ONE MORE WAY¶

The history behind Chinese esports

ONE MORE WAY is the first book documenting the first twenty years of Chinese esports (1998 to 2017). Its author, BBKinG (Liu Yang), visited 30 cities and interviewed 67 players, casters, tournament organizers, club owners, journalists, and other people who built the scene.

The complete book is currently available in Simplified Chinese. English translations live in this section so more chapters can be added without changing the Chinese archive.

Start reading¶

One More Way: How Chinese Esports Survived, the author's 2015 TEDxSuzhou talk

Chapters¶

Author's Preface, why the book is about the people behind the scenes rather than the stars, the author's own definition of esports and of what counts as an esports discipline, the three reasons he thinks other competitive games never made that list, and his argument that Chinese esports was better off growing without state support (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 1. It Started with StarCraft, how Chinese esports began on battle.net in the late 1990s, the militarised early teams and battle.net servers, and the core-to-spread-to-tournaments-to-media chain the author draws out of that history (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 2. A Hundred Schools of Esports Contend, the explosion of ideas around 2000, told through red-apple's million-yuan investment and five-point plan, Hong Zhefu's ESWC years, KinG's shattered first sponsorship, and Hanyuliang's attempt to answer the StarCraft 1.04 cheating crisis (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 3. The Reinvention of Esports News Sites, how CCSK's nationwide network of local correspondents and its 2002 forum overhaul overtook CSchina and set the template every Chinese esports news site followed afterwards, with the author's 2004 oral history of CCSK's founding attached (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 4. The Rise and Fall of China's Esports Gaming Platforms, how third-party gaming platforms became the first profitable business model in Chinese esports, from Ourgame and the private battle.net servers of the StarCraft era through AsiaGame's failed move to charge users, Haofang and CGA's peak and Shanda takeover, Chen Ou's GG platform on its way to becoming Garena, and the rise and decline of VS (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 5. The Story of CEG, how the state-backed China E-sports Games was born at the Great Hall of the People in 2003 out of a deal between the sports authorities and CITIC Pacific, how the broadcast ban of April 2004 cut off its revenue, and why the author reads its collapse as a lesson about waiting for official support (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 6. StarsWar and the Search for Entertainment in Esports Events, how Zax, Replays.net and IGE built the StarsWar star invitational from a 2,500-seat hall in 2005 to a sold-out arena in 2006, the approval crisis that almost cancelled it three weeks before the doors opened, and why the event turned towards entertainment after 2010 (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 7. GamesTV, Past Lives and Present, how a games video startup founded in a Shanghai coffee shop in 2004 was bought by IGE, merged with SiTV's digital television channel in 2006 and became the home of the G League, and what the licensing, ratings and staffing problems of those years cost it (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 8. NeoTV and PLU: A Tale of Grudges, how Wang Jue, Friend and Alone built PLU out of a music video studio and a graphic design firm, why the founders broke apart at the end of 2006, how NeoTV took the WCG broadcast rights and then pushed out its own founding executive Neo, and the years of hostility between the two companies, with a digression on what the 2005 Super Girl season did to the Chinese music business (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 9. Haitao and 2009: A Collision of Destinies, how Zhou Lingxiang (Haitao) and Wu Sheng (2009) grew up at opposite ends of Chinese family life, met as a GamesTV intern and a Zhejiang University professional player, clashed in 2011, and helped turn the Taobao shop into the first business model Chinese esports could run on its own (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 10. A Woman in Esports: Miss, Han Yiying, the Warcraft III player who fought her way through men's tournaments, joined the Korean team StarTale as its only foreign woman, won the DIVINA StarCraft II queen title in 2012 and became one of China's best-known casters (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 11. A Woman in Esports: Xiaocang, Zhang Xiangling, the Hunan Zerg player turned professional, who won a 2005 casting competition, built the Tencent League of Legends brand from a two-person team, became one of China's most watched video casters and ran the LOL Ladies club (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 12. The Card Game of a Life: 820, Zou Yitian, the EHOME captain who came up through the Zhen San Guo Wu Shuang scene, won the ESWC 2010 world title at Disneyland Paris, lived through the IEM ringer scandal and finished runner-up at the million dollar Dota 2 invitational in Cologne in 2011 (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 13. Vanguard of the Sichuan Legion: Ma Tianyuan, the StarCraft 2v2 world champion at WCG 2001 (reviewed against the Chinese original)
Chapter 14. Tencent, What Is It Trying to Do?, how Tencent moved from QQ membership and QQ Games into competitive online games, how the CrossFire team rescued a game its own testers hated, the promoter network behind the Hundred Cities League, why CrossFire never became an esports classic, and how League of Legends turned the whole industry around after 2010 (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 15. The Esports Millionaire Who Came Out of the Slums: Meng Yang, the Quake III player who won a one million yuan prize on the Great Wall in 2004 and then took China's first individual world title at CPL Winter (reviewed against the Chinese original on July 31, 2026)
Chapter 16. A Print Magazine With Worries: Electronic Sports, how two veteran publishers and a group of student Counter-Strike organisers built China's only licensed esports magazine from 2004, the sales boom of 2005 and 2006, the editorial walkouts that hollowed it out, and executive editor-in-chief Zhou Yi's argument that manufacturer money has cost esports media their independence (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 17. Ten Years in the Making: The EVA Jianxin Patch Pack, Liu Jiguang, the computer science student who reverse engineered Warcraft III file by file from 2003 and whose patch pack accompanied a decade of Chinese Warcraft III players, through the collapse of Jingxing, six months selling PCs, and the years at Ouyou and U9 that took its Dota site to ten million page views (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 18. From Clubs to Leagues, how Chinese esports moved from loose amateur squads to contract-based clubs, through China.V, the three poaching bubble wars and the rise of the ACE league (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 19. Long Hair Flowing: DC, Dong Can, Dong Can, the U9 forum moderator who became captain and later coach of EHOME, won China's first international Dota title with GL at the WCG Asian Championship in Singapore in 2007, and went on to be called the finest Dota caster in China at GTV, with a survey of the Warcraft III era websites and of how Dota passed from eul to guinsoo to IceFrog (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 20. Duowan's Killer Move, how Li Xueling built Duowan Games out of a one million dollar angel cheque from Lei Jun in 2005, took the base of the World of Warcraft audience from NGA with databases and organised sections instead of forum threads, turned YY Voice into the streaming home of Chinese esports on a single rule of no lag, no drops and no delay, and swept the League of Legends plugin market with the Box (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 21. U9, Ferocious, how Liu Liang climbed a barbed wire cordon into Shenzhen, made his first money teaching computing, and picked up the U9 site in 2004 as a hobby, and how U9's rule of promoting only original Warcraft III RPG maps, its idiot-proof map installer and map size limit patch, the race against DCN to localise Dota and the U9 Super League carried it through his near ruin into a games portal and the 360 Youjiu merger of 2011 (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 22. WE's League of Legends Captain: Misaya, Yu Jingxi, the captain of WE's League of Legends squad, which took its first world championship at IEM Guangzhou in 2011 (reviewed against the Chinese original)
Chapter 23. I-Rocks' Da Han: The Legend of a Life Staked on Going All In, Han Bohan, the Cherry China distributor and I-Rocks co-founder who built the sponsorship-plus-sales-share model with WE from 2011 (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 24. When Li Xiaofeng Became Sky, the Warcraft III world champion, written in 2005 before his WCG titles (reviewed against the Chinese original)
Chapter 25. The Man With the Dancing Left Hand: suhO, Su Hao, the Warcraft III player who won the WCG 2003 Chinese national title and beat check[pooh] to take the China versus South Korea showdown in Shenyang, written in 2004 (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 26. MagicYang, the Hero Who Beat Korea's Best, Zhou Chen, the Warcraft III player who reached number one on the Asian battle.net ladder and beat two Korean players at WCG 2003 before becoming a GamesTV caster, written in 2007 (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 27. His Parents Took Him to Tournaments: TED, the Ghost King of the Mountain City, Zeng Zhuo, the Chongqing schoolboy whose mother entered him for his first tournaments, who left school for WE at eighteen and all-killed fifteen of the world's best Warcraft III players at ROTK 2008 (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 28. XUGA, the Xi'an University Esports Alliance, how the author pulled the 37 largest universities in Xi'an into one campus esports alliance in 2003, learned to pitch sponsors from a monitor distributor he met by chance, and ran the first XUGA championship on Coca-Cola's money in an internet café by the Bell Tower (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 29. The Founder of Replays.net, StarsWar and WE: Zax, Zhou Hao, Zhou Hao, who lost his family's fortune in high school, turned a university StarCraft team homepage into Replays.net after finding the domain unregistered in 2002, sold the site to IGE in 2005, merged the strongest Chinese and Korean Warcraft III teams into World Elite, and built the StarsWar invitational out of WE's launch ceremony, written in 2008 (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 30. China's World-Class Counter-Strike In-Game Leader: Alex, Bian Zhengwei, the wNv.Gaming captain who led China to the Counter-Strike world title at WEG 2005 in Beijing (reviewed against the Chinese original on July 30, 2026)
Chapter 31. From Jianwu Hongyanxiao to IG.xiaoxiao: Sun Yalong, the Dungeon Fighter Online runner-up at two DNF Asia Championships who became captain of iG's League of Legends squad (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 32. The Founder of National Geographic of Azeroth: Ediart, Tian Jian, the 19-year-old who translated the first official Chinese Warcraft III manual and strategy guide in twenty-one consecutive all-nighters, failed his second year twice and dropped out, built NGA into the largest Chinese-language World of Warcraft community in the world, and went to The9 as localisation manager to fight the American QA team over elven dialogue and a murloc named Benborba (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 33. TI4 World Champion and Newbee Captain: Zhang Ning, the captain known as xiao8, who won The International 2014 with Newbee (reviewed against the Chinese original)
Chapter 34. Pingguoniu's Age of Empires, Wu Fan, the military academy cadet who founded the China Conquerors forum at eighteen and kept the Age of Empires II Zhonghua Cup national team league alive for five years on crowdfunded prize money, then became one of the world's best World of Warcraft arena players, with his account of why neither game ever became a mainstream esport (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 35. The Entertainment Wave in Esports: Xiaozhi, the Caster, Yang Fengzhi, born with a speech impediment in Jinzhou, who taught himself comedy to survive being mocked, was expelled from school after years of street fights, watched the family factory disappear in 2009 and hauled clothing home from the Beijing Zoo wholesale market on overnight trains, then restarted on savings of 70 yuan in 2012 and became China's most watched League of Legends video caster, with the author's note on how esports culture turned towards entertainment after 2010 (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 36. Alone, One of the First Casters in Chinese Esports, Liu Qing, who joined SVS in 2002 rather than lose a piece of twice-cooked pork, co-founded the China Player Union with Friend and took its charter to the Shanghai municipal government, then watched the guild fail to change anything and turn itself into PLU, surviving the 2007 cash collapse on HD OB cards, mechanical keyboards and a browser game (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 37. King of Fighting Games: Xiaohai, Zeng Zhuojun, China's first fighting game world champion, who won The King of Fighters '98 at Tougeki 2007 (reviewed against the Chinese original)
Chapter 38. Razer Founder and CEO: Min-Liang Tan, Ahead of the Field, the Singaporean lawyer turned gaming hardware founder who slept in Korean internet cafes in 1998 to take Razer into esports (reviewed against the Chinese original on July 31, 2026)
Chapter 39. The Ageless Youth of the StarCraft Old Boys, the four StarCraft veterans who became streamers in 2012 and carried their catchphrases into mainstream Chinese pop culture (reviewed against the Chinese original)
Chapter 40. The Life Choices of the Star Caster BBC, Zhang Hongsheng, beaten with a belt and an electrical cord over his marks as a child, expelled from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, then reassigned to clinical medicine at Fudan, who gave up his hospital placement and a second degree in 2005 to present full-time at GamesTV, cast Sky's first world title at WCG 2005, survived the 2008 break-up on 3,000 yuan a month and co-founded ImbaTV in 2014 (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 41. Starting a New Line in Esports: Liu Yifeng, the Warcraft III player known as SoZ.afeng, whose best result was a delayed 5,000 yuan third place at ESWC 2005 and whose career ended in the resurrection build scandal at the WCG Hangzhou regional in 2006, who left esports after the 2008 financial crisis killed PGL and then, as head of the Shen Xiandao project at Xindong Network, gave esports stars a 70 per cent revenue share and built the joint operation model that funded the scene (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 42. China's Electronic Footballer of the Year: FIFA Champion Li Jun, SkylinE, the Zhengzhou schoolboy who taught himself FIFA on a home PC, was beaten 10 to 0 by Shanghai's champion, found the scoring arc with a pair of compasses and won the FIFA title at the WCG 2003 China national final, then joined YolinY on a phone call he thought was a scam, lost the WCG 2004 world final to a visa refusal, and came back in 2012 to write the charter of the League of Legends club alliance and run the LPL for Banana Gaming (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Chapter 43. Esports' First Woman Club Owner: RuRu, Pan Jie, Pan Jie, the fashion design student who paid for the 7L Dota team in 2007 by building company websites for 2,000 yuan apiece, founded the CDEC matchmaking league that grew into VPgame, ran LGD unpaid and chased its backers for wages until the owner vanished leaving the accounts 47,000 yuan in the red, and rebuilt the club on a Taobao Games sponsorship while becoming the most abused woman in Chinese esports (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)

Witness accounts¶

Witness Account: Xiong Jianming (Neo), Former General Manager of NeoTV, in His Own Words, NeoTV's founding general manager answers Chapter 8 in his own words: the variety show with Wang Han that the April 2004 broadcast ban killed, how NeoTV's shares were carved up before it opened, the US$100,000 he paid for the WCG world finals rights and the fight with GamesTV that followed, why he went after PLU's staff, and his version of the 2007 board vote that removed him (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)

Extras¶

Extra: A Few Words on Esports, the author's 2014 essay setting out his own definition of esports, the four reasons he thinks it stayed popular without ever breaking through, why he treats state support as a seasoning rather than a foundation, and the two breakout points he was waiting for (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)
Extra: Knife Skills and the Chef, the 2013 essay that retells a Taiwanese story about a bicycle repairman, an army officer who became a master of the knife, and a head chef who never cooked, and turns it into the author's advice to anyone working behind the scenes in esports: do not sink into a single game, mind your image, ask when you do not know, and decide whether you want to be the dishwasher, the knife hand or the chef (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)

The History Behind Chinese Games¶

A second book the author planned but never finished, widening the view from esports to the games industry as a whole. Section index.

Foreword, why the author widened his behind the scenes history from esports to the whole games industry, after a year and a half and more than 50 interviews (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 1, 2026)

Extra Pieces and Source Material¶

Short pieces of esports history the author published after finishing the book, together with the record of its launch event. Section index.

Chinese Esports Out of Control, the author's November 2015 argument that exploding signing fees, streaming deals and Taobao shops had left tournament prize money with no pull at all and the players ungovernable, set against KeSPA's grip on Korean player income (reviewed against the Chinese original on August 3, 2026)

Help improve these translations¶

English chapters are published as working translations and reviewed chapter by chapter. Each chapter states its current review status. If you spot a mistranslation, a wrong name, or a factual error, please open an issue or send a pull request. Corrections are welcome and credited.

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