Tucki (pseudonym), a student of a famous junior high school in Shanghai, tried to be a game anchor at the age of "the best hand speed". His parents cut him off from the Internet for four times, and the last time he shut himself in his room for 50 hours.
Recently, Chen Liangshun, the community responsible policeman of Jiaxing Road Police Station of Hongkou Branch of Shanghai Public Security Bureau, received help from parents almost every day. He suddenly became a "online celebrity policeman" because he helped Tucki regain his studies and was admitted to a listed key high school. SMS, WeChat and telephone calls for help come and go, and many of them are foreign parents.
"The game teenagers I came into contact with basically want to be e-sports anchors." The first case that Chen Liangshun received was Tucki, who had been on a hunger strike for 50 hours. According to Tucki’s father, Mr. Gui, during the epidemic period, the child played games by opening a "small window" on the computer, and when he was disconnected from the Internet at home, he cracked his neighbor’s WiFi password and continued to play games.
Wanting to be a game anchor sometimes becomes an excuse for these teenagers to play games. When parents show dissatisfaction or even anger at their children’s addiction to games and neglect of their studies, "being a game anchor with an annual income of 10 million yuan" will often become the "best dream" for children to play games.
Hunger strike for being a game anchor
Mr Gui told reporters that during the winter vacation in 2020, Tucki hardly wrote a word, never read a book, and played games every day. And his dream is to be a game anchor with a junior high school diploma. "It is said that a powerful anchor can earn 10 million yuan a year and does not need a college degree at all." Mr. Gui said that Tucki had repeatedly advised his parents that his hand speed was the fastest in his teens. If he missed this point, he would not be able to be a game anchor.
The intervention of police officer Chen Liangshun was the result of Mr. Gui calling 110. At that time, Tucki had been eating or drinking for 50 hours because of disagreement with his parents.
"I play games myself, so I will talk to him about games." Chen Liangshun told reporters that after he became a policeman, he also participated in the professional competition of clash royale, and scored the top 32 online in the country, but he finally lost to a math student at Fudan University. "This example can fully show that playing games is not just about junior high school education."
Mr. Gui has a calendar that records the time of each visit by Chen Liangshun. The calendar shows that in the months before Tucki’s entrance examination in 2020, Chen Liangshun visited Tucki for more than 40 times. Every time, Chen Liangshun almost sends a message to the children — — No matter what career you are engaged in in in the future, take a college diploma first.
"Many children have been paralyzed by online public opinion. Various online media always report how much high salary the e-sports anchor can earn, but never say how many people behind this industry that can make money by playing games and chatting are paving the way at the bottom of the pyramid. " Chen Liangshun told reporters that among the game teenagers he came into contact with later, there were girls. "I feel that I am good-looking and can play games, so I can make money."
He said that some game teenagers have high IQ. Taking Tucki as an example, he "lost his way" on the eve of the senior high school entrance examination, decided to resume his studies and was admitted to the city’s key high school. In the latest monthly exam in high school, he jumped to the 62nd place, ranking more than 220 in grade, and got the first place in the class in mathematics.
"It’s not impossible for them." Chen Liangshun recently contacted dozens of game teenagers and their parents and found that for these teenagers with high IQ and low social awareness, they may lack an "anchor persuasion course" the most.
I thought I was here to play games, but I didn’t expect to "go to work"
Zheng Duo, co-founder and COO of Hero Sports VSPN, an integrated e-sports operator, is a "chief dismissal officer" in the e-sports industry. High flyers, who graduated from Peking University, is now a visiting professor in the E-sports course of Communication University of China. The required courses for e-sports majors such as "Introduction to E-sports" offered by him go far beyond the simple "playing games" itself, but aim at the core modules of the e-sports industry, such as event organization, content production, publicity and broadcasting, and commercialization, and introduce students to a "career development space" full of unknowns.
Zheng Duo receives many friends’ calls for help every day. "Almost all children are addicted to games. I hope that children can visit our company and see what e-sports companies do every day." He sometimes calls the "e-sports players" in the company to give lessons to the children, "telling them what it’s like to play games for more than 10 hours a day."
He told the reporter of China Youth Daily and China Youth Network that some parents were "fooled" by their children when they were "ignorant". For example, some parents think that their children’s "hand speed" is very fast, and find Zheng Duo to recommend "future e-sports players". However, from a professional point of view, people with fast hand speed in the crowd every day are also at 100APM (mouse and keyboard clicks per minute), while in the era of PC e-sports, the hand speed of top professional e-sports players should reach 260-300APM. "Find my friend’s children directly and shoot a hand-speed video. Almost no one can play professionally." Zheng duo said.
Because they don’t know how to do it, some parents blindly send their children to the road of e-sports, but their children’s e-sports dreams are likely to give up halfway. At the same time, these children at the best age of hand speed also lost the opportunity to continue their studies at the best age of study.
Ruan Chen, the head of League of Legends Team of RNG E-sports Club, once made suggestions to Shanghai’s NPC deputies and CPPCC members — — Give those teenagers who give up their studies and engage in e-sports a chance to return to school.
Ruan Chen told reporters that the age of e-sports practitioners is usually between 14 and 25, and the golden age is between 15 and 20. At this age, many people are still in junior high school, high school and university, and entering the e-sports industry means giving up their studies.
The annual income of top players in the e-sports industry is twice or even three times that of well-known basketball and football players in China. It is also a "normal phenomenon" for star players to earn more than 100 million yuan a year. "Many people think that e-sports can be a lifelong career. But in fact, the elimination rate of this industry is particularly high. " According to Ruan Chen, if you give up your studies for e-sports, young people will be in a "particularly embarrassing" situation. "Even if your hands are fast and you have been trained for half a year or a year, what should you do?"
Is it possible to work in an e-sports company? In this regard, Zheng took out the data of his own company — — Since its establishment in 2016, the Hero Sports VSPN platform has grown from 7 people to 1,500 people. The company recruits 600 people every year and eliminates about 400 people by resignation. A large part of these people who were "eliminated" left their jobs because they didn’t understand the e-sports industry. "Many people said that I thought I had a lot of time to play games in e-sports companies, but I didn’t expect my work to be so busy, so I left."
It is particularly noteworthy that all employees currently working in VSPN have at least undergraduate degrees, and most of them are 985 and 211 universities, among which there are many graduates from world famous universities such as Hong Kong University and Columbia University. The anchors of VSPN are mainly graduates of Broadcasting Department of Communication University of China.
Parents and children who don’t know how to do things are relying on their own imagination.
A status quo that worries people in the industry is that due to the lack of e-sports knowledge and insufficient penetration rate, the "mysterious industry" of e-sports has shown a trend of supporting and opposing "polarization" in the parent circle — — Some parents strongly oppose their children’s participation in the e-sports industry. They don’t even know what an e-sports event or an e-sports anchor is. It is simply rude to keep children out of contact. Some parents think that the e-sports industry can make a lot of money, and the children’s hand speed is fast enough to drop out of school and wander in the industry.
In these two extreme situations, the former directly leads to the breakdown of family parent-child relationship, and some children even run away from home, live in internet cafes or go on hunger strike; The latter can easily send children to the embarrassing situation of "e-sports can’t be played, reading can’t be done, and work can’t be found".
According to media reports, an e-sports education institution in Chengdu recruits more than 100 students a year. They are more or less tired of learning and addicted to games. After professional training and various simulation competitions, most people can finally recognize the gap between themselves and professional players and return to reality.
"I often think that if the TV station of Shangxing can broadcast more professional explanations of e-sports competitions, and primary and secondary schools can offer e-sports career planning or introduction courses, parents and students will not be so blind?" Zheng Duo said that at present, most of the live broadcasts of e-sports events are on niche platforms that parents can’t reach, such as S10 events, which broadcast 4,000-5,000 games a year on online platforms with hundreds of millions of audiences, but many parents have never been exposed to such events. "Because they don’t understand, parents either blindly cut off the network or blindly agree to let their children drop out of school to play games. Parents and children are talking according to their own imaginations, and chickens talk to ducks. "
Chen Liangshun, a community policeman, has a similar view. He told reporters that one of the main reasons why he was able to "persuade" Tucki, who went on a hunger strike to play games, was that he "played and understood games". "Every child, I basically use my own experience of playing games to persuade me to retreat." Recently, almost all the parents of online games teenagers he came into contact with who came to seek help did not have the quality of "understanding games".
Chen Liangshun believes that children playing games and indulging in games have become a relatively common social problem to a certain extent, and the key point of this problem is whether parents and children can clearly know what the e-sports industry is and what qualities they need to work in the e-sports industry.
According to the data from Forward-looking Industry Research Institute, under the influence of the COVID-19 epidemic, the number of broadcast anchors on the live broadcast platform of head games in China showed a rising trend from January to March 2020, reaching the highest value in March 2020, with the number of broadcast anchors being 4.337 million; However, from April to June, 2020, the number of broadcast anchors gradually declined. In June, the number of broadcast anchors on the head game live broadcast platform was 3.039 million.
Wang Ting, the founder of Shanghai Whale Rider Culture Communication Company, told the reporter that his "broadcast praise" public welfare course "dissuaded" many teenagers who wanted to be e-sports anchors. "At present, about 300 people have been trained. Many young people don’t know that there are too many details behind the seemingly simple live broadcast of goods and e-sports. They entered the business blindly, but they were not prepared for it. "
In recent days, Wang Ting’s course has received applications from some e-sports teenagers. He intends to customize a training course for them to play games for more than 12 hours every day for a week. "Please ask special players to train him, pull his hand speed and physical fitness, and see if they want to continue to be game anchors."
Wang Ting said that some teenagers can’t even speak fluently, so they blindly think that they can make money by being a game anchor. "I have to give them back, do a good job in their studies first, and then talk about other things."
Zhongqingbao Zhongqingwang reporter Wang Yujie
