TALKESPORT

Borderlands 2 the good old looter shooter and the best in class of this genre just received an uplift with Gearbox offering free 4k texture packs and also announcing the sequel to the series named Borderland 3. All this news and update hyped the crowd and long-time players to reboot the title once again and relive the story again before the sequel.

According to a report, the game peaked just shy of 60k players last week as highlighted in steam charts where the game hit 59,333 concurrent players. All this boils down to the hype that the recent announcements made and the heavy discounts the game received this week.

But that doesn’t make the game mediocre. In fact, Borderlands 2 offers a wide variety of story-driven campaign and co-op looter shooter experience at its core followed by loads of customization options. The game has a “very positive” review on steam since its launch in 2012 and has remained the same since then. Even after loads of negative reviews, it received after the announcement of Borderlands 3 being 6-months exclusive to Epic Game Stores set to release on September 13th,2019.

The Borderland series have been fan favourite since long and borderland 2 was the best among them. Many reviewers said that the game was ahead of its time and offered a very new and fun approach to game mechanics, that other games were missing or failed to implement properly. With developers still remaining active and giving out updates occasionally, the game may even hit 80k concurrent players in the coming weeks as the release for the sequel comes closer.

In a report from China’s biggest television broadcaster, China Central Television (CCTV) reported that the current state of the esports in the Chinese market is growing at a phenomenal pace and may reach the $3 bn mark by 2020.

According to the report, the Chinese esports market generated $1.2 bn in revenue for the year 2018 and is expected to reach $3 bn marks in 2020. In the report, CCTV also stated that currently more than 50,000 people are working in the industry and the number is expected to grow past 250,000 by 2020.

To meet the demand of the growing esports industry many Chinese colleges have started offering esports related courses in various fields such as event management, event operations, esports broadcasting and esports streaming.

Besides adding more esports courses to colleges, the Chinese government is also trying to raise public awareness of esports as a whole. The Chinese government as a promotion effort confirmed “esports operator” and “esports player” as two new professions in the country. With support from the government, many big companies are also looking to invest more in esports scene such as Tencent.

Bang Xu, the vice president of Tomorrowland Esports Ltd talked with CCTV and said:

Three years ago, it may have taken two or three months to get one or two applicants for the director of an esports league. The number of esports leagues in 2016 was just less than 10. At present, we may have dozens of applicants in a month, and the number of esports leagues has exceeded 100. Although more and more people are willing to engage in the esports industry, esports talents are still in short supply compared to the speed of the industry development.

With the promising growth in the industry and government interest in esports, many young esports players can rejoice and confidently look for the future in the esports industry and contribute further to the development of esports in China.

Cover Photo courtesy of CGTN