56: Chapter 56 Esports Plan, Millions in Prize Money!

On the last night of the league of legends closed beta.

Liu Yang stayed in the internet cafe until the servers shut down.

The moment the screen popped up with "This closed beta has ended, thank you for participating," he leaned back in his chair and stared at his match history for a long while.

During these ten days, as long as he didn't have classes, he spent almost all his time in the internet cafe playing this game.

And when he wasn't playing, the account was lent to A-Shui.

During this period.

He had tried almost every beta hero.

Every match brought something new, and every match gave him a sense of progress.

This was a feeling he had never experienced in dota before.

dota gave him a sense of frustration.

league of legends gave him a sense of addiction.

By the end, he and A-Shui even felt their opponents were too weak and wanted to match against experts, but since the closed beta didn't have a ladder system, they had to let it go.

Looking at the closed league of legends servers.

He sent a screenshot of his match history to A-Shui.

A-Shui replied instantly.

"Continue during the open beta; we'll be able to team up then."

Because they only had one account, the two hadn't even teamed up together once.

Liu Yang replied with two words.

"Continue."

After typing those two words, he seemed to think of something and continued messaging A-Shui.

"There was a game streamer on Douyin who said that after league of legends goes into open beta, they want to organize a fan tournament, climbing up step by step, and the champion gets a ten-thousand-yuan prize!"

"With your skills, if we find a few more teammates, winning the championship should be a piece of cake."

A-Shui replied quickly.

"That much?"

"I've noted it down. Let's join together after the open beta starts; we can use the prize money to buy skins."

Liu Yang smiled.

"Naturally."

...

On the second day after the league of legends closed beta ended, since heroes of the storm had also stopped announcing hero skills two days prior.

The entire internet suddenly became quiet.

Discussions about the three games decreased significantly.

Everyone felt that the next step was simply waiting for the three games to launch their open betas, and there wouldn't be any more big news.

After all, there were still several months before the open betas; this period should be a window for the three companies to bury their heads in preparation, and that would be the time for the real final battle.

But no one expected.

Just the second day after league of legends ended its closed beta.

At ten in the morning, the league of legends official Weibo posted an announcement.

The content of the announcement was very short, only a few paragraphs.

But every paragraph was like a bomb thrown into deep water, instantly detonating across the entire internet.

"The league of legends Global Esports Plan is officially launched!"

"Inspur Technology will invest hundreds of millions to build the league of legends global esports tournament system."

"After the league of legends open beta, Professional Leagues will be launched simultaneously in major regions worldwide, and a Global Finals will be held at the end of the year."

"The championship prize for the first year's Global Finals will be ten million US dollars!"

"In addition, the champions will receive a share of the global sales of designated Championship Skins during the finals period."

Once this announcement came out.

In just a few short hours, it hit the global trending searches.

Once again, it completely ignited the already boiling global player community!

Its popularity even quickly approached the level of when heroes of the storm was officially announced!

Ten million US dollars is equivalent to at least sixty million Great Xia Coin.

In other words, for the championship team of the first league of legends Global Finals, each player could receive at least two million US dollars, or ten million Great Xia Coin in prize income.

This figure.

Was like a meteorite crashing down from space, blowing the global gaming community sky-high.

Before this.

There were no systematic esports tournaments in this world at all; the largest esports events were only small-scale competitions for some fighting and shooting games.

Although these competitions could also determine so-called world champions.

For these so-called "world champions," a total prize pool of one hundred thousand dollars was already an astronomical price.

Furthermore, these competitions.

Most were organized by the players themselves; the game developers behind them never spent a dime, nor provided any support.

Esports in this world was just an extremely niche industry.

One could even say it didn't even count as an industry.

It was just a product of a group of core players entertaining themselves, and there weren't even so-called professional players.

After all.

No one would think.

That many people would actually watch a game competition; even holding a large-scale event would just be burning money, with no sponsorships.

Naturally, there was no entry of capital.

These esports players couldn't support themselves by competing; most had other jobs, and competing was just a hobby.

No player had ever imagined.

That playing games could earn prize money in the tens of millions.

One must know.

A championship prize of over ten million US dollars was already close to, or even exceeded, the tournament prizes of many conventional sports.

Before this.

The only way to make money playing games was to become a streamer; there was no second option.

It was against this backdrop.

That the league of legends official Weibo announced.

The first year's global championship prize: ten million US dollars!

One can imagine the shock it brought to global players.

Less than ten minutes after the announcement was posted, the number one trending topic on Weibo was occupied by the term "league of legends Esports Plan."

It was followed by a deep red "Explosive" tag.

Its popularity was nearly three times that of the second place.

"Ten million US dollars? Over sixty million Great Xia Coin? Can playing games make this much money?"

"Plus skin revenue sharing? Am I seeing things?"

"Who exactly is the company behind league of legends? How can they bring out so much money for esports?"

Not just in the Great Xia, this news instantly went viral globally.

On Twitter, the discussion heat for the league of legends Esports Plan was also climbing rapidly.

Overseas gamers reacted even more intensely to this figure than domestic ones.

After all, many of the current game competitions in the world were mostly organized by overseas players from various countries.

"Ten million dollars plus skin revenue sharing? Holy Mother Mary, is this for real?"

"For the winning team, each person gets at least two million dollars; many traditional sports championships don't even have prizes this high, right?"

"Yoshi, ten million dollars. The company behind league of legends is too terrifying."

However, soon.

The official announcement of league of legends triggered a lot of skepticism from players; after all, a ten-million-dollar prize and building a global tournament system sounded a bit too much like a fantasy.

Previously, game competition prizes were at most a hundred thousand; you're going straight to ten million? And it's a global tournament?

So after this official announcement was issued, a lot of doubts also followed.

Many players suspected that league of legends was just doing it for marketing, to snatch some of the spotlight from dota 2 and heroes of the storm, so they launched the so-called Esports Plan merely for traffic.

They didn't really intend to launch esports tournaments.

But facing the doubts of global players, the league of legends official account only posted four words.

"Please stay tuned."

At the same time.

Although most players were skeptical about the so-called esports system, this news did indeed spread throughout the global gaming circle within just a few days.

A-Shui, who had finished messaging Liu Yang, looked at the Weibo trending searches, his eyes flickering with something unknown.

In an internet cafe in Great Xia, a chubby kid addicted to games and wearing sunglasses had just finished a game of dota when he saw this news; he jumped up from his chair, face full of excitement.

"Ten million dollars in prize money? It better be real."

At Mapo Middle School in South Korea, a school-renowned gaming genius with broccoli-like hair heard his classmates ahead talking about the ten-million-dollar tournament and just lightly adjusted his glasses.

If before.

The discussion and popularity of league of legends were far inferior to dota 2 and heroes of the storm.

Then after the official announcement of the ten-million-dollar level esports tournament.

The popularity of league of legends finally caught up with these two games.

Countless players around the world were already getting a bit impatient.

And amidst this anticipation.

Time flew by.

In the blink of an eye, several months had passed.