Every year, the Naraka Bladepoint esports scene reaches its peak at the J Cup, its annual world championship tournament where the top 24 Solo masters and 24 Trios teams from major regions around the world gather to compete for the $1.5 million prize pool.
NetEase, the game publisher, runs the J Cup. 2023 was the first time since post-pandemic that they brought together international players to compete offline on one stage.
Leading the esports team is Hou Jue, who was formerly a game designer with 24 Entertainment, NetEase’s game studio. Speaking to media in Chengdu, China where J Cup 2023 was held, he talks about how he got the role and his thoughts on the growth of Naraka Bladepoint esports.
Naraka Bladepoint esports will only get bigger as the player base grows
When NetEase first started discussing building an esports team in 2020, Hou Jue was recommended by his then boss and peers to lead the committee, he said.
Viewed as someone who highly values teamwork within and outside the company, the company believed he would be the best person in terms of communication and bridging gaps.
“I’m personally very interested in esports. I spent a relatively long period watching esports,” he added, expressing enthusiasm for Dota 2’s The International, League of Legends esports, as well as CS:GO and Warcraft.
“When I received the mission to build my own esports team, I began to reflect and think about why they organize some events like these,” Hou Jue said.
He believes that Naraka Bladepoint is the perfect game for esports. Compared to other battle royale games, it has a longer time to kill (TTK), offering players more chances to outplay each other using the rock, paper, and scissors mechanic.
At the moment, Naraka Bladepoint esports scene is robust in China, which of course has a homeground advantage. Its esports scene even extends to the tertiary level where universities compete against each other. It’s easy to organize tournaments here because they are under the same educational system.
When asked about the frequency of esports tournaments in other regions like North America, Hou Jue said that they have plans to first work closely with the community to help the grassroots grow.
The company is definitely interested in investing more in the North American region and organizing more official tournaments there in the future.
“We hope we can involve more Naraka Bladepoint players in America, and we hope these players could pay attention to our esports content to create a positive loop,” said Hou Jue said.
During the J Cup, the first public test for Naraka mobile also took place where media, pro players, and the public got to try it out — something that Hou Jue is already conceptualizing.
“We already have plans for Naruka Mobile esports. For mobile, we may need specific ways to show and to express information to the audience from mobile phones,” he said. “In China, there’s a lot of good and successful mobile games doing esports. We are doing research to find a better way for Naraka.”
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