Film+
Game-Based Animated Films Section—“Collaboration of E-Sports and Films for Prosperous Future” Forum Concludes Successfully on August 17
The 12th BJIFF Game-Based Animated Films Section—E-Sports Forum was successfully held at the Yangsong Town Comprehensive Cultural Center, Huairou District, Beijing, on the morning of August 17. With the theme of “Collaboration of E-Sports and Films for Prosperous Future”, the forum was guided by the BJIFF Organizing Committee Office and Beijing Huairou District Cultural Industry Development Promotion Center, hosted by HUYA Inc., and co-organized by Beijing E-Sports Industry Development Association.
Group Photo of Panelists
As Lin Siwei, Deputy Secretary General of the 12th BJIFF Organizing Committee, addressed the forum, e-sports is a relatively emerging industry with skyrocketing growth and remarkable achievements over recent years. Just like film culture, e-sports has now become a new culture that young people keenly love and talk about. As powerful generator of pop culture and IP icons, film, animation, e-sports and live streaming are inclusive industries that constantly try to integrate innovative technologies, sports, regional culture and many other elements for broader space of industry development.
Lin Siwei, Deputy Secretary General of the 12th BJIFF Organizing Committee
The round-table session was moderated by Yu Zehan, head of Huya Livestreaming Brand Center, and panelists included Wang Linqun, Vice General Manager of Poly Pictures Investment Co., Ltd., Chen Di, Executive Deputy Director of People E-sports, and Lu Sida, General Manager of Marketing Center, Titan Media Group. The four panelists shared their experiences on “cross-field and cross-market e-sports cooperation”, “how to expand film and TV development with proprietary IP resources”, “how Chinese e-sports and film and TV IPs can help spread Chinese culture”, “the value of top e-sports events for sports, film and TV cross-field development” and other related topics from multiple perspectives in multiple dimensions. Against the backdrop of diversified development of China's film industry and e-sports included in the event program of Asian Games, industry experts gathered together to discuss more possibilities for the integration and development of film and e-sports industries.
Forum
According to Wang Linqun, Vice General Manager of Poly Pictures Investment Co., Ltd., the integration of e-sports and films has brought new directions and ideas of operation to cinemas affected by the pandemic. More experiential consumption and social activities will be organized in cinemas, such as livestreaming of e-sports events, collaboration with game IPs, and VR cinema development. With regard to traditional Chinese culture, there are various possibilities for the “e-sports+film” combination. The profound Chinese culture offers endless materials and inspiration for creation of films and TV series. Meanwhile, the development of VR and digital technologies ensures technical support for audiovisual aspects of films and TV series.
Wang Linqun, Vice General Manager of Poly Pictures Investment Co., Ltd.
Along with the major trend of skyrocketing e-sports industry, collaboration of “e-sports” plus other fields and content generation attract the attention of many industries. As Chen Di, Executive Deputy Director of People E-sports, explained, films are like “books” of the modern generation, and they play an important role in people’s spiritual and cultural life. Games and e-sports are intrinsically combinations of sportsmanship and culture. So the integrated development of films, games and e-sports is inevitable. He took the example of hit song Lonely Hero, “The game track is widespread, and the animation reaches wide range of age groups. In this way, the public have a new perception and understanding of the competitive spirit of ‘no give-up’."
Chen Di, Executive Deputy Director of People E-sports
As Lu Sida, General Manager of Marketing Center, Titan Media Group, explained, “The combination of ‘e-sports and sports’ is essentially the exploration and discovery of the sports attribute of e-sports. Over the past two or three years, cultural values of e-sports have gained increasing recognition. Winning international e-sports events not only boosts national pride and confidence, but also contributes to exchanges among players from different countries and regions. Therefore, telling good Chinese stories via e-sports has already become one of the major goals of the e-sports industry at current stage.”
Lu Sida, General Manager of Marketing Center, Titan Media Group
Yu Zehan, head of Huya Livestreaming Brand Center, shared his ideas from business perspective. According to him, a major attribute of livestreaming platform is the diversity of contents. In addition to e-sports, there are sports, music, outdoors, and positivity contents. So is the diversity of user profiles. So livestreaming platforms are intrinsically cross-field content carriers. Regardless of e-sport, traditional sports or film and cultural IPs, all industries may join livestreaming platforms in exploration and presentation of new content of “technology + traditional culture”.
Yu Zehan, Head of Huya Livestreaming Brand Center
At the end of the forum, Lin Siwei, Deputy Secretary General of the 12th BJIFF Organizing Committee, reviewed the original intention and positioning of the addition of the Game-Based Animated Films Section in 2022. It’s expected that the international stage of the BJIFF can facilitate cooperation and exchanges between top companies in the industry so as to attract more young audience to follow films, e-sports and animation.
Yu Deli, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of Beijing Huairou District Cultural Industry Development Promotion Center, and Secretary of CPC Yangsong Town Committee, Huairou District, Beijing, expressed his expectations towards “e-sports+” prospect, and emphasized advantages of Huairou District, Beijing over policy support, talent introduction and industry clustering and other dimensions as a demonstration zone for China’s film and TV industry.
Yu Deli, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of Beijing Huairou District Cultural Industry Development Promotion Center, and Secretary of CPC Yangsong Town Committee, Huairou District, Beijing
It’s beyond doubt that e-sports will usher into a new chapter after its sporting transformation, industrialization and globalization. As a new business form, the crossover integration of e-sports and film and other entertainment and cultural genres does not just stay at the experimental level, but goes deeper and reaches the market and public, so that people of different ages and communities can communicate and interact and relate to each other. The successful organization of the Game-Based Animated Films Section—E-Sports Forum presents more market possibilities to “e-sports+” business.
