnover of mobile games online may exceed 1.1 billion
In October last year, "League of Legends Mobile Games" was launched in many countries and regions in Europe, Asia, and North America. One year after its launch, the global cumulative revenue has exceeded 150 million U.S. dollars.
On October 8 this year, "League of Legends Mobile Game" officially landed in China through Tencent. Four days later, the number of downloads on the entire network has reached 14 million.
Relevant data shows that "League of Legends Mobile Games" landed the second largest mobile game revenue in China in October, second only to Tencent's other game "Glory of the King".
According to the "October 2021 Mobile Game Report" released by Gamma Data, in October 2021, the actual sales revenue of China's mobile game market was 18.638 billion yuan, a month-on-month increase of 3.37% and a year-on-year increase of 0.48%.
The report also mentioned that the performance of the new game "League of Legends Mobile Games" has attracted attention from all parties. In October 2021, among the top 5 new games in the first month, "League of Legends Mobile Games" occupies the top of the list and has remained at the top 10 on the iOS best-selling list. Within, the monthly turnover may exceed 1.1 billion.
The first appearance of the IP industry chain involves animation and variety show record hands
The reporter noticed that with the EDG winning the championship and the outing of the S11 event, the IP "League of Legends" is also accelerating its development.
Industry observer Li Xin introduced that as far as the IP development of "League of Legends" is concerned, it is mainly divided into the game itself, events and derivatives.
According to many senior players, "League of Legends" can be downloaded for free whether it is a mobile game or a mobile game.
In the game, players can spend money to buy skins or unlock heroes. The price of skins ranges from tens of yuan to hundreds of yuan.
"You can play "League of Legends" without spending money on any equipment or skins, but experienced players will recharge for a cool gaming experience." Senior player Benben said, "In the past few years, I spent about seven or eight thousand. ."
In the derivatives industry chain, "League of Legends" has involved dozens of fields such as animated series, variety shows, comics, virtual idols, records, hero figures, games, novels, clothing, etc., with a total of more than 200 product categories.
At 10 o'clock on November 7, a few hours after EDG won the championship, the first animated series of "League of Legends" "The Battle of Two Cities" was broadcast on Tencent Video, with a Douban score of 9.2 points.
In addition, the first reality show for the League of Legends Mobile Game Professional Qualification Tournament has been officially announced and produced by a team led by well-known variety director Yan Min.
In terms of music, as early as 2013, Riot Games used the characters in "League of Legends" to form virtual bands five kills rock band and K/DA girl group to create records.
In 2018, the single "Pop Stars" created by the K/DA girl group sold 9,000 copies in the first week of its launch, ranking TOP10 on the "Billboard" pop digital music sales chart and TOP1 on the Apple Music South Korean pop music chart. One of the most popular songs.
On shopping platforms such as JD.com and Taobao, League of Legends has also set up flagship stores, which mainly sell related IP figures, clothing, blind boxes, etc.
Although the overall sales of related derivatives have not been made public, some media have calculated based on the sales data of the official mall that the total sales of the brand co-branded products launched in the past two years in China have reached at least 20 million.
The reporter noticed that the price of the "League of Legends" figure ranges from more than one hundred to more than one thousand. The highest sales volume is an Akali figure that sells for more than 500 yuan. ", there are also voices that are slightly rough.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter Qiu Junfeng
Questions about the future
Can the late mobile game version catch up with the bonus?
How many possibilities can classic IP create?
In March 2021, relevant data showed that League of Legends ranked 39th among the 50 most profitable IPs in the world with a total revenue of about 12.4 billion U.S. dollars (approximately RMB 79.1 billion).
With the further prosperity of the IP derivative chain and business ecology, "League of Legends" will become a super IP with a level of 100 billion.
In fact, with the launch of the hit "War of Two Cities", the League of Legends IP has already been explored in film and television.
However, Zhang Ming, an observer of the game industry, believes that after ten years of entering China, the influence of "League of Legends" has declined. reason.
From the data point of view, the mobile game version of "League of Legends" soon reached the second place in downloads after it was launched, but there is still a long way to go in the future if it is to shake the country that "Glory of Kings" has spent 6 years on. .
"League of Legends is a well-deserved brother in the end game, but as a rookie in the mobile game industry, there are still many problems in the game experience." Senior player Xiao Fei said.
In 2015, Tencent launched the mobile game "Glory of the King", which was considered by many players to be a simplified version of "League of Legends".
Subsequently, "King of Glory" dominated the mobile game world.
According to the latest research report of Sensor Tower, the cumulative revenue of "Honor of Kings" since its launch in 2015 has exceeded US$10 billion.
However, the development of pan-entertainment IP in "League of Legends" will inevitably be affected by policies.
Many industry insiders stated in interviews that in August 2021, the National Press and Publication Administration issued the "Notice on Further Strict Management and Practically Preventing Minors from Indulging in Online Games", and many ministries and commissions have also issued notices on games for minors. Time and game content were managed and required.
Tencent’s latest Q3 financial report also shows that as of September 2021, the proportion of minors playing games in the domestic domestic market is 0.7%, which is a significant drop from 6.4% in September 2020.
The road of IP development for "League of Legends" is not smooth.
The reporter also noticed that after "League of Legends" became popular, Riot Games did not launch more new games to occupy the market for a long time.
Game designer Zhang Yu said that among the great game companies, none of them can “seal the gods” with just one product. Riot games have repeatedly been criticized as alternatives because of their single product.
On the other hand, Zhang Yu believes that the current IP development thinking must break the circle, expand different types of tracks on the basis of IP, absorb potential consumers of different tastes, and at the same time not only pay attention to game feelings in derivative entertainment products, but It is for a wide range of people, so that non-gaming fans can also resonate and consume the game IP, which puts forward more requirements on the idea of IP development.
In the future, how far can "League of Legends" continue to go, and how many possibilities can this classic IP create?
Everything remains to be seen.