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...

Game publisher Valve announced Wednesday that it has decided to shut down in-game advertisements for Dota 2’s annual event - The International Copenhagen 2024 at Royal Arena from Sept. 4-15. “This year, to remove distracting elements and allow full focus on the game and the people playing it,” Valve wrote in its announcement. ”We aren’t going to have advertisements and sponsorships in-game at The International, including team banners, base logos, and tags in players' names.” The announcement has led to...

Chinese esports organization Edward Gaming (EDG) announced recently that it has teamed up with UK-based esports organization Fnatic (FNC). The Weibo post from EDG pointed out “EDG X FNC coming soon,” though further details about the collaboration have not been not disclosed, as of this writing. Sources close to EDG confirmed to The Esports Advocate that the partnership is for producing co-branding merchandise in China. FNC has had its gaming gear chain since 2016 in the West, including keyboards, headsets,...

Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege received game approval from China’s National Press and Publication Administration on Friday, alongside 15 other games. It should be noted that the Chinese largest game publisher Tencent is the distributor of the game and the game approval includes both mobile and PC platforms. It’s more likely Tencent will also take a major role in the esports operation for Rainbow Six Siege in China. In addition, the approval also marks the Rainbow Six streams as legit on...

Nathan Lyons-Smith, executive producer of Hearthstone & vice president of Blizzard Entertainment, announced Sunday that Hearthstone will officially return to Mainland China on Sept. 25 with Chinese distributor Thunder Fire Group, a game studio owned by Chinese game publisher NetEase. Lyons-Smith announced this news at the Blizzard Entertainment & NetEase main stage at ChinaJoy, China’s top gaming and digital entertainment expo. Regarding the Hearthstone esports plan, Lyons-Smith and executives from Thunder Fire Group also announced that the 2024 Hearthstone Masters...

The seven-day Esports World Cup (EWC) League of Legends competition in Riyadh concluded on July 7, but The Esports Advocate has learned that its Chinese broadcasts did not include eight EWC sponsors, including Brans, KitKat, LG UltraGear, Adidas, Qiddiya, Dr. Sulaiman AL Habib Medical Group, Pepsi, and Sony during the competitions. Only Saudi Arabia telecom company STC Group was featured at the highlight of League of Legends competitions. The broadcasts outside of Mainland China such as Twitch showed the sponsor...

Taobao announced on Friday that it signed a sponsorship deal with Chinese esports organization LGD Gaming for its Dota 2 team. Taobao is the e-commerce brand of Chinese conglomerate Alibaba Group. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Under the terms of this sponsorship, the Taobao logo will be featured on the center chest of the team jerseys. In addition, the term “Taobao” will also be placed alongside the players’ in-game IDs when LGD Gaming competes in the Esports...

Chinese game publisher Tencent Holdings has decided to cancel the annual Global Esports Summit for 2024. The company held an online live conference “Empower Esports Worldwide” on Monday instead of hosting an in-person Global Esports Summit. “We would normally be busy preparing for our annual Global Esports Summit, and it would be almost the time to announce it,” Mars Hou, vice president of Tencent Games and general manager of Tencent Esports said during the live conference. “However, while we are...

Chinese esports organization Weibo Gaming (WBG) announced on Sunday that it signed a partnership deal with two Chinese teams: Dota 2 team Xtreme Gaming (XG) and StarCraft II team DKZ. XG will rebrand to WBG.XG, while DKZ will rebrand to WBG, becoming a StarCraft II division of WBG. The partnership is a play for Saudi Arabia’s Esports World Cup (EWC) in Riyadh. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. WBG is one of the 30 teams in the Esports...

Beijing-based esports organization JingDong Gaming (JDG) announced that it has acquired a franchise slot in China’s top Honor of Kings competition - the King Pro League (KPL). The original slot belonged to Xiamen-based esports organization Vici Gaming (VG), which is also the last esports division VG had—and with this acquisition—marks the end of VG’s 12-year journey in Chinese esports. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The most recent recorded base price for a KPL franchise slot is the...