China’s answer to Ninja fined US$7 million for switching streaming platforms

Haishi made US$1.5 million in less than a year by streaming Honor of Kings

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China’s answer to Ninja fined US$7 million for switching streaming platforms

Josh Ye

Published: 8:42pm, 21 Nov 2018Updated: 8:46am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

Streaming games online is big business. Proof? Playing Fortnite was making American streamer Tyler "Ninja" Blevins more than US$500,000 a month earlier this year.

The same thing is happening in China. Haitao “Haishi” Jiang made more than US$1.5 million in less than a year on streaming platform Huya by playing Honor of Kings, known as Arena of Valor in the West.

Arena of Valor, China’s mobile League of Legends, is aiming to be the world’s go-to mobile esport

But apparently, despite that mind-bogglingly fat paycheck, the then 19-year-old had other ideas. He decided to switch over to rival streaming platform Douyu.

Huya then took it to court, which issued a US$7 million fine to Haishi for knowingly violating its contract with Huya. Haishi tried to appeal the court’s ruling but was unsuccessful.

Honor of King is a mobile game, but Haishi streams himself playing with a mouse. (Picture:Bilibili)

Unlike in the US where Twitch is undisputed market leader, China’s streaming business is still seeing a number of companies ferociously battling for more eyeballs. It was reported last year that China had more than 100 live-streaming platforms.