Shanghai will soon become home to hundreds of esports companies.
With China’s esports industry continuing to boom, the city of Shanghai is opening a dedicated business park aimed towards local and international esports companies, Chinese news site Shine reports. The park, which plans to open in 2020, will be built in cooperation with land developer Super Generation Investment and Tencent—one of the country’s largest media and gaming companies.
Although esports won’t be the only industry represented in the business park, the available details published by Shine do hint at the park’s primary focus being around esports. This includes a 6,000 seat esports arena built for the purpose of bringing both domestic and international competition to the city.
Related: Tencent to organize multiple esports events with mobile streaming service Fluxr
Tencent’s involvement is not surprising. For the past five years, the company has worked hard to push esports to as many Chinese citizens as possible, particularly via the very popular League of Legends, which it acquired along with developer Riot Games in 2015. The company also owns the Chinese distribution and broadcasting rights to other popular titles such as Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Tencent operates a number of social media platforms in the country, too, including the almost ubiquitous WeChat app.
Even though the launch date for the business park is still two years away, there’s already quite a good idea of how many companies it will be able to house, according to Shine. A total of 100 domestic and international esports companies are believed to be setting up shop in the area come the unveiling in 2020.
