(Yicai Global) March 9 -- Women are becoming more and more important in China’s electronic sports field, as they accounted for 43.6 percent of all Chinese e-sports players last year, professional or not, according to a recent report.

The number of women playing e-sports is expected to continue to rise, the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association said in the report.

China’s e-sports industry had CNY144.5 billion (USD20.8 billion) of revenue in 2022, down 14 percent from 2021 because of the impact of Covid-19, the report noted. CNY26.7 billion (USD3.8 billion) billion came from e-sports livestreaming, tournaments, clubs, and other areas, a 4 percent decline.

Clubs prefer men for e-sport player and training manager positions, but there are many women in key posts such as game publishers, tournament hosts, as well as strategy, planning, and marketing specialists, Guo Xiaofei, head of regional tournaments at Shanghai-based game developer Moonton Games, told Yicai Global.

“Half or more of our company’s e-sports team members are women,” said Guo, who has been working in the industry for more than a decade.

She oversaw the building in 2019 of the Hearthstone e-sports system, a free-to-play online digital collectible card game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment and run in China by NetEase.

Guo was also the interpreter for Li Xiaomeng, the first woman to become Hearthstone Global champion. It took only one and a half years for Li, better known by her in-game name Liooon, to become world champion after becoming a professional player.

Traditional competitive sports, such as multiplayer online battle arenas and first person shooter games, mainly target male players and spectators, Guo noted, adding that women can play as well as men in many categories, as Li does.

The women’s e-sports spectator market is growing, and the women’s tournament market has great potential, Guo pointed out.

Moonton Games recently launched the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Women's Invitational, a Southeast Asian female-only tournament. Last year, it was the most-watched overseas women’s tournament, peaking at 390,000 simultaneous online viewers.

E-sports were approved to become an official discipline at the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou 2022, giving competitive video gaming much exposure.

Editors: Shi Yi, Futura Costaglione