The commerce that is Chinese

As organized, multiplayer video game competitions — also known as esports, or electronic sports — continue to gain recognition in China, entertainment giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. has accelerated its esports expansion with the unveiling of a new five-year plan.

The plan, which involves setting up esports leagues, tournaments and associations, nurturing players and constructing esports-themed industrial parks, was published by Tencent E-Sports, a subsidiary established in early December.

Tencent is the world’s largest mobile gaming company by revenue, according to research firm Newzoo. With the new plan, it aims to create a 100-billion-yuan esports industry in China within five years, the company announced on Friday at a press conference.

The plan was based on Tencent’s expectations that China is set to become the world’s largest esports market. Tencent predicted there will be 220 million esports players in China and 335 million globally by the end of this year.

Here is the story.  And:

The number of Chinese “red tourists” who visit Russia to retrace a shared communist history has been soaring in recent years, contributing to the wave of Chinese visitors to Russia that has grown with the help of closer bilateral relations between the countries, according to industry insiders on Tuesday.

“There definitely is growing interest among Chinese tourists for Russia, especially the older generations, who are nostalgic about the history of Russia,” Zeng Qingan, general manager of Beijing Global Travel Ltd, told the Global Times.

Zeng said that since his company started tour groups to Russia nine years ago, the number of participants has increased fast, especially after the company redesigned its tour routes in 2014 to cover historical Soviet Union era sites, including the Red Square and Victory Square in Moscow, the Lenin Memorial Museum in Ulyanovsk and Moscow State University. The travel firm called it the “Red Tourism” package.

Link here.  The revolution not only will be televised, but they will make an e-sports version of it, marketed on WeChat.

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