E-sports major offered by Chinese university
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E-mail China Daily, January 22, 2017
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Gamers playing League of Legends at the opening of the 2016 World Cyber Arena held in Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui autonomous region. [Photo/nx.people.cn] |
The burgeoning e-sports sector is set to become a research area, as Communication University of China in Beijing will allow students to major in e-sports studies starting from this year, reported Chinanews.com. News of the new major has already led to a flurry of questions, with many netizens wondering if a key university should be training professional gamers.
"The so-called e-sports major would actually be a newly opened research area related to digital entertainment. The purpose is to develop talents of e-sports management and game design." explained Hou Jun, director of the Admission Office of CUC.
Courses pertaining to e-sports industry management, operation and design, as well as sociology, economics and psychology will be offered for students, Hou added.
Meanwhile, sophisticated e-sports players may be invited to teach students in some practical courses, said Hou.
It's the first time in China to list e-sports as an undergraduate major, which means students wishing to study it still need to pass the College Entrance Examination.
"It does not mean that you can be a student of this major as long as you play electronic games. There are complicated exams before being admitted," said Hou.
Early in September last year, the Ministry of Education put E-sports and Management as a supplementary major for regular institutions of higher education.
Also, e-sports majors have since been offered in some vocational schools in Guizhou and Hunan provinces, reports Chinanews.com.
In 2016, the sales revenue for China's e-sports market reached nearly 50.5 billion yuan ($7.3 billion), according to a report on China's game industry. "Professionals for e-sports are scarce. It's been a tendency to offer such major in universities. The more young talents joining the industry, the better it will be." says Dai Shi, a narrator for e-sports games.
In the future, a teaching environment which allows Chinese universities to stand out in fields they are good at shall come into being, said Xiong Bingqi, vice president of 21st Century Education Research Institute.
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