EPT![[image loading]](http://img1.cache.netease.com/game/esports/daily/es820a01.jpg)
Esports are seeing a surge in last few years. With millions dollars of prize money, the esports tournaments are surpassing the influence of the traditional sports. But behind this shining appearance, a lot of esports practitioners are having difficulty to sustain basic living. Many second-tier esports players around the world are having low incomes and lives in small apartments. Semi-pros or other players are having even more difficulties. Many people can’t sustain over a year.
The top-skewed big prize money and the poor livings of many players show a abnormal development of the esports scene. Esports is becoming a festival of the few, but moving away from the great masses of normal players.
‘Operatin Bread’ to support grassroot. We give gamers ‘the bread’ they need.
----NetEase
The top-skewed big prize money and the poor livings of many players show a abnormal development of the esports scene. Esports is becoming a festival of the few, but moving away from the great masses of normal players.
‘Operatin Bread’ to support grassroot. We give gamers ‘the bread’ they need.
----NetEase
You may remember that a while ago there was a fundraising event from the Chinese SC2 operator, NetEase. The fundraising event was to raise a multi-million dollar prize pool for a series of tournaments of SC2, Heroes of Kingdoms, Warcraft3, and Dota1. NetEase is a huge internet company and SC2's operator in China. Heroes of Kingdoms is a MOBA game made by NetEase.
Today they revealed it. It is a 5-million-dollar esports plan.
As I have speculated a while ago, the whole thing is indeed mostly about Heroes of Kingdoms.
But the good thing is that there will be a "top SC2 tournament" in the end of the year. Another good news is that 5 million dollars are not the cap. They said they are going to add more in the future.
Their principle is a bottom-up approach that supports the grassroot pros, organizations, and fans. So they call it the The Operation 'Bread'.
Although most of the plans are about Heroes of Kingdoms, they have some good ideas about how to support esports players (with NetEase's richness, yes).
So the plan includes:
1, SC2, Heroes of Kingdoms, War3, and Dota1's top tournaments in the end of the year.
2, Give monthly salary to players based on their ranking in the ladder. (Including SC2, Heroes of Kingdoms, and other NetEase's esports products [unconfirmed]). They use the word "salary" to mean that the money is giving out routinely, like a monthly salary.
3, Self-registered tournament system. Everyone can start a tournament. You only need to have detailed plan, players, and organizers. And then NetEase will give you money to do it. Of course, your plan needs to be approved. The annual amount for this is $1,600,000 dollars. For example, if you have a Ro32 amateur league, NetEase will give you $245 dollars. The amount of money is based on your number of players, level of competition, the smoothness of your tournament organization ability. To do this, you need to use NetEase's decided registration system. They say the system is very easy to use and automatic for creating your own tournament. This will be online in November. (Don't know if it is only Heroes of Kingdoms).
4, More college and PC bang events.
5, Inside Heroes of Kingdoms, higher level players can monetize themselves (within the game). So if you want to play with them, or get coaching from them, you can pay them to do so inside the game.
Self-registered tournament system.
![[image loading]](http://img1.cache.netease.com/game/esports/daily/es94a13.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YfSpIqV.jpg)
Source:
http://game.163.com/13/0903/21/97SL0VOQ00314QKL.html
http://game.163.com/13/0825/12/974HKJ5O00314QKL.html#p=974H4SKN5AP50031
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/iolfYYj.png)
