Tencent establishes franchise league for CrossFire

Tencent, a Chinese multinational conglomerate founded in 1998, is one of the world’s largest social media companies and is the world’s largest gaming company. Tencent is now currently focusing on delivering everything it can on esports.

A global esports juggernaut

Whether it is purchasing a 40 percent share in Fortnite developer Epic, or acquiring League of Legends publisher Riot Games, Tencent has slowly worked towards gaining the upper hand in the esports industry.

Tencent doesn’t appear to be giving up and is now establishing a franchise league for their Chinese CS:GO challenger CrossFire.

On Sept. 29, Tencent esports held a CrossFire franchise league ceremony in Shenzhen, a city in southeastern China. This event followed the announcement that LGD Gaming, a Chinese esports organization, has established an international partnership with North American esports organization Team Reciprocity.

It’s not the first time for LGD Gaming to partner with an international organization. LGD Gaming had previously partnered with Paris Saint-Germain, a prominent France soccer club in Apr 2018. The partnership formed a professional Dota 2 team named PSG.LGD.

LGD Gaming and Team Reciprocity have established a collaborative esports team known as LGD.REC to compete in top CrossFire franchise leagues in China. These include both CFML (CrossFire Mobile League) and CFPL (CrossFire Pro League) Fall Season.

According to the announcement, the objective of this partnership is to enable LGD.REC become the most globally focused and commercially managed esports team in China.
The other objective is to dominate in the forthcoming Tencent CrossFire league, which will take place early next year.

What is CrossFire?

CrossFire is an online strategic first-person shooter game created by South Korean publisher Smilegate Entertainment. Tencent released the game in China while acting as its own independent distribution service company.

According to Tencent, CrossFire has registered 650 million players worldwide. CrossFire is a game that combines gameplay of CS:GO and Call of Duty into one. While Chinese fans are happy about the game’s outstanding news, the news comes as a surprise to those living beyond the region. The reason is that most information about this game has flown under the radar of gamers and fans outside of China.

Image via samtroncafe.com

The game has developed tremendously since 2013 in Korea and China. It produces more than $1.5 billion in profits, making it one of the most lucrative games in the world.

The reason behind the development is due to the different ranges of 33 game modes. It can vary from 3 different Zombie modes to traditional Search and Destroy, allowing for a tailored gaming experience for all.

Although these excess game modes help maintain CrossFire’s popularity, its revenues mostly originate from weapon and skins sales. For instance, players can make in-game purchases in exchange for more powerful weapons.

This is a move that has created significant controversy over the years. However, this has not discouraged players as the game brags of an imposing 8 million concurrent count of players, which easily outranks some famous western titles.

Screenshot via Otep Gaming | Youtube.com

This news is not likely the last to hear from CrossFire and its franchise league. It is also not the last we notice with western organizations getting involved.

Many organizations are trying to break into the lucrative Chinese market, which has a magnificent obsession with esports. More new information will still emerge around the Tencent CrossFire league in the following months as fans, players, and organizations begin to take notice.

Written by Alex Johnson