World of Warcraft China Sponsors Chinese Dota 2 Teams XG and G2xiG

Published by

Hongyu Chen

2 weeks ago

World of Warcraft China sponsors Xtreme Gaming and G2xiG for The International in Copenhagen

World of Warcraft China announced on Monday that it has signed sponsorship deals with two Chinese Dota 2 teams—Xtreme Gaming (XG) and G2xiG—for the upcoming 2024 Copenhagen The International. The World of Warcraft Chinese term “魔兽世界“ will be featured on the left chest of XG’s team jerseys.

It’s not clear if World of Warcraft will be featured on G2xiG team jerseys though, as the team is a joint venture of Germany-based esports organization G2 Esports and Chinese esports organization Invictus Gaming (IG). Sponsors for G2xiG team jerseys were inherited from existing G2 sponsorships including Logitech, Mastercard, Spotify, Red Bull, Herman Miller, Pringles, Stride, and Ralph Lauren.

Sources close to the deal confirmed to The Esports Advocate the sponsorship was led by Chinese game publisher and distributor ThunderFire, a game studio owned by Chinese game publisher NetEase, which is also in partnership with World of Warcraft developer Activision Blizzard for distributing all Blizzard Entertainment gaming products in China.

In an official poster generated by World of Warcraft China, ThunderFire detailed the original sponsorship plan before the Dota 2 developer shut down in-game advertisements:

“Our plan was to put ‘For Xalatath’ alongside XG players in-game ID, and to put ‘For Azeroth’ alongside G2xiG players in-game ID,” World of Warcraft China wrote in the poster.

“But it’s impossible now, Valve unilaterally canceled in-game advertisements, including team banners, base logos, and tags alongside players’ ID, without any warning, communications with teams.

“We discussed with XG and iGxG2 immediately, and they showed disappointment and accepted that we withdraw the sponsorship,” World of Warcraft China added. ”and we decided to continue to sponsor Chinese Dota 2 teams at The International.”

World of Warcraft China describes Valve’s decision as “target all teams and sponsors” and “cast backstab” in the poster.

Dota 2’s history and origin is tied deeply to Warcraft III and Blizzard Entertainment. Defense of the Ancients (Dota 1) was a customized map in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, a real-time strategy (RTS) game developed by Blizzard Entertainment in 2003. Valve had a legal dispute with Blizzard Entertainment regarding the ownership of the Dota trademark in 2011, and Valve eventually inherited the Dota name in 2012. In some ways, most of the characters from Dota 2 were also inherited and inspired by Warcraft III characters, which share the same backstories as Warcraft.

After Activision Blizzard and NetEase announced that they would resume their partnership in China and restart the China server earlier this year, World of Warcraft became the first gaming product on the list. The game was relaunched on the China server on Aug. 1, with Hearthstone as the next game to be launched.

Hongyu Chen

Hongyu "Eddie" Chen serves as conduit from China to the rest of global esports scene as the only Chinese journalist living in China while writing for Western media outlets. For the last four years Eddie served as the China esports correspondent for The Esports Observer and Sports Business Journal. He is a bilingual graduate of MA Business and Marketing and a certified BEng Electronic and Communication Engineer.