Mobile era

On the technical side, e-sports' decades-long dependency on personal computers is changing as battlegrounds shift from PCs to mobile devices. Several multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games and first-person shooters (FPS) are already flourishing on mobile platforms.

Trendy FPS CrossFire is the latest major title to follow this pattern, with mobile platforms offering a new game mode called "multiplayer tactics combat".

Tencent is hoping Cross-Fire's latest incarnation will kickstart an exciting new mobile era of e-sports. So far the game has attracted 200 million registered users and 21 million daily active users.

"CrossFire will take further steps to create an international e-sports ecosystem for multiplayer tactics combat games," said Joses Zhu, general manager of the Cooperative Group's marketing department within Tencent IEG.

The MOBA market has witnessed the same changes. While League of Legends still dominates the format for personal computers, King of Glory is blazing a trail on mobile platforms as Chinese developers position themselves at the forefront of gaming's mobile revolution.

"In the era of PC games, countries like South Korea and the United States were taking the lead and China was merely a follower," said KPL president Zhang. "For mobile e-sports, however, we are so proud that China is at the vanguard. E-sports clubs also have much to gain from China's mobile boom.

"We are entering a golden era of e-sports in China, and mobile e-sports is a very promising new branch of the business," said Zhu Bo, founder of the QGhappy club.

As well as the obvious portability advantage, the simpler logic of games on mobile platforms means they can attract larger user numbers than PC versions.

"According to our data for China's e-sports market in 2017, the market scale of mobile e-sports accounts for 53.74 percent, surpassing the PC end," said Zhu.