After our recent coverage on the GTI Asia China Expo 2024, there is another major arcade event that took place over in China – Wahlap E-Sport Championship 2024. Regular readers should be familiar with Wahlap, who has been a big player on the arcade scene in China, with growing influence out West through games like Storm Racer, Asphalt 9 Arcade, Asphalt Moto Blitz, and Monster Eye, among others. They also are returning as an advertiser here to Arcade Heroes. Until IAAPA rolls around, let’s take a look at this championship.
Wahlap E-Sport Championship 2024
While full details are provided by the press release below, I’ll distill it for you first. Wahlap is no stranger to such competitions, having launched this particular championship back in 2008. Arcades have been at the heart of each annual event, as have some nice cash prizes.
For this year’s tournament, the games that players participated on came from Bandai Namco and Sega, with one Wahlap exception:
- Maximum Tune 5DX+
- MaiMai DX (Open & girls division)
- Taiko No Tatsujin
- Chunithm
- Kingdom’s Fantasy
Given how often I see Eastern players commenting on “how far behind” North America is with MaxiTune, it’s interesting that it’s the game that was showcased here and not any from the 6s. Kingdom’s Fantasy is a new Wahlap title, which I’m not sure is destined for Western shores.
As noted in the press release below, there wasn’t a small handful of players involved here – “more than 5,500 players” participated in the auditions, with 98 players reaching the finals. ￥500,000 (approximately $70,000USD) worth of prizes were awarded, some of which did include some big checks.
Also from the release, it sounds like Wahlap hopes to expand the scope of their tournament into a wider part of the world, although it doesn’t detail how they might go about doing so in the future.
Wahlap will have a booth at IAAPA 2024, and some of their products will be on some other booths. Here’s the release:
WEC2024 Press Release
Wahlap E-sport Championship 2024 came to a successful conclusion, holding a diverse e-sport cultural feast!
On October 5, the national finals of Wahlap E-sport Championship 2024 (WEC2024) came to a successful conclusion during Guangzhou CICF×AGF Guangzhou Comic and Game Expo. With the theme of “Towards a Borderless New World “, nearly 100 top arcade players from all over the country gathered in Guangzhou. And after 4 days of fierce competition, the champions and runners-up of six major events were finally crowned, including WANGAN MIDNIGHT MAXIMUM TUNE 5DX PLUS, maimai DX Girls’ Division, maimai DX Open Division, Taiko no Tatsujin, CHUNITHM and Kingdoms Fantasy. The championship demonstrates Wahlap’s unique charms in the integration of arcade culture and modern e-sports.
Innovative Competition, Multi-dimensional Collaboration
The WEC Finals covered a variety of game such as rhythm games, cards games, racing games, etc. It was not only a competition of intelligence and reaction, but also a collision of strategy and passion, which brought the on-site audiences and millions of online fans a brilliant e-sports feast. The highlight plays triggered bursts of cheers and the exciting atmosphere pushed the mood to a climax. Every round of competition was breath-taking and mind-blowing!
According to the organizing committee’s statistics, WEC2024 covered many cities across the country, with more than 5,500 players competing in nearly 800 national audition rounds. Finally, 98 top players advanced to the finals and competed for ￥500,000 worth of total awards. The championship is strongly supported by nearly 100 nationally recognized animation and gaming chains and stores, and even cooperated with the well-known drink brand War Horse to provide energy support for the players.
This year’s championship innovates the competition system and emphasized the diversified experience of users from different customer groups. The championship is divided into three stages: store auditions, regional preliminaries and national finals, with challenges of varying difficulty set for different stages. What’s more, maimai DX set a separate category for female players for the first time, and new team play was introduced to Kingdom Fantasy, which greatly enhanced the viewability and participation of the championship.
WEC2024 adopts the offline and online multi-dimensional collaboration mode of “arcade + e-sports + live”, broadcast live through WeChat, Bilibili, Douyin and other online platforms. It is reported that the live broadcast of the four-days event reached more than 10 million people, with more than 800k views and nearly 2 million interactions on the whole network, making more gamers to feel the charm of arcade e-sports and greatly expanding the influence of arcade e-sports events.
A Future Of Global Possibilities
As a brand event of Wahlap Esports, WEC has always been focus on promoting the development of arcade e-sports culture since its establishment in 2008. From the first WLC Wahlap Cup to the current great national arcade e-sports brand championship, WEC keeps innovating and making breakthrough, and is committed to the perfect fusion of classic arcade culture and modern e-sports.
Benny Su, Chairman of Wahlap, said that WEC is not only a competition platform, but also a bridge connecting players, stores and brands. Through joint marketing, online and offline experience and multi-dimensional interaction on social platforms, we can work together to expand the influence of arcade games and empower gaming and entertainment destinations.
Wahlap E-sports has been committed to promoting the development of arcade e-sports in the past 15 years, and its influence has been rising year by year. In the future, Wahlap E-sports will continue to innovate WEC, explore cross-border cooperation with Anime, technology and entertainment fields, and promote internationalization. We are committed to building WEC into an e-sports brand with global influence.
About WEC
WEC is a national large-scale arcade brand championship organized by Guangzhou Wahlap Technology Co., Ltd, covering massive arcade game styles, bringing surprises and touches to arcade game fans every year. WEC is not only a competition, but also a great cultural feast, showing the unlimited possibilities of arcade games. Wahlap E-sports is looking forward to growing with every friend who loves arcade games and creating more brilliant moments together.
Wahlap E-sports History
2008 Wahlap Championship established
2009 Panyu Xindaxin Department Store 2009 We Dancing Online 1st National Championship
2010 China Import and Export Complex 2010 Ha Sangokushi Taisen 1st National Championship GTI EXPO
2011 Teemall Department Store WLC2011；
2012 Panyu Worldmart Jewelry Plaza WLC2012；
2014 Teemall Department Store WLC2014；
2015 Teemall Department Store WLC2015；
2016 Panyu AEON MALL WLC2016；
2017 Guangzhou University He Shijie Gymnasium WLC2017；
2017 Bangkok – Siam Paragon Department Store DABZ BASE Asian Cup 2017；
2018 Panyu AEON MALL WLC2018；
2018 Jakarta·PLUIT VILLAGE DABZ BASE Asian Cup 2018；
2019 Pazhou CICF EXPO WEC2019 Wahlap E-sports Championship National Finals
2021 Pazhou CICF EXPO WEC2021 Wahlap E-sports Championship National Finals
2024 Pazhou CICF EXPO WEC2024 Wahlap E-sports Championship National Finals
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