Getting caught up in CrossFire

Tencent's tactical masterpiece gaining global appreciation

The success of China's pro e-sports players on the international stage is spurring phenomenal growth of gaming innovations here at home.

On the heels of Chinese team Royal Never Give Up being crowned world champion at the LOL Mid Season Invitational in Paris in May, Chinese club OMG claimed the championship at last weekend's PUBG Global Invitational in Berlin.

But to become a world e-sports powerhouse and dominate games like League of Legends and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) requires not only top players, but the ability to develop and operate top titles.

That's where Tencent's online tactical first-person shooter CrossFire has emerged as a one of China's most potent not-so-secret weapons.

Since CrossFire's launch in China in 2008, the game's PC version has attracted 560 million registered users and its e-sports broadcasts have been viewed 10 billion times, according to data released last Sunday at a ceremony in Shanghai to mark its 10th anniversary.

The game also launched a mobile version in 2016 to catch up with the global mobile e-sports trend, which has attracted upwards of 250 million mobile players.

The life cycle of e-sports games is relatively short, so CrossFire's continued popularity after 10 years is testimony to innovations that focus on player experience. From its constant upgrades to the quality of the mobile version, the game has maintained superior innovations.

"Innovations and improvement are the key factors of our success," said Gram Xu, a CrossFire senior general manager.

"We have created many new patterns for players and maintained a pace of upgrading more than ten versions a year. While we keep launching new content and we keep optimizing old patterns of experience. We attach great importance to players' feedback to adjust our operational strategies.

"Being creative is very important for CrossFire. Today's new gaming patterns are all based on the original pattern. Compared with other PC first-person shooter games, we have created many new models and patterns to adjust to the new trends and new platforms. We still have more potential to be discovered."

One of the best ways to extend the life cycle of a video game is to make it an e-sports title. CrossFire has made that a priority, especially given that the e-sports league for Tencent's homegrown mobile hit King of Glory has attracted tens of millions of spectators and its international version will feature as a demonstration event at the upcoming Asian Games.

"Since the day we launched the game, creating CrossFire's e-sports system was one of our priorities," said Joses Zhu, general manager of Tencent Interactive Entertainment Group.

"CrossFire's mobile version was launched in China in 2016 and achieved great success, and now we are launching it in 56 other countries. Also, we are building an e-sports tournament around the game. It will be a huge step forward for Chinese e-sports.

"For the PC platform, we will launch a more refined HD version of the game to build the e-sports system.

"From players' experience to the game's quality, the new version is a great advance and a brand new battlefield with better visual impact, fairer models and more diversified patterns. Based on the new HD version, we will try our best to build a top CrossFire tournament."

The ultimate goal is for e-sports to be included in the Olympic Games. At an executive board meeting in Lausanne last fall, the International Olympic Committee concluded that e-sports "could be considered a sporting activity".

"The players involved prepare and train with an intensity comparable to athletes in traditional sports," said the IOC statement.

The Asian Games made the first move by including e-sports as a demonstration event in the two-week Jakarta competition, which opens on Aug 18.

The competition list features three individual games: real-time strategy classic Star-Craft 2 and collectible-card hits Clash Royale and Hearthstone.

There are also three team games: Pro Evolution Soccer, the multiplayer online battlefield arena game LOL and Arena of Valor, an international version of King of Glory.

"Adding e-sports to the Asian Games was much tougher than we thought," said Wei Jizhong, the Chinese Olympic Committee official who successfully pushed for the inclusion. "After long negotiations, we agreed on three principles: no violence, making sports games a priority and guaranteeing fairness."