The Asia Games 2022 are currently taking place in Hangzhou, and for the first time, gaming is also on the agenda there: The first competition in e-sports has taken place, and China has won the tournament in “Honor of Kings” (mobile). The game, a kind of mobile League of Legends with superheroes, is huge in Asia, but failed to catch on in the West as Arena of Valor.
What kind of tournament is this?
- The “Asia Games” take place every 4 years. The Asia Games 2022 were postponed to 2023 because of Covid and are currently running in Hangzhou, China.
- In addition to classic sports, Asians compete in intellectual sports such as chess and go. In 2023, e-sports will also be included for the first time.
- The Chinese now won the first e-sports gold in the history of the
Asia Games
in the game “Honor of Kings”.
In Europe, Honor of Kings was released in August 2017 under the name Arena of Valor
:
Honor of Kings is a LoL clone that is huge in China
What kind of game is this? The Chinese gaming giant Tencent bought the studio Riot Games in 2011 and, according to reports, asked the LoL team to develop a “Mobile LoL” for the Chinese market after all, because League of Legends is popular there, but the Chinese prefer to play on their cell phones rather than on their PCs.
However, Riot Games refused and explained that LoL did not work on mobile devices. The Chinese then built a rather brazen LoL clone for mobile devices, called it “Heroes of Kings” and distributed it via their super app WeChat.
In the years that followed, Honor of Kings became a huge game in China, played by millions of people there, including 163 million women.
Why don’t we know this? Tencent’s attempt to bring the game to the West as “Arena of Valor” in 2017 failed. We even brought a tier list for the game in 2017 on MyMMO and see weird heroes like Batman there.
In the meantime, there is an official mobile version of LoL anyway. It was probably possible to bring LoL to mobile devices after all.
When the grandson competes against the grandfather
So China won now: China, as the home country of “Honor of Kings”, prevailed in the tournament clearly 2-0 against Malaysia. Third was Thailand.
The final was played in an e-sports center for 4,500 spectators in Hangzhou.
The Malaysia coach said after the defeat that China was a giant in the game. Playing against them, he said, was like the grandson challenging his grandfather. He said they were disappointed that they couldn’t give Malaysia their first gold, but gave it their best shot.
League of Legends is also played at the Asia Games. For South Korean pros like Faker, it’s not just about gold and fame, but also about avoiding military service:
Fans of BTS think it’s totally unfair that LoL stars like Faker are treated better than their favorites