Taiwan should endeavor to reclaim a leading position in the global competitive gaming, or e-sports, industry, especially as the industry’s market value is forecast to reach US$113 billion next year, Chinese Taipei e-Sports Association director Cheng Pao-ching (鄭寶清) said.
Citing statistics from Twitch, the world’s largest gaming livestreaming platform, and the Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC), Cheng said that Taiwan has both the manufacturing capacity and enough interest among the population to make a comeback as a force to be reckoned with.
According to Twitch’s June statistics, more than 4.5 million unique Taiwanese users watched 1 billion minutes worth of livestreamed footage that month, making Taiwan one of the five biggest audiences worldwide and also an important base for development, Cheng said.
Photo: Chen Yao-tsung, Taipei Times
Views from Taipei alone grew 34 percent from the same month last year as city residents watched 1 billion minutes of live-stream footage, Cheng said, adding that Taipei had the highest viewership.
MIC statistics show that equipment specifically made to enhance player performance in e-sports is becoming more commonplace as the industry matures, Cheng said, adding that Taiwan stood to benefit as computer hardware and equipment has always been Taiwanese manufacturers’ strong suit.
With China, South Korea, European countries and the US giving competitive gaming official recognition, the fervor behind e-sports would only continue to grow, Cheng said.
The e-sports industry has also seen a gradual rounding-out of its ecology, with direct-broadcast platforms, broadcasting rights to televise events, advertising and the establishment of professional teams, he said.
More than 80 percent of Taiwanese motherboard maker Micro Star International’s profit of NT$102 billion last year came from sales related to e-sports, Cheng said.
However, despite the numbers, the government and the public have not warmed up to the industry, he added.
With 6 million Taiwanese playing mobile games or massively multiplayer online games, the government should take a lesson from basketball and baseball, sports that were seen as a frivolous waste of time, but which now offer salaries higher than the average white-collar job, Cheng said.
The e-sports industry offers a bright future and is a global trend, and parents should not feel that children are wasting their time on computer games, he added.
With the recent inclusion of e-sports in an amendment to the Sports Industry Development Act (運動產業發展條例), the Taiwanese e-sports industry still stands a chance of reclaiming its previous glory through development of software, peripheral hardware and e-sports events, Cheng said.
If Taiwan performs well in e-sports at the 2022 Asian Games, Taiwan’s visibility on the international stage would be greatly increased, Cheng said.
A good environment is critical to foster an e-sports industry, and aside from next year’s International e-sports Federation championships being held in Kaohsiung, Cheng said he hopes to persuade the governments of all six special municipalities to construct e-sports arenas that conform to international competition standards.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods