Teams from Nanjing Institute of Technology (NJIT) and Nanjing branch of Gree Electric Appliances won the student and employee divisions respectively in the city's latest Six Dynasties Cup Esports League on September 25.

The 2-day competition included participants from all walks of life, including professional student teams and enterprise employees.

Esports club is usually the largest student organization in many universities in Nanjing. Ni Chen, head of the winning NJIT team, said the school's esports club has more than 400 member students who study computer, communication engineering, Big Data and Internet technology.

(Photo/Huang Hongfang)

Xu Fei, secretary-general of Nanjing Esports Association, said Chinese esports fans are estimated to number more than 530 million and Nanjing has 150 regular esports teams, which include about 60,000-80,000 core players.

Wang Xianbo, director of the Animation College of Jinling Institute of Technology, also aid the esports games market in China generated more than 170 billion yuan in sales revenue in 2021 and the sector has an average annual growth rate of more than 20% since COVID-19. Meanwhile, there’s a huge shortage of talent in the industry, such as designers, judges, and presenters, and the gap was estimated to be 500,000 in 2020.

However, few players want to make a living on playing games as the training can be time-consuming and a career in esports can be short-lived, with the average retirement age of 23.