My WCG 2019 presentation: East vs West, Parallels of PC and Mobile Esports and why Mobile is the Future of Esports

Jeff "SuiJeneris" Chau

14 min readJul 21, 2019

I had the honor of sharing my experiences on mobile esports and why it’s the future (as presented below), East vs West, and parallel history of PC and mobile esports at the World Cyber Games (WCG) Esports Conference in Xi’an, China 2019. So by request, here it is below with talking points.

I lived through and witnessed the beginning of modern day PC and mobile esports and observed how tech booms and social behaviors created the conditions for their birth — such life experiences have led me to found my startup, GameGether
Some of those insights will be discussed today to explain why mobile is the future of esports

I was a professional mobile pro gamer for a mobile MOBA called Vainglory, a great high-quality competitive title that launched in 2014

In addition to being a pro mobile gamer, been: GM/Head of Mobile for Immortals Gaming Club, co-founded a mobile esports org, administered mobile tournaments, and professionally commentated 4 mobile esport titles (Honor of Kings, Arena of Valor, Clash Royale, and Vainglory) across the world
PC Esports experiences goes back to 1999–2003 in South Korea where I attended high school and played competitive Starcraft locally — it was ground zero for the beginning of Starcraft PC esports
In the past 5 years, I was at ground zero again, but for mobile esports: playing, coaching, managing, and commentating esports events across China, SEA, Korea, LATAM, Australia, Europe, and North America
Having witnessed and lived through the beginnings of Starcraft PC and mobile esports, I'll be sharing my unique perspectives with you today and why mobile is the future by drawing parallels to Starcraft PC Esports history

Before I talk about why mobile is the future, we need to see why it isn’t right now in the West but is in the East
Reading some of the responses to this tweet was frustrating
In the West, mobile gamers are disparaged and get made fun of A LOT, they are dismissed constantly by PC and Console gamers online and offline and often told that they are not “real gamers” — some may be wondering, how is playing on a mobile device considered competitive let alone an esports? It’s on a little screen! Are people excited and want to watch other people play games on phones?

The answer is a resounding Y-E-S, mobile esports is very real, this video is proof of how real the fandom is and from majority female fans! (which I’ll touch on later)
So why are people dismissing mobile esports? Some of it has to do with the “fun vs competitive” narrative

You can see here the PC Esports people are saying similar things about Mobile Esports that Traditional Sports people said dismissing PC Esports as not “real” sports
Why are PC gamers dismissing fellow gamers who pose no threat to them? Social identity theory can help explain this.

Social identity theory explains how people put others and themselves into categories and label and group one another based on interests, religions, sports teams, gender, PC gamer, Console gamer, Mobile gamer, etc.
People don’t see out-groups as favorable compared to their own in-groups. So if I’m a PC gamer, it’s favorable for me to think my social identity as a PC gamer is more favorable than mobile gamers.
So they aren’t interested and/or dismiss whatever they determine isn’t a satisfied social identity compared to their own. This is important to understand, this idea of a “satisfied social identity”
Let’s now take a look traditional sports vs esports…

So how will esports overcome this? Convincing someone to accept us — the out-group — , whose social identity he/she sees is much more satisfying vs ours is a huge uphill battle
For example if someone starts bashing on mobile gamers, some PC/console gamers will hop on that bandwagon because they might think mobile esports is hurting their image as PC or console gamers because to them their in-group has a more favorable identity — therefore, “mobile gamers aren’t real gamers like we are”
So my answer is to not worry about changing other people’s minds, just focus on continuing to grow esports – the rest is noise
Esports is like multiple startup social identities with impressive traction. And just like how a startup grows into a big mainstream company due to massive traction, esports will keep growing and become more mainstream than some of the most popular sports
Once mobile esports becomes more popular in the West it’ll become more accepted like it is in Asia, PC to console gamers will learn and even try out some great mobile titles and come to appreciate the many similarities instead of lopsidedly focusing on the few differences
But that will take time, because it took a little over a decade for Starcraft and Korea did a lot of the heavy lifting for 10+ years
Because I lived through Starcraft’s transformation into an esports during my high school years and through the beginnings of mobile esports, I saw some interesting similarities in the history of PC and mobile esports

Both were social phenomenons in two Asian countries – we have Korea and China to thank for the initial popularity and growth of modern day PC and mobile esports, respectively

Starcraft was the most popular game in South Korea for a decade, it’s popularity among young students is what propelled it into becoming an esports. During this time, many Westerners were making fun of esports, saying it’s not “real sports”

From 2016 to 2018, a game called Honor of Kings goes viral and becomes the most popular game in China (just like Starcraft did in Korea)
And like Starcraft, the esports scene for Honor of Kings exploded. The King Pro League (KPL) is the largest mobile esports in the world

This is a stage of 15,000+ and tickets sold out in minutes with prices ranging from $20-$50+ USD per ticket

I had the honor to commentate mobile esports at the 18th Asia Games Jakarta-Palembang—this was the first time in history that esports was added as a demonstration medal event
I’m sharing this photo because technology and social trends start the fire, but the infrastructure and investment from companies and governing bodies (KeSPA in Korea for Starcraft, Blizzard/MLG in U.S. for Starcraft II, etc.), brands, to organizing committees like the Asia Games are very much needed infrastructure to scale and channel the growth
Let’s now take at look at PC and Mobile Esports tech and social parallels

Coincides with a tech boom that is a major tech priority of that country’s era
In 1995, Korea had less than one Internet user per 100 inhabitants. In 1999, it surpassed the developed nation average due to nationwide infrastructure investment into broadband internet. By February 2001, 57.3% of Korean internet home users had access via broadband connections, whereas in the U.S. this was only 11.1%
Honor of Kings released late November 2015 and that’s around the same time customer preferences for 5”+ smartphone screen sizes grew significantly and reached over 50% of global smartphone shipments (by end of 2016 ~70% of all smartphone shipments were 5”+ screens). Another huge tech expansion happened in 2016 as well — China’s 4G subscriber base increased 84% to 762 million—outpacing global growth of 64% due to their aggressive expansion of hundreds of thousands of 4G towers
It took just 2 years for mobile to reach a 10,000+ stage audience vs ~4 years for Starcraft
Mobile esports is accelerating at a faster pace because socially, you can see people play Honor of Kings outside at malls, after school, during breaks, etc. — such convenience = ultimate visible accessibility
For Starcraft, it was PC bangs that accelerated its huge growth because it became the social hangout spot for Korean teens
This is why mobile is the future of esports — it’s the tech and social zeitgeist of young generations. Although the mobile tech + social pieces greatly accelerated its fast growth to esports, it’s not the platform that determines whether something becomes an esport
A high quality competitive multiplayer game is needed…

Esports was born from quality competitive titles, the design and massive traction of the game — the product — is the most important foundation
The mobile platform improved and became able to run high quality multiplayer games like PC and console can

Esports is really about these fundamentals — not the platform:

Game: a well-designed quality competitive game that possesses high talent/skill caps and tiers/levels of competition
Players: a large enough engaged and active player base — DAUs and revenue are the lifeblood of any game
Fans: strong viewership — without excited fans interested in watching, the game won’t become an esport

That’s it:

What matters is a quality competitive game that players love playing and fans enjoy watching!

Social:

Youth, students and kids, are spending a lot of their free time on it
Easily accessible technology to spread and grow virally

There’s multiple reasons why Honor of Kings is able to pull in a record breaking $1B USD revenue in one month — but it’s mainly due to being a GREAT high-quality fun competitive game on mobile
Another reason why is it’s female player base…

54%+ of its player base is female and the King Pro League (KPL) was able to translate that into a thriving esports scene. I have attended KPL events for Honor of Kings from Shenzhen to Beijing and every event, I left in awe at the % of female fans in the stadium, I counted about 6–7 females for every 10 attendees
The 40+ hours/week is a stat for hardcore mobile gamers in China and it’s an important number I want you to remember

With 54% of it’s player base female, this makes total sense. And as we know from purchasing behaviors, women are the spenders, they love to spend on cosmetic, beautiful things which Honor of Kings sells in-app — I’ve met multiple girls who have spent $200–300+ per hero skin in Honor of Kings because these limited edition skins are gorgeous + having the latest, cool hero skin is important from a social aspect

This is why mobile esports is the future, because of the young female audience it’s able to captivate and we can have very cool brand activations and partnerships such as this

In the West, females are not the majority =(. In NA and Europe, gaming is not seen as appealing to the female population compared to Asia, which reflects in the % female player bases in the West which then directly translates to the low female to male ratio at esports live events. For esports to become truly mainstream in the West, this has to change!

Emphasize: in China hardcore mobile gamers play 40 hrs per wk vs hardcore PC gamers play 30 hrs per week. That is 10 hrs more per wk and based on that, mobile gamers, not PC gamers seem like the more hardcore gamers. Such strong engagement = great monetization opportunities.

The U.S. has a lot of work to do here, from attitudes with not just mobile gamers but female gamers, there are many challenges and without significantly more females engaging in esports, esports in the West will never become as mainstream as it is in Asia
Many studies (here, here, here) and from personal experiences tell us that females tend to be more social compared to males. For female gamers, social circles are key, with 39% of them discovering a game through friends or family vs just 27% for males
Women are 79% more likely to spend money on a game app than men
This is why Honor of Kings not only makes so much money but is also played by 1 out of every 17 Chinese people — 50%+ female player base = much more socially viral vs games with 10% female player base

Emphasize: if we isolate and look only at mobile esports, the % of females is even higher than 32% as I discussed earlier

Without becoming socially relevant, any sport or esport would not have taken off
It’s about what activity is capturing our youth’s free time in each era, for example, let’s look at the origins of football and basketball:

Football and Basketball first spread throughout college campuses — students were playing football and basketball after school
The history of football, basketball, and esports draw many parallels and it has to do with the youth of each era and where they are spending their free time and the access they have to the activity eating up that free time
In basketball’s case, a ball + all the courts built at schools and parks and in esports case, a gaming device + fast internet in lots of homes

And as we all know, today where the youth are spending alot of their free time on are online with multiplayer games like Honor of Kings
When I attended high school in South Korea from 1999–2003, students were flocking to PC Bangs after school — in 1999 there were over 15,000 PC Bangs in Korea. The PC Bangs + broadband internet boom were the core phenomenon why Starcraft went viral in South Korea — it captivated the free time of young kids and greatly grew the number of online gamers thanks to it becoming the top social activity to do after school
And in 2015 and beyond many kids in China and Greater SEA are playing mobile games on their free time — but what’s interesting and different is how much younger and more female the demographics are
In Asia, a lot of that free time is spent on phones playing high-quality competitive multiplayer games, which has helped push esports significantly more mainstream — you can see people playing these mobile esports games all around and such publicly visible mobile gaming behaviors helped it spread virally very quickly

Not only has Asian gaming youth culture help make esports popular but quality multiplayer mobile games has propelled the mainstream appeal and growth of esports significantly. In the U.S., there is a much smaller mobile esports scene and helps explain why esports isn’t as mainstream compared to Greater SEA and China
Note: 17–19% of U.S. gamers watch esports regularly — this is from a survey of U.S. gamers back in 2016, so the number (hopefully) should be higher today

Let’s take a look at mobile esports across the world…

PUBG PC is a popular game, but PUBG Mobile is much bigger than PC — on YouTube as of May 2019, PUBG Mobile (23M hours) videos are almost 2x the total watched time vs PUBG PC (13.8M hours)
And mobile gamers want to watch YouTube and esports of the PUBG Mobile game they and all their friends play (in-group) instead of the same game on PC (out-group)
This is very important to understand because some people think PUBG Mobile is a “watered-down” version of the PC title and will just serve as a gateway for the millions of PUBG Mobile players to watch PUBG PC esports instead — the YouTube numbers, esports viewerships, and behaviors all tell us otherwise
Two words: social identity

Arena of Valor is the international version of Honor of Kings, which is immensely popular in SEA (it has about 15M+ daily players). China has successfully exported mobile esports to neighboring Greater SEA countries, just like how Korea exported Starcraft PC esports

In Taiwan, a couple I met played Arena of Valor together for fun and they became esports fans after learning about it from an in-app notification then attended live events
Mobile in-app viewership of esports broadcasts for games like Honor of Kings and Arena of Valor usually has more concurrent viewers than all streaming platforms combined — which is the ultimate accessibility

Mobile Legends — a similar game to Honor of Kings — is very popular within Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, etc. and it has 50M+ MAUs

Clash Royale, a game with 50M+ MAUs has a growing esports scene and is the 1st global mobile esports with leagues in China, EU, NA, to LATAM (Peak: 709,030 escharts.com)

Mobile is already 45% of 2019 global games market and is projected to grow past 50% becoming bigger than PC and console gaming markets combined. Mobile gamers make up the most daily and monthly active player bases — it is the social zeitgeist of young generations in Asia, but not in the West yet

The young mobile generations in the West will be key to driving a lot of the attitude changes along with companies and brands supporting them — it just takes one high quality mobile game to gain massive social traction
Majority of these 5"+ smartphone internet users will be gamers — what’s happening with PUBG Mobile in India is a great example of that massive and rapid growth
Mobile knocks it out the park with the esports and social fundamentals I shared today
And although new esports platforms will emerge (like Cloud Gaming to AR/VR), the quality of the game is what matters most
Therefore, mobile will be the future of gaming and esports for the next foreseeable decade until something more massive and accessible comes along that’s born out of another tech boom