E-sports regained their popularity in China during the COVID-19 lockdowns after suffering a bit of a lull. Things have changed, however. Women players are now making more money from live-streaming and other businesses than they are from the competitions.   

According to a report by analytical platform Forward, 24 percent of the e-sports players in China were women in 2019. And that proportion is expected to rise to 36 percent this year.  

However, since last year, almost all women's e-sports competitions have been canceled. With gaming and marketing revenue falling off, the women's clubs have been holding livestreams, commentating at famous e-sports tournaments, starring in popular exhibitions and joining TV variety shows.  

Killer Angels (K.A.), an all women's e-sports club founded in 2015, is one of China's largest women's e-sports clubs. 

Pang Yu, a 20-year-old member of K.A., became a professional e-sports player four years ago and started hosting a livestream on Huya.com last July, mainly introducing her skills at playing League of Legends. She now has some 160,000 fans.  

"I've met a lot of people while playing games. Originally when they asked what I did for a living, I would always say I was a college student. I didn't want them to know I was a girl e-sports player, people would think that was strange. But now, I don't mind anymore. I made 4,000 yuan a month in 2016, and now I'm making over 10,000 a month," Pan said.

Nine of the 20 club members have become live streamers since last year, and it was during the outbreak that the business really took off. Some of them saw a 10-fold jump in their monthly income during the period, bringing in 100,000 or even 150,000 yuan a month.

Other women players turned to be commentators for renowned e-sports games, such as Hearthstone and League of Legends.

"Last summer, I was commentating at different Hearthstone competitions almost every weekend. In the past, I made around 5,000 yuan a month. But now, that's up to 8,000 yuan," Wu Tianli, a K.A. member said.

While not as many competitions as in the past are only for women, some variety shows are welcoming women players warmly.

Last year, Tencent video launched the first women's e-sports variety show, and K.A member Chen Shuyu was one of the 45 players.

Now K.A. is thinking even bigger: opening a branch in Japan, one of the first women-only e-sports clubs in that country. 

With eight local members, the Japanese branch is taking in 10 million yen a year, by attending various tournaments and attracting sponsors. The club manager says the new move should expand the club's business and help it survive in the industry.

"We created a manga series about e-sports four years ago, and it got over 50 million viewers. So we now want to turn the manga into a cartoon series that we can copyright. If we can work with a well-known Japanese company like Bandai, we'll be a real club," Shen Meifeng, K.A.'s manager, said.