On-spot scenarios help increase interest among enthusiasts

If there's a crowd of people crammed into the lobby of your favorite shopping mall, you may just be observing one of the latest crazes among young Chinese people - the mobile game Knives Out, also known as the chiji (chicken-eating) game.

The game, launched by China's leading mobile-game developer NetEase last November, now boasts 200 million registered users. Meanwhile, a national esports tournament was held across cities in China, providing an offline gathering for Knives Out fans.

From December 2017 to early February, NetEase arranged more than 400 offline matches in 18 cities nationwide, getting a total of 19,000 gamers involved, according to the latest data from the company. Prizes were set to make the tournament more fun. For each single match, the top prize was 2,000 yuan ($316).