ESports in Shanghai reached a development milestone on Thursday as the local association released guidelines over the registration and management of athletes.

Five video games have been chosen for registration and they are: League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, Warcraft III and FIFA Online 4. Athletes must be at least 18 years old and must register in the club with which they signed a contract of employment.

Once athletes register in Shanghai, they need to apply before changing their registered location and cannot do redundant registrations. The first registration will be effective for three years with annual checking.

Of the listed benefits for registered eSports athletes, two deserve attention: First, when a team is being set up in Shanghai to play on behalf of either the municipality or the country, members will only be selected from registered players. Second, official paperwork will be provided to support athletes when they go abroad for competition, visit or exchange events, helping simplify relevant procedures including visa application.

Chinese eSports athletes have been bothered by visa problems for years. When they needed to go overseas to participate in any event, since club members were not athletes recognized by the nation, they could only apply for visitor visas and rarely saw everyone get the visa, meaning that Chinese eSports teams could seldom send the best players for competition.

Thanks to its rapid development in recent years, eSports gradually rose above the stereotype of "children playing video games" and became accepted as a real sport by more and more people. Team China winning two gold medals and one silver medal at the 2018 Asian Games further promoted such a trend. Shanghai, as a major eSports city in China, is a good choice for pilot of the new guidelines. Besides, the ninth International, DOTA 2 Championships (Ti) will be held in Shanghai in August 2019.