As the pandemic eases in Beijing, the city's offline events have started to re-emerge. 

Thousands of people attended E-sports Beijing 2020 on Saturday and Sunday in west Beijing's Capital Steel Cultural Park and Cadillac Arena, bolstering a series of exhibitions, conferences and real-time games. 

5G, AI and immersive experiences were also featured. The highlight of the event were the finals of King Pro League (KPL), the professional Honor of Kings competition, which is one of China's most popular mobile games. 2,000 tickets in the Cadillac Arena were sold out weeks ago while millions more watched the games online.  

"350 million people will watch the final online because it's the highest level of the King Pro League," said Zhang Yijia, general manager of Mobile E-Sports Department, Tencent Interactive Entertainment Group. "There's a total of 32 million yuan in prizes this year. And the champions can take away 13.4 million yuan."

Meanwhile, an official from the municipal government says the focus on the e-sports is a strategic move.  

"E-sports are a newly emerged cultural industry. Beijing has very good resources in this area," said Liu Shaojian, director of Beijing State-Owned Cultural Asset Management Center, adding that E-sports Beijing 2020 signals that the city is dedicated to promoting e-sports. 

"The three events of the past two days really demonstrated that the Beijing municipal government is very positive in supporting e-sports. We look forward to holding more events in Beijing, as well as nurturing e-sports clubs and training talent," said Zhang. 

According to the China Gaming Industry Report, the country's e-sports fans reached 484 million while revenue stood at 98.2 billion yuan in 2019, making the country the biggest e-sports market in the world. 

The whole industry involves IP authorization, content creation, and marketing, which has become a mature full-circle economy.