The founding president of the Esports Association of Hong Kong (ESAHK), China stated on Friday (Aug. 23) that more support is required for gifted Hong Kong gamers who frequently have to pay for their travel expenses to compete abroad.
Eric Yeung commented after 16-year-old Cheng Yip-kai took home the city's first Pokémon GO world championship title after booking his own trip to Hawaii.
"Right now, unfortunately, most of the games are commercially running for those competitions, rather than falling within the traditional sports framework," he said.
"So I think it's a bit difficult using the traditional funding way to fund them and to support them to go to compete against others internationally."
Yeung also said Esports can be integrated with other industries to drive growth, noting the lack of a professional league and competitions in the SAR.
"Esports itself is not a standalone industry. But rather, in Hong Kong we could work closely together with the innovation and technology industry as well as the traditional sports industry in order to groom a better result for the Esports industry," he said.
Meanwhile, Yeung said the success of blockbuster game "Wukong" - or "Monkey King" - marked a milestone for China's Esports.
The game, based on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, is the first triple-A video game in the country's history.
"The major difference between those AAA games and those traditional Esports games is the investment. When we are talking about the AAA level games, it's like shooting a movie - we're talking about maybe even hundreds of millions dollars of investment for a single game," Yeung said.
"The investment for a traditional mobile game is much lower."
Related News:
Mystery of Black Myth Wukong: Chinese martial arts realized by motion capture
Comment