Hello and welcome to this edition of Nihao Europe. It's no surprise that we're living in the golden age of eSports. Just like rap music back in the 90s and online gaming over the past decade, eSports now is favored by many and becoming mainstream culture. In today's program, we first take you to the gaming lounge Area 52 in Vienna, the capital of Austria. Every weekend, the organizers of Area 52 host several tournaments which attract many young adults, from small and community-based contests to big international qualifiers. We're here in Area 52, which is where the Super Smash Bros. competition is taking place, right behind me right now. So we got to be a little more quiet, but this is the place where people gather to game, where people gather to compete, and it's all brought together by one common theme, which is video games. Game enthusiasts come to this place on a regular basis to spend their day playing video and console games, enjoying a breathtaking gaming experience with their friends. Thomas Kobers, one of the players in the game and also the organizer of this event, told us he spent thousands of hours preparing for the game. If we're gonna look at my Switch statistics, I have about 2500 hours into the game and that's only on my console because of post-eternity I'm not always playing on my console. So I would say I'm one of the people who grind the game the most. So you have some differences in people. A few players just played for the fun of it, but they're still good. So there is the thing about talent versus work. But most of the people here today have spent hundreds or thousands of hours into the game, and that shows about their performance. According to Coburs, 16 players are competing against each other in Super Smash Bros. for tournaments on Nintendo Switch, of which only the top three players get the prize. But most people aren't here for the awards. The game that the 16 players have gathered to compete here today is Super Smash Bros. A game by Nintendo that brings characters from all sorts of different games and puts them in one place where you can choose one and battle it out with your friends to see who's the last one remaining. The game that 16 players are here to gather today to be playing is Super Smash Bros. A game by Nintendo that brings characters from all sorts of different games and puts them together in one place so you can pick one, battle it out with your friends and see who's the last one remaining. This right here is a game that I myself played as well. I mean look at this. You have different places to battle it out. You have characters from all sorts of different games, not just Nintendo. You have characters such as Pac-Man, Mario, all the popular characters as well as some obscure ones. What you do is you choose one character, so do your friends, and you pick one of these maps. Tons of maps to choose from. Let's just pick a random one right here. These are all the characters you have available to you, and this isn't even all of them, as I can tell. Now, you have someone popular like Sonic, I'm sure you recognize. Pokemon, Mario, Donkey Kong, all the popular ones in Japan. You pick one, battle out with your friends, they might pick a different one, you guys might pick the same one. What you do is you try to knock each other off the map so that they fall to their deaths. And you might be limited by how many lives you have. But this is it. It's a simple simple game which can bring tons of fun we are here at area 52 one of our founding members at the es4 the biggest gaming club actually in austria where a lot of semi professional and amateur players gather to train together to compete in amateur tournaments and it's an important hub for Austrian esports. It's pretty important to have a good basis of gamers and improve them in their skills to become professional gamers for our can now compete in the two major leagues in Austria to get a ticket to the international esports tournaments. According to a study carried out by Austrian Association for Entertainment Software, more than 4 million Austrians consume video games, and many of them regularly follow esports tournaments via streaming services or conventional media. A bit over 50% of Austrian people are involved in gaming, and it's pretty even between male and females. Then we have the eSports number, which is one in seven is involved in eSports here in Austria. This means they are competing in tournaments, they are watching streams of tournaments, they are generally interested in that kind of thing. We have two major leagues here in Austria. One is the A1 eSports League, which features like four or five games, League of Legends, Valorant, Brawl Stars, Clash Royale, sometimes Rocket League. So different every season, but these are the main games for this league. And then we have eBundesliga, which is like a partnership with the Austrian National Soccer League and they are featuring the game FIFA, like a soccer simulation, their league and in both leagues everyone can compete so there is no selection process in there. As a player you can sign up and you can compete in that league and over the years we had a couple of players that gained access to the international eSports market through this league so other big teams of teams based in Germany or Spain, they also scout our leagues here in Austria obviously and they see young talents and they recruit young talents into their teams. Our latest example is the League of Legends player called Seas. He got from the A1 Esports League here in Austria to a German team, Berlin International Gaming, and then from the German team now to a Spain team and is now a professional Esports player and also competing against LEC teams in League of Legends. In recent years the Esports market in Europe has grown rapidly and the growth is forecast to continue. As a key region for the esports industry, Europe accounts for almost one third of all global esports revenues and is host to more than 70 million esports viewers. Some countries are further ahead than others, for example, Germany, which is probably the biggest esports market in Europe currently. And it's home to one of the most important global events companies, ESL. But there are other countries where esports is also becoming an important sector of the economy, which is demonstrated in moves to legislate the sector, such as in France, for for example which is starting to implement regulation for esports around safeguarding for players and teams or if we look at Ireland another country which is showing growth in the sector it's recently launched a national not-for-profit body to promote esports in Ireland and of course obviously in the UK. It's a hugely growing market you know according to UKEE which is our trade association for the UK's games and interactive entertainment industry, the UK esports sector was valued at around 100 million in 2019 so obviously it's becoming an important factor for generating revenue. Yeah, so it's growing all over. On the other side of the planet, another esports market has emerged. According to the industry report, the esports games market in China generated 140.2 billion yuan in sales revenue, a year-on-year growth of 2.65%. The report highlighted the continuous growth of China's gaming industry, both in its market size and in its user base. The e-sports industry in China is developing rapidly, and we've seen the Chinese esports market have overtook the US market in 2016 as the largest esports market in the world. And in 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, one of the torchbearers was an esports athlete. And China has established a national esports team in 2013 and the most successful esports in China again called is a transcend owner of kings it has achieved the number one revenue generating mobile game last year so it's the esports industry in China is booming and developing really well. The biggest difference that I can see between the esports development in Asia and Europe is really around the backing of governments so you see this in responses from China and in countries such as South Korea where esports is on the agenda and is being written into strategies for future development in cities whereas the development currently in Europe is really being driven around teams, event organizers, game publishers to some extent, but the sector, certainly in the UK, hasn't really permeated into any government agenda. Esports kind of is very communally driven, it's very driven by communities and that kind of thing, but at the same time it kind of requires a lot of the funding and energy and kind of thing. But at the same time, it kind of requires a lot of the funding and energy and kind of logistical capabilities of very large companies or corporations. Part of the companies that you would have to work with in an esports context, obviously, are the people who create the games. So in some cases, that might be a developer who's outside of China or maybe a developer within China. But regardless of which company you're working with, it's always important to remember to help and respect that origin point for esports, which always begins with kind of a grassroots community, if that makes sense. No game can really become an esport without that community. and this is true of quite a lot of sports historically. When many video game developers are designing games with eSports in mind and incorporating tournament capabilities in their games, the educational sector is also responding to the increasing popularity of eSports. We found that basically esports is kind of like a domain rather than a subject area as such. And so if the esports industry is developing and growing, as it seems to be everywhere, including China, If the esports industry is developing and growing, as it seems to be everywhere, including China, going forward, China would probably have to acknowledge that in some way in terms of making sure that there are enough people to fulfill job roles that exist within esports. Because you don't just study, say, esports as a whole and get a job in esports as a whole. The esports industry is made up of several different sub industries, which all have very different specializations. So you have things like esports production, which is to do with kind of how you film and broadcast and set up and manage and rehearse esports productions, how to do kind of technical skills and live streaming. You have events management as an aspect of that in terms of business. So how do you secure a space? How do you facilitate organization between different companies there? But you also have contexts like obviously playing esports yourself in terms of training to become an esports player. But there's also a need there for coaching or sports psychologists or even sports scientists to make sure that the way in which they're practicing that is healthy and done in kind of a way that adds more professionalism to it, if that makes sense. With esports quickly becoming a billion-dollar industry, more job opportunities are becoming available beyond the game industry. And esports-related education is also in high demand. related education is also in high demand. In Europe and also in Austria, there's more and more the awareness raising that we need to deal with the topic of esports also in the educational sector. So for one, of course, some universities are looking into esports programs. So for instance, in Austria, there is a course which is called esports management. It's quite new, actually. And also at our university, the Danube University in Krems, we are currently developing it. So we will start probably next year with an esports certified program. It's just the goal is to prepare people who are working within the educational, within the esports sector and give them a very very broad range of skills that they need. So that's the university part. One thing I've noted in say a European context is that people are kind of noticing the power of esports in terms of developing more transferable skills like team working skills in very young players for instance sort of at primary education level so in primary schools in the UK. There's been kind of a lot of initiatives from educational organizations say like digital schoolhouse to kind of embed those skills in a very young population and i know that in china there is sometimes a perception that playing games is a very frivolous thing but esports is kind of beginning to challenge that maybe and so maybe esports could be kind of a center where you're trying to embed other values that sort of align with kind of what might be seen as traditional Chinese values in terms of building robust skills, sort of socially responsible skills, very pro-social team working skills, that kind of thing. sports industry and European with regarding training education facing very similar challenges which is a perception and misunderstanding of what esports education is and for their perception of esports education to produce a professional player of esports. I think majority of the student graduate from esports degree or education program. They are for a wide, considerable, wide range of roles. For example, just name a few. Shellcaster, they're e-sports events, coach, video analyst or data analyst, team manager, physical trainer, performance psychologist, events manager, video producers, live streamer, broadcasting manager, and lots in the technical area, for example, network architect, technician, lighting, sound engineer, and in the games development side, games producer, designer, artist, programmer, and balancing manager to balance the resources and stats in the games. So there are a much wide range of professional roles relating to e-sports industry. However, the key for parents, because parents' understanding of e-sports education is very important, while we still see a misunderstanding of what e-sports education is for and what are the career options for students graduating from esports degrees. 20-year-old Elise, who currently studies game development and design at Fulmouth University in the UK, offered her perspectives on the rising industry. So one of the major things about the course I'm studying, which is game dev, is I get to work with these kind of industry veterans that I looked up to as a young kid. And they've all worked on these massive titles at companies like Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, etc. That I played when I was younger. So being able to study and work alongside them every single day at university is like really passionate and inspiring when it comes to my work because well they worked on the things I looked up as a kid as absolutely amazing and wondrous titles really that kind of drove me into this career path. When asked what she thinks of Chinese esports team players compared to their European counterparts, Elise shared her views towards China's Edward Gaming, which claimed the League of Legends World Championship in 2021. My impression is the Chinese players in general in the esports scene are super talented, and they definitely bring a fresh light when it comes to esports in general. And it's really refreshing to see kind of a new realm of passion in comparison to like European play so it's very interesting to play with them and smash against them. I think probably the most inspiring team that I've seen or you know heard of is probably Edward Gaming, I believe they won the League of Legends World Championship last year in Iceland and seeing like kind of the work and the way they played together and the merits they've achieved as a team is genuinely something that's really inspiring. I think the Chinese esports industry is something that should definitely be kind of looked at by many other esports industries in general because it's really cool to see a country kind of dedicate so many resources to an esports scene and kind of make it as big as it is um i believe china was the first country to develop their uh like a genuine arena surrounded by esports And being able to see kind of that much dedication go towards a sport that I actively partake in is really inspiring. And I really hope that my fellow Europeans, et cetera, can follow suit. Esports becomes an official medal event in the Asian Games in Hangzhou this year, marking a milestone for competitive gaming. It also marks a major progress for esports as relevant communities have been striving hard for a couple of years and pushing esports a step closer to the biggest stage, the Olympics. Favored by many in Asia and European countries, esports is becoming a part of mainstream culture as developers diversify their offerings and create an integration of eSports, music and fashion. This is the end of Nihao Europe. Thank you for being with us. See you next time.