20 e-sports venues to open in Jing'an district

Jing'an district plans 30 new e-sports venues around Lingshi Road, the city's heartland of the new craze.

In a plan released on Friday, the current 10 e-sports venues will be upgraded and another 20 built. The 30 venues will cover nearly 80,000 square meters and play a major role. An industrial chain has been formed within 3 kilometers of the road, from developers to broadcasters, however, there is a lack of venues to host games, according to the survey conducted by German consulting firm Roland Berger.

Jing'an plans to build a talent pool of promising game players and to attract the world's best teams. Not just a "pilgrimage site" for e-sports fans, the area also wants to create a new lifestyle and community by combining e-sports culture with commercial zones and building e-sports-themed attractions, according to the plan.

"We will focus on original content," said the district's deputy director Zhou Haiying. "We hope to create a good environment for industrial players."

Jing'an has an agreement with Shanghai United Media Group to develop e-sports by sharing resources and is gearing up to become a world-class e-sports hub. The Pudong New Area, home to Zhangjiang High-Tech Park and Lingang smart manufacturing base, will help developers invent new technology. Yangpu district with its universities, will build an educational system with an e-sports curriculum.

E-sports are expanding by over 20 percent each year and were worth nearly 66 billion yuan ($9.8 billion) in 2017.