The Chinese organization SuperGen is building a huge esports center for 1.3 billion euros. It will include an arena and training rooms, as well as hotels and leisure facilities.
What is being built? A new headquarters for SuperGen is to be built in Shanghai on 500,000 square meters (as large as 70 football fields). This is the parent organization of Edward Gaming. EDG has, among others, a LoL team that recently reached the Worlds in 2018 and was defeated by Fnatic in the quarter-finals.
The massive facility is intended not only as a training site for teams but also as a vast entertainment center. The following features are expected to be included in the complex:
- Office space for the organization
- Training rooms for the teams
- An esports arena with a capacity of 6,000 spectators
- A shopping center
- A 5-star hotel
- A 40-meter pool
- An indoor skydiving facility
- A park area
This will be combined with a rainwater treatment facility, solar panels on the roof, and numerous green spaces, as can be seen from the concept of the center.
How much does it all cost? The construction project was started in January 2021 and is expected to cost around 10 billion yuan (approximately 1.3 billion euros). Completion is planned for 2023.
With the center, the organization also aims to create 2,000 new jobs in the esports sector and host up to 300 events per year.
You can catch a first glimpse of the design of the center in this short video:
Metropolises in China want to become “Gaming Capitals”
Although China plays an important role in gaming and esports, other cities are still considered the main metropolises:
- Los Angeles, where the major gaming fair E3 is held every year
- Seoul, as the capital of the esports nation Korea, is the venue for many major esports tournaments
- Tokyo, the center of Japan, hosts the “Tokyo Game Show” and generally, Japan is considered crazy about gaming
However, as early as 2019, the Chinese cities Beijing and Shanghai announced their ambition to become the worldwide gaming capitals. Shanghai has particularly focused on esports.
Recently, the city hosted the Dota 2 tournament “The International 2019” and the LoL Worlds 2020. A huge center, like the one SuperGen is now implementing, fits perfectly into these plans.
However, there are always issues with censorship and custom game versions in China that could be a disadvantage for the plans surrounding the gaming capital. However, the Chinese company Tencent has found a clever way to circumvent censorship: Tencent cleverly bypasses censorship for PUBG – earning $14 million
