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Aug.30 (NBD) -- China defeated Korea at 3:1 to win the League of Legends gold medal on Wednesday night at the 2018 Asian Games. For now, China had won two eSports golden medals and one silver medal at the Asian Games which is the first large-scale sports event to include eSports for the first time as a demonstration sport.

The week-long competition involves 6 games, namely Arena of Valor, Clash Royale, League of Legends, StarCraft II, Hearthstone and PES 2018.

Despite the excitement to know Chinese players won the gold medal, Chinese fans could only see the progress of the competition through words and pictures, because of some copyright issues.

It's note worthy that no Chinese media or video platform was authorized by Asian Electronic Sports Federation (AESF) for streaming the eSports event.

AESF later explained on its Sina Weibo account that it was unable to ensure that every country or region can enjoy a live streaming for the event due to issues related to copyrights.

However, some eSports fans turned to foreign livestreaming platforms such as Amazon's Twitch to enjoy the event. Matches that were participated by Chinese players earned tens of thousands of and even millions of views and 70 percent of online viewers were Chinese, according to statistics from Twitch.

Being unable to livestream the eSports event, a live-broadcasting APP of China Central Television (CCTV) was rated as low as 2.4 points on app store and some users even uninstalled the app to protest.

Last month, the General Administration of Sports of China made an announcement, saying that to fuel the development of the eSports industry, a contest will be held in December in Southwest China's Chengdu. During the event, PUBG will be included as a demonstration match, while the League of Legends, StarCraft2 and Hearthstone Legend will be formal contests of which the top two players will be recruited into the national team. The news is hailed by eSports enthusiasts and related industry personnel.

eSports will be a medal event at the 2022 Asia Games in Hangzhou, a place that breeds the most advanced internet industry in China. Some expressed online their expectations to watch the games via livestreaming platforms or TV broadcasting at the 2022 Asia Games.

Email: tanyuhan@nbd.com.cn