Shanghai is advancing efforts to build itself into an international e-sports hub by introducing top-tier world-class tournaments and more supportive policies.

Global video game developer Riot Games will hold the 2026 global championships for its signature game Valorant in Shanghai, Whalen Rozelle, the company's head of international publishing and e-sports, announced on Aug 1.

The news was made public during the 2025 Global E-sports Summit, which was part of the China Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference, better known as ChinaJoy, held in Shanghai from Aug 1 to 4.

The character-based 5v5 tactical game Valorant was first released in October 2019. Its global monthly active users have now exceeded 25 million, with a daily concurrent number of users reaching 4.2 million during peak times.

In February 2023, Chinese tech giant Tencent, Riot Games' parent company, announced the introduction of Valorant and officially launched it five months later. Official data from a Tencent news conference in July showed that the number of concurrent users for Valorant on Chinese servers doubled from over 1 million in 2024 to 2 million in April this year. Preregistrations for the mobile version of Valorant exceeded 20 million before its official release in June. Over 50 million downloads were made in the first week.

Riot Games set up a subsidiary in Shanghai in 2015 and built a research center in the city in 2021, the first overseas facility of its kind beyond its headquarters in Los Angeles. Despite the global pandemic, Shanghai managed to hold the global championship for Riot Games' blockbuster game League of Legends in 2020.

All these are closely related to market energy, complete infrastructure and a mature e-sports community built up in Shanghai, said Rozelle.

According to the interim report for the Chinese e-sports industry released during the Aug 1 summit, Shanghai held the majority 22.9 percent of all e-sports games held across China during the first six months of the year. The city is home to 34 e-sports clubs, outnumbering all other Chinese cities.

Data from the municipal government show that Shanghai held nearly 2,300 e-sports games last year, generating nearly 1.12 billion yuan ($156 million) in income.

The "Lingjing Fusion" action was officially announced by the Jing'an district government during the summit on Aug 1, with the intention to build an e-sports industry ecosystem in the district.

Efforts will be made to attract e-sports and gaming companies from home and abroad to set up operations in Jing'an in the next three years. Newly established enterprises may be eligible for a maximum 10 million yuan startup subsidy, or a maximum 5 million yuan housing subsidy, and 30 million yuan of operating incentives.

A one-time reward of up to 5 million yuan may be granted to well-known industry accomplishments. A maximum of 10 million yuan of one-time financial support will be provided to the construction of e-sports industrial parks based on the renovation of old venues. Projects advancing industrial upgrading by applying frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence or virtual reality to e-sports may be entitled to a one-time fiscal support input of up to 10 million yuan.

A number of supportive policies have been rolled out in Shanghai over the past few years. In 2019, the municipal government released a set of 20 measures to complete infrastructure and enhance the overall business environment for e-sports companies. The municipal government launched last July its three-year action plan for 2024-26, saying that the city's direct income from e-sports games should exceed 8 billion yuan by the end of 2026.

International cooperation is crucial. Therefore, the Culture and Tourism Bureau of Jing'an District signed a strategic memorandum of understanding with the E-sports Committee of China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association and the Japan e-Sports Union on Aug 1 to deepen cooperation in industrial internationalization, standard promulgation, technology innovation and exchanges, as well as nurturing talent.

Zhang Yijun, first vice-chairman of China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association, said that local governments' financial and fiscal policies, combined with the optimization of industrial funds, have boosted the high-quality development of China's e-sports industry. Integrating technology, culture, entertainment and sales, the e-sports industry has helped to inject more vitality into the consumer market and generated a large number of job opportunities.

According to the recently released half-year report for China's e-sports industry, sector revenue approached 12.8 billion yuan in the first six months, up 6.1 percent from a year earlier. Livestreaming of games contributed the majority — 80.38 percent of revenue.

"China's e-sports industry has built a complete industrial chain, connecting livestreaming platforms for well-known games, clubs and cross-industry cooperation. The sector has become more regulated, mainstream and international," said Zhang.