Mobilizing a new era

CrossFire's much-hyped new version at vanguard of gaming revolution

E-sports' decades-long dependency on the personal computer is waning as China's cutting-edge developers shift battlegrounds away from the PC to mobile devices.

Trendy first-person shooter CrossFire is the latest major title to follow this pattern, with mobile platforms offering a new game mode called "multiplayer tactics combat".

A series of updates and new development strategies for the game were released by Tencent at a media conference in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on Thursday.

Tencent is hoping Cross-Fire's latest incarnation will kickstart an exciting new mobile era of e-sports. So far the game has attracted 200 million registered users and 21 million daily active users. At any given time, three million users will be online simultaneously.

With such impressive numbers to work with, Tencent's ultimate target is to build an international "e-sports ecosystem" for gamers.

"As the pioneer, CrossFire will take further steps to create an international e-sports ecosystem for multiplayer tactics combat games," said Joses Zhu, general manager of the Cooperative Group's marketing department within Tencent IEG.

"In the near future, we will launch the first edition of an international e-sports event for the multiplayer tactics combat game. We will select top players and bring an e-sports extravaganza to millions of fans. The event will be introduced in late January of 2018.

"In the battlefield of e-sports, we are building a new pyramid of events for multiplayer tactic combat games and trying to be the leading company in the field.

"In the future, we will build a more diversified e-sports system by working with live broadcast platforms, professional e-sports clubs and e-sports event developers."

Going live

Fueled by young people's social-media obsession, China's live broadcast industry has grown dramatically in recent years - in 2016 it was worth a whopping 20 billion yuan ($3 billion).

To tap into that market and coinciding with the CrossFire mobile launch, Tencent has signed about 5,000 specialized live broadcasters.

Meanwhile, in cooperation with different live broadcast platforms, Tencent has also committed to a multi-million yuan investment in its so-called "Broadcaster Bounty Plan" to help nurture talent in the field.

The plan is already reaping rewards, with one CrossFire mobile broadcast attracting 15 million viewers - 5 million of whom interacted with broadcasters during the program.

"In recent years, live broadcast has been turning into a heated topic, and live broadcasts of gaming and e-sports has always been the core section of the business," said Zhu.

"CrossFire hopes to have extensive cooperation and interaction with live broadcast platforms to bring a more diversified and entertaining experience to fans."

shifutian@chinadaily.com.cn