The 2003 Visit of Sweden's SK Changed How the World Saw Chinese Esports

An extra piece by BBKinG (Liu Yang), author of ONE MORE WAY: The History Behind Chinese Esports, published after the book. Translated from the Chinese original: 2003年瑞典SK战队访华 改变了世界对中国电竞的印象

First published in the author's Zhihu column on May 9, 2018: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/36649725

This translation was reviewed against the Chinese original on August 3, 2026. If you spot a mistranslation, a wrong name, or a factual error, please open an issue or send a pull request.

Video: CCTV5, Esports World

https://www.zhihu.com/video/977627792469368832

Before 2003, the outside world knew next to nothing about Chinese esports.

To put it bluntly, in an age when neither Taobao nor Youku yet existed, the outside world did not understand China very well at all. There were far too few channels through which anyone abroad could learn about us, let alone about Chinese esports, which was only just getting started.

Chinese players who travelled abroad to compete met foreign opponents who asked, in genuine surprise, whether people in China even had access to computers.

Chinese esports got little respect in those days. Part of it was that our results were nothing to shout about. The other part was that there was no Chinese esports portal aimed at an international audience.

So whenever an esports organisation from another country came to China, it became a rare opportunity for exchange.

That is why, in 2003, the invitation that brought Sweden's SK to China after they won the WCG world championship in Counter-Strike became a fairly significant moment in the history of Chinese esports.

SK visited two cities, Shanghai and Beijing, and ran straight into the boundless enthusiasm of Chinese esports fans. Hundreds of fans chasing the team coach down the street was a sight they had never seen in any other country.

Once they were home, SK became ambassadors for Chinese esports of their own accord, and through them the whole esports world got a sense of the atmosphere around the game in China. Here is the CCTV5 documentary from that year.

By then I was already a reporter for CGA, and I covered the whole of SK's Shanghai leg. My thanks to the Haofang team of those days. It is a fine memory.

For more short documentaries on games and esports, search WeChat for BK Short Documentaries (BK短纪录片)