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Signs of meta-change in second modernity: The growth of e-sport and the World Cyber Games
Abstract
Media, communication and information flows now define the logic and structure of social relations, a situation that affects almost every dimension of cultural life and activity. This article analyses the transformation of the relationship between computer gaming, media and sport in the global age of 'second modernity'. This analysis is undertaken through a critical case study of the World Cyber Games (WCG). This popular event and the 'cyber-athletes' that compete in it cannot be explained fully by reference to existing studies of computer and video gaming, media and sport, media events or organized sporting competition. It is not possible to think in terms of sport and the media when considering the WCG and organized competitive gaming. This is sport as media or e-sport, a term that signifies the seamless interpenetration of media content, sport and networked information and communications technologies.
... Um movimento comum e uma tendência recorrente consiste em observar os esports sob uma lente voltada para identificar o elemento esportivo atribuído à prática. Essa leitura é construída tanto de uma perspectiva que examina a sua natureza, a partir da ideia básica e eurocentrada de esporte e de suas qualidades esportivas (Hemphill, 2005;Thiborg, 2010;Taylor, 2012), quanto por uma abordagem que promove uma radical ruptura com os critérios objetivos e operacionais que prescrevem o desporto (a relevância motora da atividade, a organização das competições, o sistema regulatório e o arranjo institucional, por exemplo) (Besombes, 2016;Hutchins, 2008;Jonasson, 2013Jonasson, , 2016. ...
... Sua contribuição exerceu, aliás, forte influência nos estudos preliminares sobre o tema, que se debruçaram, em especial, sobre as qualidades esportivas da prática Wohn, 2017). Outros autores (Hutchins, 2008;Summerley, 2020;Taylor, 2012), como Hutchins (2008), desenvolveram estudos de caso críticos sobre competições de esports. Para ele, observar esses eventos mostra uma nova modalidade esportiva originada da forma, da lógica e da estrutura da mídia e dos fluxos de comunicação e informação. ...
... Nessa definição, o esport surge na e da mídia, mudando os parâmetros da competição nos termos de como a prática é jogada (em uma tela e no ambiente digital) e a dinâmica do jogo-competição. Diferente de outras modalidades esportivas, o autor defende que o esport é determinado por uma interface técnica e pelas possibilidades programadas presentes em um jogo digital (Hutchins, 2008). De outro lado, Jonasson (2016) Summerley (2020), por outro lado, desenvolveu uma análise comparativa do processo de institucionalização inicial dos esportes e dos esports para, assim, estabelecer paralelos e diferenças entre ambas as instituições esportivas. ...
Este artigo debate questões relacionadas ao conceito e às histórias dos esports, mais especificamente sobre como são abordadas as atividades esportivas em videogames. A partir de três perspectivas gerais, discute-se o tumulto teórico e o privilégio epistêmico que sustenta a caracterização mais comum dos esports usada pela comunidade acadêmica. Argumenta-se que os modelos epistêmicos oriundos do Norte Global, baseados em histórias locais de movimentos profissionais e na evolução de um pequeno grupo em espaços hegemônicos, são insuficientes para dar sentido à diversidade das práticas e situações de jogos nos esports. Ao final, propõe-se uma definição que seja epistemicamente mais justa ao Sul.
... The favorable opinions of perceive esports as a sport were interpretations from the social impacts, and therapeutic functions [21], rule-governed with contests of human skills [26], competitive characteristics through electronic interaction [49], and participation to improve physical and mental abilities, maintaining a social relationship, and obtaining competitive outcomes [14]. Also, the similarity of esports and traditional sports could be evidenced in phenomena of philosophy slogan, rewarding systems, national identity, education values, usage of media [22] along with required skills, popularity, and stability as well [44]. While sports could be any form of physicality with expected participation [16], the precise dexterity of esports players can be explored in their physical movement (fine motor skills) to manipulate objects [49]. ...
... Although there is a connection between traditional sport and esports, there have been perceptual deviations that constrain esports. Such deviations include the perceived nature of Esports as cyber controlled games that have limited physical ability [34]; lacking govern bodies [15]; improvement in ranking systems [11]; legal concerns with trademark, patents, software development and ownership [25]; social and media acceptance [14]; as well as exclusion from the list of national sport participation [22]. Existing research findings indicate that perceptual deviation also occurs by social-demographic variables such as age, gender, education, and sport status. ...
... Theory of socialization assumes that individuals need necessary skills and knowledge to function as a member of community and society that is a standard to a group process of living and life experience [29]. Esports serves as a social platform for members of society to participate, share interests and feelings, and function as a stress release relaxation, and leisure or recreation [12,22]. Esports could impact on both cognitive function of individuals and human relationship through social events (Olympics or world championships) and interaction among the participants and audiences [12,26]. ...
Research literature in electric games or sport has storage of empirical analyses of perception of esports. This study was designed to fill the void of identifying important factors affecting perceptions of the young generation toward esports, supply a validated measure for essential perceptions of esports, and examine perceptual differences across American students. Voluntary participants (N = 468) responded to the survey with the validated instrument and expressed Socialization as the most important factor of perception toward esports, followed by Technicity, Economics, Attraction, and Recognition. Findings indicated significant gender differences and variations in the playing status of esports among American students. The study provided empirical references for educators and administrators to enhance their understanding of esports and supplied quantitative findings in favor of esports being part of sporting activities.
... Además, los esports suelen reducirse a la cultura profesional y a un cierto culto a la profesionalización de las prácticas de juego. Numerosos estudios aún analizan equipos profesionales y grandes torneos de esports en juegos de computadora (Hutchins, 2008;Summerley, 2020;T. Taylor, 2012). ...
... Taylor, 2012) -y el reconocimiento de una ontología que subraya su condición experiencial necesariamente mediática -señala la relevancia de este objeto en las investigaciones en comunicación. Como producto sociotécnico característico de una cultura mediática -proveniente de y en los medios (Hutchins, 2008) -, como práctica de la cultura digital contemporánea y como fenómeno híbrido que se compone de forma transdisciplinar (Macedo y Falcão, 2019), los esports encuentran un espacio privilegiado en uno de los enfoques de los estudios de la comunicación -la cibercultura o cultura digital -, aunque no se limiten a ella. Como campo del saber, por lo tanto, la comunicación tiene una gran contribución que ofrecer a los esports. ...
Esport es un término que ha ganado popularidad en los últimos años para describir los deportes electrónicos, una manera específica de participar en juegos digitales competitivos que se llevan a cabo con la ayuda de dispositivos tecnológicos. Su expansión ha llevado a que se convierta en un fenómeno global con múltiples impactos a nivel local, impulsando el aumento de equipos tanto aficionados como profesionales de jugadores dedicados a esta actividad en distintos países. El objetivo de este artículo es cuestionar el monopolio de las representaciones ejercido por el esport profesional. Este control es ejercido, en gran medida, debido a la énfasis otorgada a la modalidad profesional de los videojuegos en la cobertura proporcionada por el periodismo especializado. Para apoyar este argumento, se introduce el concepto de diversidad configuracional de los esports, que engloba una serie de situaciones de juego que constituyen las actividades y experiencias deportivas centradas en los videojuegos. Esta diversidad está representada por al menos cuatro configuraciones de los esports: profesional, de bricolaje, comunitario y escolar. Para desarrollar esta noción, se recurre a la literatura de los game studies, comunicación y deportes, así como a experiencias etnográficas realizadas entre 2016 y 2023 con diversas matrices que constituyen los esports en Brasil.
... They insisted that instead of talking about esports based on criteria taken from conventional sports, we should try to create esports' categories and concepts. It is important to stress that some researchers do acknowledge this, with Hutchins (2008) being the most visible and distinct example. ...
... Therefore, we agree with Hutchins (2008), who claims that researchers should propose esports' distinct categories and concepts, and we could add that these could be related to online spaces being esports' natural environment-an issue strongly emphasized by esports interviewees, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
Researchers often use traditional sports' theoretical frameworks to evaluate esports' 'genuineness'. Therefore, this article shows how esports is assessed by traditional sports and esports journalists and how this is important for esports research. We conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews (n = 15) with the journalists representing top-tier Polish media and used inductive conventional content analysis. Three main analytical categories and ten subcategories indicate how the two types of journalists differ in their assessments of esports being or not being 'real' sport. The results highlight how problematic it is to use traditional sports as a frame into which esports needs to fit. We indicate the misconceptions of this approach and propose more inductive ones (e.g. searching for esports' distinct frameworks or revealing those used by different groups or communities). Also, our research has some practical implications and is a kind of 'map' showing the esports' new quality and its complex nature.
... Practiced mainly by young people, the same as with the Olympic games, esports use technology and digital media that are characteristic of the 21st Century. In this context, the debate is currently on the categorization of esports as a traditional sport and, therefore, warrant inclusion as an Olympic sport (Hutchins, 2008;Jonasson and Thiborg, 2010). ...
... The same happened to esports, which in its origin was entertainment for children and young people and has seen a fast professionalization due to the huge feature of the competitions. This is because esports depend directly on the communication means both to the transmission of the competitions and to the interaction of the public with athletes, one of the conditions both to popularize competitions and to consume the games (Hutchins, 2008;23 Huhh, 2009;Witkowski, 2012). For example, the League of Legends attained a peak of 14,7 million of viewers during the 2016 world championship 1 , when compared 2017 NBA finals with 20 million during the peak of the audience 2 . ...
Considering the significance that Esports as professional sport and entertainment has attained recently, discussion about the legitimacy of esports as part of traditional sport has risen. This issue becomes more pronounced because Esports will start in the Olympic Games program. The purpose of this study was to determine the characteristics and similarities between Brazilian Olympic athletes and esport athletes. Ten Brazilian athletes were interviewed. Dedication, discipline, and competitiveness were found as components of the narratives of the athletes. Similar to Olympic athletes, cyberathletes have workout routines to improve techniques, exercises, and diets to provide opportunities for optimal performances in competitions. The results showed that although the virtual environment differs from an Olympic sport environment, common characteristics are present relative to the understanding of competition as in the elements of athlete identity. Keywords: cyber athletes; Olympic athletes; esports; Olympic Games; Olympism
... [58]). The existence of esports across digital and physical spaces is possible, according to Hutchins [60], because of media, communication, and information flow. T. L. Taylor [117] also points out that "esports has encoded in its very nature a deep rooting in both technology and media" (p. ...
... Before 2012, research took place around events celebrated in physical spaces, like the WCG (e.g. [60]). For example, Cheung and Huang [15] created a taxonomy of spectators and described spectatorship not as simply watching the game but as actively engaging with the community. ...
Much of team communication is a trained process for teams in high pressure environments, like the highly regimented checklists that structure aircraft takeoff and landing. Elite esports teams use communication to maintain tight coordination in the face of chaotic and stressful stimuli, closely resembling behavior of high performing teams in domains seemingly is similar from competitive video games. This 2 x 2 factorial design explores differences between in-game communications in League of Legends teams that vary in both experience as a team and expertise with the game. The findings describe how content, style, and amount of communication differ between novice and expert teams; whether those differences relate to experience with the game, experience as a team, or both; and whether differences in communication relate to team performance under pressure. This work demonstrates methods that can be built on to explore whether these same communication patterns and solutions can effectively transfer across domains in the interest of training for safety and performance in higher consequence contexts.
... The number of conference publications has increased moderately alongside a more notable increase in the number of journal publications, with 87% of papers (339/461) since 2017 published in journals. The earliest paper included in our review was itself a literature review of the field published in 2006 [462], followed by another literature review and two theoretical papers in 2008 [177,199,470]. The first empirical paper including a definition of esports appeared in 2011 [471] and since then a steady increase in the number of empirical papers can be seen, with the sharpest increase seen in 2020 (see Appendix 3). ...
... The next most common disciplines were Social Sciences and Humanities (56/461, 12%) and Sports, Hobbies and Recreation (49/461, 11%). The earliest papers were published in Science, Technology and Engineering [462], and Social Sciences and Humanities [177]. As publication volumes have increased, so too has the diversity of publications, with articles from a range of disciplines (see Figure 9). ...
The esports market has been growing exponentially has been growing exponentially with much interest from industry and academia. Perhaps because of this growth, there is a lack of agreement on what esports actually encompasses. We conducted a systematic review of 461 peer reviewed, full papers that provide a definition of esports. Findings highlighted the growth of the esports field across different domains, and increasing global interest in esports, but a lack of consensus regarding definition of the term. Through thematic analysis we identified nine dimensions across esports definitions. We critically assess these dimensions in terms of their representativeness and utility in describing the multifaceted nature of esports. Our work may help create a shared understanding of what esports is- and is not-capturing a diversity of experiences within organized competitive gaming and supporting continued research growth in this increasingly important domain.
... The statistics of the World Cyber Games in the years 2000 to 2005 show incremental growth in terms of the number of people participating in the games, the number of countries represented, and the associated prize pool, as displayed in Table 1 [20]. Data on prize money in electronic sports were also collected. ...
... Tournament data for World Cyber Games 2000-2005[20] ...
Esports offer a unique opportunity to conduct human performance studies, as they use modern hardware and software as an operation platform. Insights on gameplay and underlying processes may push the development of new and optimal practice methods. The aim of this study was to investigate performance indicators from in-game data to predict the outcome of the matches in StarCraft II: Legacy of The Void.
Data from 6509 games (game records) provided by 5 players at the level of Master or GrandMaster were used. The distribution of analyzed players concerning the preferred in-game race was as follows: “Protoss” (n = 3), “Zerg” (n = 1), “Terran” (n = 1). Each game record contained data for both the winner and the loser. In total, 3719 game records and 9 performance indicators were obtained after applying the inclusion criteria.
Logistic regression with 5-fold cross-validation was performed to predict the game outcome. The model was able to discriminate the game outcome (won, lost) with an out-of-sample accuracy of 0.728 ± 0.021. The performance indicators which showed the strongest effect in predicting the game outcome were “minerals lost army” [p-value< 0.001, std_odds_ratio: 0.069], “minerals killed army” [p-value< 0.001, std_odds_ratio: 6.446], “minerals used current army” [p-value< 0.001, std_odds_ratio: 4.081], and “minerals killed economy” [p-value< 0.001, std_odds_ratio: 2.896]. It seems evident that winner optimized interaction with an opponent by keeping his/her own army intact while inflicting damage to the opponent’s army or economy. In conclusion, the effective use of the army, based on optimizing the ratio between units lost and units killed, may be significant in predicting the game outcome.
... La década de los noventa, como se ha visto anteriormente, supone un punto de inflexión con la llegada de la era moderna de los videojuegos y la llegada de la nueva generación de consolas. Además, esta época histórica está llena de revoluciones en los campos de la informática y tecnología que hicieron posible este proceso de evolución debido a su popularidad, expansión y disponibilidad (Hutchins, 2008), no solo con estas consolas, sino con la llegada de aparatos electrónicos, electrodomésticos, ordenadores personales y, el punto más importante, el rápido crecimiento y expansión de internet. ...
... También hay trabajos donde se realiza una explicación más general del fenómeno, interpolando factores históricos, sociales y económicos para concretar la situación actual de los esports (Hutchins, 2008;Karhulahti, 2017;Keiper, Manning, Jenny, Olrich, & Croft, 2017;Sylvester & Rennie, 2017) o futura (Pluss et al., 2019). Parshakov y Zavertiaeva (2018) aportan una visión más macroscópica, llegando a relacionar al PIB estatal con el rendimiento en las competiciones de deporte electrónico: cada 1% de aumento en el PIB del país, supone un aumento del 2,2% en los premios en efectivo. ...
Los esports o deportes electrónicos se definen como un área de las actividades deportivas en las que los practicantes desarrollan y entrenan capacidades mentales y físicas en el uso de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación, principalmente bajo el uso de videojuegos competitivos. El auge tan repentino y exponencial del fenómeno, ha irrumpido en numerosos ámbitos de nuestra sociedad, especialmente en el ocio y cultura joven, lo que supone una oportunidad para ser incluido en la praxis docente, sirviendo como vehículo para un uso educativo de éstas. El análisis discurre desde lo general del fenómeno esport hasta lo específico de su posible vertiente educativa, subrayando la relevancia de los valores éticos. Por tanto, los objetivos de esta tesis son explorar el fenómeno de los deportes electrónicos, conocer si estos son deporte y analizar, desde un prisma ético, el fenómeno y como pueden contribuir, están contribuyendo o podrían contribuir a que sus practicantes tengan una vida plena. Toda esta investigación se encuadra en el paradigma interpretativo constructivista desde el enfoque cualitativo, utilizando el método fenomenológico hermenéutico. Para la primera parte de la tesis, se ha realizado una revisión sistemática bajo el protocolo PRISMA-P, buscando la consecución del primer objetivo de investigación. Los resultados de esta revisión arrojan más de 100 artículos clasificados en cuatro grandes ejes que articulan el campo de estudio de los deportes electrónicos. En la segunda parte de la tesis, mediante la técnica de revisión documental se extraen los datos de diversas fuentes que luego serán analizados con la técnica de análisis de contenido. Los resultados encontrados discurren en dos vías: por un lado, en la búsqueda de conocer si los esport son deporte, se encuentran seis características que posee el concepto deporte y, los cuáles, los deportes electrónicos presentan; por otro lado, en el análisis ético del fenómeno, el análisis arroja un total de siete categorías donde los esports contribuyen al desarrollo ético y educativo del individuo y, con este, de la sociedad.
... Therefore, they tend to lean towards impromptu performances rooted in authenticity and the competitive spirit inherent to esports. 103 The commoditization of the streamer-viewer relationship is evident in how streamers categorize their viewers. One streamer perceives his audience as his "yishifumu" (literally translated as "parents providing food and clothing"), while designating a mere fraction of them as his acquaintances. ...
... The World Cyber Games (WCG) established in 2000 is an event organized like the Olymics. Counter-Strike entered WCG in 2001 and became an important member of WCG [1]. Despite setbacks such as the discontinuation of WCG in 2014 due to economic crisis, e-sports continued its trajectory [2]. ...
We propose a player rating mechanism for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS ), a popular e-sport, by analyzing players' Plus/Minus values. The Plus/Minus value represents the average point difference between a player's team and the opponent's team across all matches the player has participated in. Using models such as regularized linear regression, logistic regression, and Bayesian linear models, we examine the relationship between player participation and team point differences. The most commonly used metric in the CS community is "Rating 2.0," which focuses solely on individual performance and does not account for indirect contributions to team success. Our approach introduces a new rating system that evaluates both direct and indirect contributions of players, prioritizing those who make a tangible impact on match outcomes rather than those with the highest individual scores. This rating system could help teams distribute rewards more fairly and improve player recruitment. We believe this methodology will positively influence not only the CS community but also the broader e-sports industry.
... Esports commonly refers to competitive video gaming [1][2][3]. According to one of the most cited definitions, esports is "a form of sports where the primary aspects of the sport are facilitated by electronic systems; the input of players and teams, as well as the output of the esports system, are mediated by human-computer interfaces" [4,5]. ...
This cross-sectional study investigated the association between participation in traditional sports and esports performance, analyzing data from 1,549 survey respondents, with a specific focus on 617 individuals assessed for their esports capabilities. The analysis suggests that participation in traditional sports is associated with enhanced performance in first-person shooters. However, no similar association was observed in multiplayer online battle arena games across various platforms. Furthermore, although no substantial link was found between overall gameplay duration and esports performance for the majority of the games examined, time spent playing Honor of Kings was significantly associated with improved in-game rankings, likely due to its unique matchmaking and rating system. The findings also indicate that participants from different categories of traditional sports show no significant differences in esports performance, suggesting similar physical and athletic requirements across these sports. This underscores the necessity for further exploration and methodological refinement to investigate the associations between specific types of physical exercise and enhancements in esports performance. Additionally, esports participants demonstrated higher levels of engagement in traditional sports compared to their non-esports counterparts, suggesting potential reciprocal benefits between esports and physical exercise. Future research should further investigate these mutual advantages. Conducting additional rigorous empirical research to substantiate these associations is essential for the sustainable development of esports.
... Competitive stimulation dimension: as a competitive sporting event, e-sports captivates audiences who crave the high-level performances, intense competition, professional players' exceptional skills, gameplay in actions, unexpected comebacks, and final outcomes47 , which creates memorable moments through the live streaming watching. Additionally, some e-sports events feature exclusive skins and stunning special effects, enhancing the visual appeal and media coverage, thereby enriching the viewing experience and the overall competitive atmosphere48 . ...
This study seeks to examine the multifaceted influences of diverse motivational factors on the live streaming engagement of e-sports fans based on self-determination theory. While previous research has focused on the offline participation in e-sports events, the shift towards live streaming engagement has created a new and underexplored area: the motivations for live streaming viewing among e-sports fans. Consequently, this research develops an e-sports Live Streaming Viewing Motivation Scale for evaluating both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations underlying e-sports fans’ live streaming engagement, and then utilises SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 26.0 to assess the reliability and validity of the scale. Subsequently, multiple linear regression analysis of 1052 questionnaires is employed to construct models and evaluate hypotheses. Findings indicate that : (1) Intrinsic motivation exhibits significant impact on the live viewing behaviour of e-sports fans. (2) However, the impact of extrinsic motivation is insignificant. (3) When both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations coexist, intrinsic motivation maintains a positive impact, whereas extrinsic motivation demonstrates a negative influence. (4) The motivational influence is multifaceted; notably, dimensions such as idol worship, leisure entertainment, and competitive stimulation positively affect live viewing motivation, while belonging identification, social engagement, and peripheral activities exert a negative impact. In conclusion, intrinsic motivation emerges as the primary driving force behind e-sports fans’ live streaming viewing behaviour. Extrinsic motivation fails to independently influence live streaming engagement and even dampens enthusiasm when combined with intrinsic motivation. Theoretically, this study contributes to the existing literature on Self-determination theory and motivations behind e-sports live streaming viewing behaviour. It not only refines the motivation scale, but also elucidates the impact of various motivations on viewing behaviour. Practically, it provides insights for optimising e-sports products and services.
... This has led to the emergence of social behaviour with the result that a community of various esports genres has emerged. The surge in market demand for the entertainment software industry is a problem that arises from this social behaviour [33]. This phenomenon illustrates that the world of esports is starting to grow rapidly. ...
This study aims to analyze and evaluate the research and technology developments of esports in the last 30 years. 1188 Scopus articles were analyzed using VOS viewer computer software. The literature review was analyzed systematically following PRISMA guidelines. The analysis results show computer science, social sciences, and medicine are the fields of study most often associated with esports. The keywords "Esports" and "Human" are the main focus, indicating attention to the interaction between users and technology in gaming. In conclusion, esports have become more than just a game, but a complex social and technological phenomenon with broad impacts.
... GİRİŞ E-spor yani "elektronik spor" düzenlenen turnuvalarda oynanan video oyunları üzerinden sanal ortamda kurulan rekabete dayalı etkinlikler olarak tanımlanmaktadır. İlk olarak 1999 yılında Online Gamers Association (Çevrimiçi Oyuncular Birliği) (OGA) tarafından kullanılan e-spor teriminin, kişisel bilgisayarlardan oyun konsollarına kadar oldukça geniş bir kapsama sahip olduğu ve genel olarak NBA 2K22, NHL 22, FIFA Online 3 gibi spor-temalı oyunlar ve World of Warcraft, League of Legends, StarCraft II gibi gerçek-zamanlı strateji oyunları olmak üzere ikiye ayrıldığı söylenebilir 1 . Bu bakımdan e-sporun kökenleri genellikle video oyunlarının gelişimine dayandırılmaktadır. ...
... Rather, these should be understood as separate phenomena, each defined by its own distinctive characteristics (see also Jonasson and Thiborg 2010;Hutchins 2008;Hebbel-Seeger 2012;Seo and Jung 2016;Witkowski 2012). This is especially true in light of the failure during COVID-19 to successfully replace traditional events and practices with electronic alternatives. ...
This edited collection brings in multiple scholarly perspectives to examine the impact of the pandemic and resulting government policies, especially lockdowns, on one particular cultural sphere: games.
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted virtually every aspect of our lives, regardless of where we live. In the initial months, many industry reports noted the unexpected positive impact on online digital game sales. Games were not just lockdown-proof, but boosted by lockdowns. Stay-at-home orders triggered a rush toward games as an alternative form of entertainment, and the ubiquity of mobile phones allowed wider than ever participation.
Gaming and Gamers in Times of Pandemic studies how the COVID-19 pandemic affected game players, game developers, game journalists and game scholars alike in many other ways, starting with the most direct – illness, and sometimes death. Some effects are temporary, others are here to stay.
... This structure provides players with a sense of being part of a community and facilitates mastering expertise in fine-motor coordination and perceptual-cognitive skills, particularly but not exclusively, at higher levels of performance [29]. 5 Hutchins (2008) Organized competitive gaming [30]. 5 Jenny (2017) Organized video game competitions [31]. ...
This study conducted a systematic scoping review to collect definitions and explanations of esports and its related concepts in the existing literature. A thematic coding approach was used to screen possible disagreements and issues between the different characteristics of esports as presented in the existing definitions. Based on a critical discussion, the results of the coding were combined with the objective facts of the current esports industry and theories from similar fields to reconstruct the construction of an esports definition. In addition, the relationship between esports and its related concepts was discussed based on the proposed esports definition structure. The proposed esports criteria can help avoid misunderstandings and confusion in future studies regarding the research subjects related to esports and propose standardized usage of relevant terms in the field of esports research.
... Do PACman aos jogos com ultra qualidade gráfica (Ivory, 2016) e da televisão de tubo a telas LED com reconhecimento de movimento e de face (Lee, Sohn, Kim, Kim, & Kim, 2013), a evolução não se restringiu apenas aos aparelhos. A disseminação das novas tecnologias também tem crescido exponencialmente (IBGE, 2011;IBGE, 2013, PNAD, 2013Game Brasil, 2016 o e-sport (Taylor, 2015;Hutchins, 2015). Os jogadoresos cyber-atletas ( (Eisenberg & Strayer, 1987). ...
O desenvolvimento de tecnologias se expande exponencialmente a cada novo ano. Em consonância com este crescimento, uma enorme quantidade de estudos tem sido realizada – eminentemente a partir do início do século XXI - com o propósito de avaliar os impactos destes novos instrumentos e aparatos tecnológicos no comportamento humano. Dentre o amplo espectro que engloba a interação dos homens com seu meio, pode-se destacar as relações interpessoais e a forma pela qual podem ser mediadas, dificultadas ou facilitadas por meios tecnológicos e midiáticos. Na última década, o mundo digital decisivamente atingiu o universo infantil, sendo que a nova geração é reconhecida por diversos autores como a geração dos “nativos digitais”. Estes “nativos” são diariamente expostos à mídia e ao mundo virtual e, por este motivo, há uma preocupação acadêmica quanto a como estas crianças têm absorvido as dinâmicas sociais mediadas por novas tecnologias. Devido à recência do tema, este trabalho tem por objetivo realizar uma revisão sistemática de artigos empíricos dos últimos dez anos que abordem os impactos da tecnologia sobre o desenvolvimento social de crianças, em particular, nas habilidades empáticas e na teoria da mente destas. Uma busca eletrônica foi realizada em três bases de dados científicas (PsycINFO, Scielo-BR e Web of Science), com a utilização de 40 combinações de palavras-chave em inglês e português. De forma geral, os estudos que relacionam as três variáveis em questão (empatia, teoria da mente e uso de jogos digitais) são, em sua maioria, teóricos ou correlacionais, utilizando surveys e escalas. Os resultados encontrados nestas pesquisas são pouco consensuais. Mas especificamente, alguns dos estudos sugerem efeitos negativos, outros sugerem efeitos positivos e outros, efeitos nulos da exposição aos jogos digitais sobre a empatia e teoria da mente. Em síntese, a presente revisão sistemática revela direções futuras promissoras de pesquisa sobre o impacto dos jogos digitais no desenvolvimento social.
... Os plots dos jogos foram se tornando mais multiformes, os personagens passaram a ter maior profundidade psicológica e temas complexos como morte, suicídio, abuso, guerra, traumas e bullying começaram a ser tratados com maior cautela. Alguns desenvolvedores de games digitais já buscam, conscientemente, estratégias para que os usuários pratiquem cada vez mais a empatia no universo fictício criado e utilizem suas tecnologias para causas sociais (Belman & Flanagan, 2010 (Funk, Baldacci, Pasold, & Baumgardner, 2004) e possíveis contribuições para a aprendizagem de conteúdos escolares e outras habilidades específicas (cognitivas, motoras ou mudanças de hábitos), além de aspectos fisiobiológicos -principalmente no que diz respeito à obesidade infantil (Olson, 2016;Scienza, 2017 Desde a criação dos primeiros projetos de games nos anos 50 (Ivory, 2016), as funcionalidades desta mídia interativa têm se expandido: há campeonatos profissionais de âmbito internacional de E-sports (Hutchins, 2015) e games são utilizados em ambiente escolar 7 (Miranda & Scherer, 2013), acadêmico (Veltsos, 2017), hospitalar (Hollet & Ehret, 2015), psicoterapêutico (Ceranoglu, 2010) e de pesquisa científica -como forma de aplicação de surveys (Barwick et al, 2016;Keusch & Zhang, 2015 (Kowert, 2016), outros conjecturam tanto aspectos positivos quanto negativos do uso viabilizado e mais prolongado dos jogos (Newton et al., 2015;Plowman & McPake, 2013 ...
In the last decade, the number of new digital games of various genres has grown a lot, eminently after the creation of game management platforms and after the dissemination of eSports. Digital games, beyond their entertainment purpose, are already used in schools, hospitals, and psychotherapeutic environments as rehabilitation tools and to promote cognitive and behavioral skills. Studies evaluating the impact of this form of media on users have conducted since the popularization of the first games in the 70s. However, the evidence that games can mediate interpersonal relationships, as well as promote or inhibit prosocial and empathic behaviors is still recent. The focus of previous studies was the possible associations with increased aggressive behavior and desensitization to violence. And although most consumers of digital games are young people and adults, the “digital natives” born in this century have immediate access to interactive media. For this reason, many researchers have recently investigated the way in which children and adolescents are affected by these media. In particular, more studies investigating the impact of games on sociocognitive and social skills should be conducted. Following this direction, the present work aimed to investigate a possible relationship between exposure to three categories of digital games (Neutral, Prosocial and Competitive) and prosocial behavior. A second goal was to test possible moderating effects of empathy and theory of mind skills on this relation. Fifty-seven children (9 to 12 years old) participated and were randomly distributed into three groups: G1 = neutral game; G2 = competitive game, G3 = prosocial game. Each group played a different type of video game. Prior to playing the games, all participants were assessed by a social cognition task (Faux Pas Task) and an empathy scale (Bryant's Empathy Scale for Children and Adolescents). Following that and on another day, each participant was invited to play, for 20 minutes, the digital game representative of their category group. Finally, right after playing the game, children were invited to participate in an adapted version of the Dictator's Game that involves the sharing of resources. Games of all categories had a pre-selection stage and were evaluated by 18 judges that were either Psychology undergraduate/ graduate students or university students from a game development outreach group. One game for each category was selected. Analyses did not reveal a significant gender or age effect on empathy scores, theory of mind scores and number of donated stickers. However, a significant age effect (i.e., school year) was found for the number of stickers shared, with older children sharing more stickers than younger ones. Nonetheless, there was a trend toward a significant moderating effect of empathy and theory of mind scores on the relationship between game category and number of stickers shared by the participants. More specifically, playing a prossocial, neutral or competitive videogame for 20 minutes does not necessarily impact the predisposition of children to engage on prossocial behavior. It is possible, nevertheless, that more empathic children with a more developed theory of mind may have an increased predisposition to share stickers compared to other children. Future studies should explore further whether these variables (empathy and theory of mind) or other variables can, in fact, explain part of the variation in prosocial behavior after exposure to different types of digital games. However, the present work contributes to the advancement of this line of research in Brazil as it is the first study to investigate possible effects of three different types of digital game on prosocial behavior in school-age children. The results suggest a promising direction of investigation that should be better explored by researchers in Brazil.
... Another interesting topic of debate is whether eSports should be considered the same as a traditional sport. Some scholars found evidence showing that eSports could be considered a 'sport', but despite that it has many unique characteristics that make it different from sports in the traditional sense (Hutchins, 2008;Jonasson and Thiborg, 2010;Witkowski, 2012). ...
We examine the drivers of venture capital financing raised by eSports companies, using the Crunchbase database containing information on private and public companies receiving any type of venture capital funding worldwide. We find that companies located in Asia-Pacific and Americas attract more funding than in Europe. Venture capital funds are more likely to fund late stage and older companies, than innovative early stage and younger firms. We also observe that the founders’ previous experience plays a significant role in explaining the level of funding. Companies with at least one founder with previous eSport, managerial or start-up experience are more likely to get more funding by venture capital funds. Our research provides new evidence on how venture capital funding is allocated between late stage and early stage firms as well as between older and younger companies in the eSport-industry and in different markets.
... Embora todo aparelho que suporte jogos digitais, hoje, possa ser lido como um computador, a discussão é direcionada especialmente à plataforma. Inúmeros autores ainda hoje se debruçam sobre equipes profissionais e grandes torneios e competições de esports em jogos de computador (HUTCHINS, 2008;SUMMERLEY, 2020;TAYLOR, 2012 não houvesse uma diversidade configuracional 3 de modos de praticá-la e experimentá-la para além da natureza ou atmosfera profissional. ...
Resumo O intuito deste artigo é promover uma crítica ao monopólio temático exercido pelo esport profissional. Para desenvolver este argumento, apresentamos a noção de diversidade configuracional dos esports para considerar um conjunto de situações de jogo que compõe as atividades e experiências esportivas voltadas para videogames. Tal diversidade seria formada por pelo menos quatro configurações de esports: profissional, bricolada, comunitária e escolar. Para essa construção, buscamos apoio na literatura dos game studies, da comunicação, dos esportes e em experiências de trabalho de campo etnográfico empreendidas entre 2016 e 2022 com diferentes matrizes que constituem os esports no país.
... Primeiro vamos falar sobre o esporte como espetáculo. Os estudos analisados na literatura de esportes enfatizam a característica de espetáculo dos e-esportes, por terem como principal vínculo a mídia, que é usada para gerar um espetáculo televisivo, e por serem organizados em grandes competições que atingem um grande público (HUTCHINS, 2008). De acordo com Bourdieu (1983), o espetáculo é apenas uma parte do que o esporte é. ...
Resumo: Atualmente existe uma tensão tanto do ponto de vista teórico quanto em relação à prática sobre se o consumo de jogos eletrônicos é considerado ou não uma prática esportiva. Os estudos sobre esse tema limitam-se a considerar algumas formas específicas de consumo (ex.: jogos competitivos e profissionais) e não explicam o processo de formação do conceito e prática de jogos eletrônicos como esporte. Para compreendermos a cultura de consumo de jogos eletrônicos se faz necessário utilizar uma perspectiva que considere a sua construção histórica, social e cultural. Dessa maneira, neste ensaio teórico abordamos o conceito de consumo dos jogos eletrônicos como esportes à luz das teorias de Pierre Bourdieu e da Teoria de Cultura de Consumo. Ao longo da argumentação propomos que o campo de jogos eletrônicos se forma como um subcampo do campo esportivo, por meio tanto das transformações tecnológicas desenvolvidas ao longo do tempo quanto da produção simbólica e da reprodução cultural que envolvem bens e serviços e contribuem para a formação do conceito e consumo de jogos eletrônicos como esportes.
Palavras-chave: Consumo. Jogos eletrônicos. Esporte. CCT. Bourdieu.
Title: Consumption of Electronic Games as a Sports Practice
Abstract: Currently, there is a tension both from a theoretical point of view and in relation to practice about whether or not the consumption of electronic games is considered a sport. Studies on this topic are limited to considering some specific forms of consumption (eg competitive and professional games) and do not explain the process of forming the concept and practice of electronic games as a sport. In order to understand the consumer culture of electronic games, it is necessary to use a perspective that considers its historical, social and cultural construction. Thus, in this theoretical essay we approach the concept of consumption of electronic games as sports in the light of Pierre Bourdieu's theories and the Theory of Consumer Culture. Throughout the argument, we propose that the field of electronic games is formed as a subfield of the sports field, through both the technological transformations developed over time and the symbolic production and cultural reproduction that involve goods and services and contribute to the formation of the concept and consumption of electronic games as sports.
Keywords: Consumption. Eletronic games. Sport. CCT. Bourdieu.
... On the other side, much of the extant research states that online game addiction is a psychopathology of modern culture (Lemmens et al., 2009;Van Rooij et al., 2011;Hyun et al., 2015). This opinion is correct because online games are a product of modern civilisation, which students can use for good entertainment but magnify as an escape from their realities (Hutchins, 2008;Yong and Downing, 2008;Hyun et al., 2015). This study suggests that the extant studies on students' addictive behaviour in online games focus on selfregulation deficiency and its reflective factors. ...
Purpose
This study investigates some extant research concentrating on student self-regulation to play online games addictively. Then, it proposes a new design to explain game addiction caused by students’ cognitive biases according to three contested approaches: self-control or self-regulation, cognitive distortion, and opportunistic behaviour. Moreover, it separates each contested approach in detail.
Research methodology
This research generalises research subjects with specific qualities and characteristics according to the researchers’ provisions. It selects the population with specific attributes: self-control, cognitive bias, opportunistic behaviour, habits and addiction to online games. Then, this study distributes bilingual questionnaires to the respondents throughout Indonesia. Finally, it tests these research hypotheses, splits them according to each model, and avoids perfect-collinearity among the constructs.
Originality
This research creates a new design incorporating three contested models of students’ addiction to games. The authors argue that online game addiction is due to students’ weak self-control, cognitive distortion, and opportunistic behaviours. The first perspective suggests that students play games addictively because of their low self-control in managing their tasks and enjoying leisure time. Secondly, this research deals with students playing the game due to their cognitive distortions: embodiment, stereotype, and heuristic biases. Finally, the third perspective explains students’ addiction to games because of their probable attitudes and behaviours: indeterminism, escapism, and adverse selection.
Findings
This research finds that each contested model could explain students’ tendencies to be addicted to playing online games. The authors conclude that multi-constructs and multi-dimensions explain students’ tendency to play games addictively in all three contested models. Moreover, this research infers that students’ habits and addictive behaviours are due to the number of games available on social media and the internet. This availability would likely damage academic habits, behaviours, culture and environment. Meanwhile, educational systems cannot stop the emergence and alterations of some new games. Finally, this study innovates the multi-paradigm for teachers’ counselling guidance.
Implications
This study’s findings imply a need for students’ behavioural therapy to be conducted by academic counsellors who are careful of the causal factors of multi-constructs and multi-dimensions. Then, it argues that the different causal factors impact the need for different cognitive therapies. Moreover, it explains that equal treatment for these students addicted to games would make them more stressed. Then, academic counsellors developing healing and wellness programmes should mitigate these students with a specific trait from the subdimensions of each construct.
... Bien que l'on retrouve des traces de compétitions de jeux vidéo dans les laboratoires de recherche étatsuniens dès le début des années 1970 (Schwartz, 2017), puis dans les salles d'arcade et sur les premières consoles de salon dans les années 1980 (Borowy et Jin, 2013), il est généralement admis que le sport électroniqueou esportémerge à la fin des années 1990 dans deux zones géographiques distinctes : en Amérique du Nord tout d'abord sur les jeux de tir à la première personne comme Quake (T.L. Taylor, 2012), et en Asie du sud-est ensuite sur les jeux de stratégie en temps réel comme Starcraft Broodwar (Jin, 2010). Si jusqu'à cette période, les événements compétitifs de jeux vidéo étaient organisés de manières épisodiques, le début des années 2000 marque l'apparition à travers le monde des premiers circuits professionnels structurés (Hutchins, 2008) : la CPL aux États-Unis, les WCG en Corée du sud, l'ESL en Allemagne, la DreamHack en Suède ou encore l'ESWC en France. ...
... Elling and Janssens (2009) demonstrated that many LGB people enjoy sports, which challenges the stereotypical view that sporting involvement is exclusively dominated by heterosexual people. This study also called for more attention on e-sports as there is an interrelationship of video games, sport, and communication technologies (Hutchins, 2008). However, our results should be interpreted with caution since it is possible that the effect of sexual orientation on enjoyment was inflated by the negative correlations with intuitive control and competence. ...
Introduction
Existing research has focused on sex and gender to explain video games playing motivations and enjoyment. This study investigated gender traits and sexual orientation to further explain why people play games and what leads to gaming enjoyment.
Methods
Participants ( N = 198) answered questions on gender traits (positive/negative feminity/masculinity), gaming motivations, enjoyment, sexual orientation (32.0% of the sample belonged to the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community, later LGB community), and demographics.
Results
Only certain gender traits are linked to specific gaming motivations. Negative masculinity increased competence and relatedness while negative femininity decreased autonomy. Similar results were found for sexual orientation. LGB people showed less competence and intuitive control motivations. Additionally, LGB people spent more time playing video games than non-LGB people. They reported playing puzzles more as well. No other differences were found for game genre selection.
Discussion
The lack of differences based on sexual orientation and gender traits shows that video games offer an environment for everybody and thus have the potential to bring people together.
... Moreover, eSports activities were frequently dependent on sponsorship and the event game in which the company was the advertising. For example, Samsung became a primary sponsor of the eSports competition WCG in South Korea, but Microsoft has connected culture in the United States, Asia, and Europe by becoming a sponsor (29)(30)(31)(32)(33). It can be said that the development of the game by a group of Thai entrepreneurs was more numerous than in the past, including investment from the private sector that had driven the industry for continued expansion. ...
This chapter offers an introduction to the diverse and evolving esports scenes and communities in four prominent South American countries: Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Chile, to provide a glimpse of the esports culture in the region. The gaming culture and context of each country are explored, with a brief historical background of main titles and events, emphasizing similarities and differences in current esports consumption. The chapter delves into the prominent platforms, games, communities, competitive events, players, teams, developers, and the passionate player base that characterizes each country’s esports scene, along with accompanying challenges. This chapter underscores the region’s role in the global esports phenomenon. Key highlights include: (1) while the first competitive video gaming championships appeared in South America in the 1980s, the esports scene did not start to grow exponentially until around 2010; (2) esports labor management policies are slowly developing in South America, but support from governments, game developers, and professional teams is still a challenge; and (3) as a space marked by power asymmetries and the characteristic inequalities of post-colonial territories, South America contributes greatly to the esports ecosystem and as time passes esports will continue to grow and professionalize in the region.
Purpose
Research on electric sports (eSports) has experienced significant growth in recent years as a consequence of increasing connectivity, institutionalization, and technological advances. However, the interdisciplinary nature of the eSports as a field and the burgeoning growth in eSports articles have rendered it necessary to conduct a systematic review of extant literature to take stock of the knowledge accumulated. To this end, we aim to undertake a comprehensive review of extant literature that takes stock of published research to derive opportunities for future research in the realm of eSports. In so doing, we contribute to the advancement of the field by mapping out the knowledge trajectory of eSports research and elucidating areas that have remained underexplored thus far.
Design/methodology/approach
To conduct systematic review of the eSports literature, we employed a framework that included six essential steps: protocol, search, appraisal, synthesis, analysis, and report. This comprehensive approach enables us to meticulously investigate the existing body of literature on eSports and identify key trends and topics addressed within the field. By conducting the multidisciplinary systematic literature review, we thoroughly assess the current state of eSports literature and subsequently outline potential research avenues that can contribute to eSports fields.
Findings
This study draws on a six-phase framework – member preparation, team formation, character selection, team coordination, team performance, and team reflection – to illustrate the roles played by different levels of analysis unit (i.e. characters, players, and teams) and three distinct yet interconnected stages (i.e. inputs, process, and outputs) within eSports games as well as the research opportunities it brings.
Originality/value
We conducted a rigorous systematic review of the eSports literature by using quantitative citation analysis and qualitative content analysis. Furthermore, we adopted team dynamic view of eSports to identify potential research avenues for future research that contribute to advancing our understanding of the eSports tournaments.
Cet ouvrage répond à un manque dans la littérature francophone : l’existence d’un guide de référence pour toute personne souhaitant s’initier aux différents aspects de la recherche sur les jeux vidéo. Pensés pour permettre au lecteur d’avoir des clés de compréhension concernant les principaux aspects du domaine, les multiples chapitres sont autant de synthèses qui visent également à ouvrir des perspectives pour poursuivre la réflexion. L’ensemble des contributions ont été rédigées par des spécialistes reconnus des thématiques abordées, tout en étant animées d’une volonté d’accessibilité. Ce livre s’adresse donc à toute personne désirant mieux comprendre les enjeux d’une industrie qui est à présent au centre du numérique, des loisirs contemporains et qui s’ouvre également à de multiples secteurs (journalisme, santé, formation, sport, etc.) : étudiants, professionnels (journalistes, concepteurs, etc.), enseignants, parents, institutions mais aussi les joueuses et les joueurs. En somme, cet ouvrage est un compagnon de route idéal pour quiconque souhaite s’aventurer dans l’exploration des vastes étendues des théories des jeux vidéo.
The project aims to combine visualization study with VOSviewer and Publish or Perish software to conduct a computerized bibliometric analysis of the phrase "Esports Management." The method used descriptive-quantitative approach in conjunction with bibliometric analysis. The data was obtained from the Google Scholar search results for "Esports Management." There were 999 articles published between 2017 and 2021, with an increase each year except for 2021 to 2022. This may be demonstrated in 2017 with 58 articles, in 2018 with 92 pieces, in 2019 with 160 articles, in 2020 with 242 articles, and in 2021 with a huge rise to 335 articles. In 2022, however, the number of articles had significantly decreased to 64. Based on further findings of this research, it can be concluded that there are several understudied sectors in Esports Management that may be examined further to increase the efficacy of Management in Esports. It is anticipated that this research will also serve as an example for further studies in defining and evaluating the research subject, as well as for the Esports participants' management team.
Bourse de recherche du Centre d’Etudes Olympiques Français et de l’Académie Nationale Olympique Française. Présenté le 13 juin 2018.
L’analyse de la perception des spectateurs de spectacles sportifs et esportifs face à l’arrivée potentielle de l’esport aux Jeux Olympiques de Paris 2024.
Este artigo parte da controvérsia sobre o Projeto de Lei do Senado n.º 383, que trata da regulamentação da atividade dos esports no Brasil. Analisamos as repercussões e a conversação acerca da hashtag #TodosContraPLS383, movimento de repúdio organizado no Twitter em novembro de 2019, com o intuito de compor um argumento que problematize: a) as relações entre a indústria de games e dimensões de governança; e b) de que forma o discurso neoliberal é assimilado por sujeitos dentro desta cultura. A partir de uma apropriação de inspirações etnográficas e utilizando o software ATLAS.ti para a coleta e compreensão dos dados, reconstruímos uma narrativa que discute a retórica antirregulação expondo a ideologia neoliberal que pode ser largamente identificada nos discursos a respeito da cultura gamer.
Introduction: eSports is a recent phenomenon that has been garnering interest, mostly among young people. At first, electronic games (which today make up eSports) were considered simply a game, a pastime close to the concept of leisure. Given the dizzying growth of this industry and the emergence of championships with a significant audience, however, eSports began to be related to Sports, besides the possible 'sporting' processes present therein. Currently, eSport comprises a set of activities in which people participate, train and develop mental and physical skills through information or communication technologies. Despite this, the impacts of this phenomenon are little explored by scientific literature. Objective: This study seeks to develop a co-word analysis of the eSports research field to highlight the topics addressed in the 21st century. Methods: This bibliometric research analyzed 246 articles retrieved from the Web of Science (Thomson Reuters, New York, USA) database. Letters, editorials, book reviews, conference abstracts/papers, and news were excluded. Discovery and analysis of the main research topics in eSports was performed using the SciMAT software tool. Results & Discussion: Since eSports is a recent phenomenon, the field covers several research topics such as sport, video-game, play, game, motivations and gambling. Academic interest and publications on eSports increased significantly only since 2016, with a significant number of studies within humanities. Conclusion: Despite the few studies, eSports is not just a research topic, but an area of knowledge that encompasses several themes from different areas. In fact, it is a modern human phenomenon that uses information or communication technologies.
While e-sports tourism has gradually become popular among young adults—especially with China’s e-sports industry in full swing—certain problems have emerged with this new type of tourism. This study uses arousal theory as a basis for exploring the influence mechanism of e-sports tourists' impulsive behavior in Chinese collective culture. A sample of 562 participants in China were surveyed online to test the research model, which included 10 hypotheses. The empirical results indicate that: Firstly, the system quality of the Information System (IS) success model and the human stimuli influence arousal; secondly, tourists' motivation for e-sports tourism, group honor concerns, and identity in the Chinese context also positively affect arousal, and then influence impulsive behavior; and thirdly, arousal has a mediating effect between the environmental stimuli (except information quality) and impulsive behavior. This paper innovatively proposes that the physical and psychological elements of environmental stimuli could significantly affect arousal levels, thus in turn influencing impulsive behavior in e-sports tourism. Furthermore, the conclusion section discuses practical suggestions for the organizers of e-sports tournaments, such as adjusting environmental stimuli to achieve optimal arousal levels.
This study is an analysis of e-sports, understanding them as a particular way of sports culture expression in line with the contemporary social paradigm that implies cyberculture. The main objective of this study is to analyze the sports cyberculture meanings for social actors involved in the e-sports universe. Thus, through a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 2 cyberathletes and 1 streamer. Results show that sport cyberculture is appropriated by those social actors with expectations towards building a career, and on the growth of the modality and the public amid perceptions and experiences of prejudice. It is concluded that sports cyberculture produces and reflects practices, attitudes and values similar to the conventional way of experiencing sport, reproducing stereotypes and prejudices, dreams of social ascension and professionalization perspectives.
The extended reach of esports is no coincidence – in fact, it denotes marketing strategies that have permeated widely in the community; among them social media involvement and merchandising, which have been key pieces for the incorporation of esports in society, stand out. Therefore, identifying such marketing techniques carried out by the top-ranking esports teams allows us to illustrate the success in increasing audiences and to suggest a list of best practices that can be extrapolated in different settings and platforms.
Methodology: Website content analysis study. The research will be conducted over the websites and social media of the top-five ranking esports teams in the world, organizing the data according to a categorization of marketing strategies applied from the groups and changes in the number of followers over a five-month period.
Key findings: This chapter highlights the main marketing strategies used by the top-five esports teams around the globe in terms of transmission of content, brand exposure, merchandise, and subscriptions.
This book takes a multidisciplinary approach to the question of
esports and their role in society. A diverse group of authors tackle the
impact of esports and the ways in which it has grown within the enter-
tainment industry around the world.
Chapters offer a coherent response to the following questions: What
role do esports play in the entertainment industry? What communi-
cation skills can be learned through esports? What do the media gain
from broadcasting esports? What is the relationship between social
networks and esports? What are the main marketing strategies used
in esports? What effect does communicative globalization have on the
development of esports? What is the relationship between merchandis-
ing and esports? What do communication experts think about esports?
Offering clear insights into this rapidly developing area, this volume
will be of great interest to scholars, students, and anyone working in
game studies, new media, leisure, sport studies, communication stud-
ies, transmedia literacy, and digital culture
Terrorism, unemployment and environmental catastrophes dominate the news agenda around the world. In contrast to this public debate, most post-industrial societies are experiencing economic growth, a considerable level of welfare and security, and a long-lasting period of peace in their home territories. So why is the discussion in these societies revolving around risks and danger? The German sociologist Ulrich Beck attributes this to a far-reaching change which he calls ‘‘reflexive modernization,’’ where unintended and unforeseen side-effects of modern life backfire on modernity, questioning the very basis of its definition. In an exclusive interview, Ulrich Beck talks about how this affects the way we live and perceive reality*/and he discusses the central role of journalism and media in the process of reflexive modernization.
Back in 1967, Dr. Wildor Hollmann, one of Germany's most prominent sports physicians and longtime president of the International Federation for Sports Medicine (FIMS), was visiting the International Olympic Academy at Olympia on the day of its annual inauguration, with King Constantine him-self in attendance. Naively assuming that the Academy was an open forum for thinking about the past, present, and future of the Olympic movement, Dr. Hollmann expressed the view that, in the not-too-distant future. the "Olympic idea" itself would inevitably fall victim to the logic of development inherent in the professionalization and commercialization of elite sport. The words were hardly out of his mouth before Dr. Hollmann was engulfed in a storm of indignation, during which an Italian member of the IOC declared that merely expressing such thoughts was in his view nothing less than a desecration of this holy site. 1 Olympic historiography has long been inseparable from the Movement's status as a redemptive and inspirational internationalism. Like so many read-ings of its founder, Pierre de Coubertin (1863-1937), historical interpreta-tions of the Olympic movement have generally taken the form of "either hagiographies or hagiolatries," and not least because the founder himself "proclaimed Olympism beyond ideology." 2 Historical treatments of the Movement since the launching of that provocative claim have thus had no 1. W[ildor] Hollmann, "Risikofaktoren in der Entwicklung des Hochleistungssports.
The application of genetic technology seems to threaten what is considered natural in elite sport. This paper explores the role of genetic technology in elite sport and questions the significance of clichotomizing between the natural and artificial element. How do shifts in technology affect the attribution of the human element in athletic performance? To explore the attribution of human agency we compare the genetic enhancement of athletes with two other shifts of the 'natural performance' in sport: first, the introduction of a revolutionary high jump technique, the Fosbury flop, in 1968; and, second, the introduction of the klapskate in speed skating in 1997. The three cases show that artificiality as such can hardly be a criterion for evaluating processes of innovation. The context of elite sport is itself highly artificial. Boundaries between the natural body and the enhanced body are the outcome of institutional processes of boundary work. When discussing new technologies in sport it is better to ask if athletes are still playing the same game and whether or not there are equal opportunities and an equal distribution of means for playing the game. The introduction of gene technology may result in inequalities, with great impact on the outcome of the game. This outcome may be considered irrelevant for the inequalities that the game is supposed to produce and measure. Genetic enhancement may also threaten the public view of athletes as moral agents and possibly change the appreciation for human performance.
The equation between the concept of society and the nation-state in modernity is known as methodological nationalism in scholarly debates. In agreement with the thesis that methodological nationalism must be rejected and transcended, this article argues that we still lack an understanding of what methodological nationalism actually is and, because of that, we remain unable to answer the substantive problem methodological nationalism poses to social theory: how to understand the history, main features and legacy of the nation-state in modernity. The first section of the article reconstructs the origins of the critique of methodological nationalism in the 1970s and differentiates between its logical and historical versions. It then critically reviews the most salient critique of methodological nationalism in contemporary social theory, that of Ulrich Beck. The final part of the article assesses the thesis of social theory’s immanent methodological nationalism by demonstrating how social theory’s equivocations towards the nation-state only mirror the nation-state’s own ambivalence within modernity. It is shown that social theory’s ambivalent attempts at conceptualizing the nation-state reflect the actual ambivalence of the position of the nation-state in modernity: its historical opacity, its sociological uncertainty and its normative ambiguity.
Hybrid reality games (HRGs) employ mobile technologies and GPS devices as tools for transforming physical spaces into interactive game boards. Rather than situating participants in simulated environments, which mimic the physical world, HRGs make use of physical world immersion by merging physical and digital spaces. Online multiuser environments already connect users who do not share contiguous spaces. With mobile devices, players may additionally incorporate interactions with the surrounding physical space. This article is a speculative study about the potential uses of HRGs in education, as activities responsible for taking learning practices outside the closed classroom environment into open, public spaces. Adopting the framework of sociocultural learning theory, the authors analyze design elements of existing HRGs, such as mobility and location awareness, collaboration/sociability, and the configuration of the game space, with the aim of reframing these games into an educational context to foresee how future games might contribute to discovery and learning.
Coordination game theory is quite important to a number of literatures but has had very few direct empirical tests because that would require experimental participation by large numbers of people. Large games however can produce natural experiments: situations that through no intent of the designer offer controlled variations on a phenomenon of theoretical interest. Unlike any other social science research technology, such games provide for both sufficient participation numbers and careful control of experimental conditions, making them like Petri dishes for social science. This article examines two examples of games as Petri dishes for macro-level coordination effects: (a) the location of markets inside EverQuest and (b) the selection of battlefields inside Dark Age of Camelot.
In contrast to most literature on cosmopolitanism, which focuses on its elite forms, this article analyzes how ordinary people bridge racial boundaries in everyday life. It is based on interviews with 150 non-college-educated white and black workers in the United States and white and North African workers in France. The comparison of the four groups shows how differences in cultural repertoires across national context and structural location shape distinct anti-racist rhetorics. Market-based arguments are salient among American workers, while arguments based on solidarity and egalitarianism are used by French, but not by American, workers. Minority workers in both countries employ a more extensive toolkit of anti-racist rhetoric as compared to whites. The interviewed men privilege evidence grounded in everyday experience, and their claims of human equality are articulated in terms of universal human nature and, in the case of blacks and North Africans, universal morality. Workers' conceptual frameworks have little in common with multiculturalism that occupies a central place in the literature on cosmopolitanism. We argue that for the discussion and practice of cosmopolitanism to move forward we should shift our attention to the study of multiple ordinary cosmopolitanisms.
'The Network Society stimulates the reader to think about the network society in an innovative way. Because of its analytical aims and a well-balanced presentation of empirical findings and theoretical insights coming from a remarkable variety of authors, this is a book that might become a model for collaborative research in the years to come, as well as an invaluable reference for teaching and research on networking as an organizational form.' - International Sociology - Review of Books.
This article explores the possibility of a new paradigm of media research that understands media, not as texts or structures of production, but as practice. Drawing on recent moves towards a theory of practice in sociology, this paradigm aims to move beyond old debates about media effects and the relative importance of political economy and audience interpretation, at the same time as moving beyond a narrow concentration on audience practices, to study the whole range of practices that are oriented towards media and the role of media in ordering other practices in the social world. After setting this new paradigm in the context of the history of media research, the article reviews the key advantages of this paradigm in mapping the complexity of media-saturated cultures where the discreteness of audience practices can no longer be assumed.
This article examines the characteristics of a new form of visibility which has become a pervasive feature of the modern world and which is linked to the development of communication media. With the development of the media, the visibility of individuals, actions and events is severed from the sharing of a common locale: one no longer has to be present in the same spatial-temporal setting in order to see the other or to witness an action or event. The rise of this new form of mediated visibility has transformed the relations between visibility and power. Thanks to mediated visibility, political rulers are able to appear before their subjects in ways and on a scale that never existed previously. Skilful politicians exploit this to their advantage; with the help of their PR consultants and communications advisers, they seek to create and sustain a basis of support by managing their visibility in the mediated arena of modern politics. But mediated visibility is a double-edged sword: it also creates new risks for political leaders, who find themselves exposed to new kinds of dangers. Hence the visibility created by the media becomes the source of a new and distinctive kind of fragility. However much political leaders try to manage their visibility, they cannot completely control it: mediated visibility can slip out of their grasp and can, on occasion, work against them.
This article differentiates between three different axes of conflict in world risk society. The first axis is that of ecological conflicts, which are by their very essence global. The second is global financial crises, which, in a first stage, can be individualized and nationalized. And the third, which suddenly broke upon us on September 11th, is the threat of transnational terror networks, which empowers governments and states. Two sets of implications are drawn: first, there are the political dynamics of world risk society. In an age where trust and faith in God, class and progress have largely disappeared, humanity's common fear has proved the last - ambivalent - resource for making new bonds. Second, the methodological nationalism that preoccupies the sociological imagination has to be overcome and a `methodological cosmopolitism' has to be created.
This brief article investigates the relationship between legal scholarship and game studies. It attempts to find some common ground between theories of law and theories of games, looking to lawas a game, the lawof sports, and contemporary claims about online governance.
At the beginning of the 21st century the conditio humana cannot be understood nationally or locally but only globally. This constitutes a revolution in the social sciences. The `sociological imagination' (C. Wright Mills) so far has basically been a nation state imagination. The main problem is how to redefine the sociological frame of reference in the horizon of a cosmopolitan imagination. For the purpose of empirical research I distinguish between three concepts: interconnectedness (David Held et al.), liquid modernity (Zygmunt Bauman) and cosmopolitization from within. The latter is a kind of class analysis after class analysis, which takes on board globalization internalized. For the purposes of social analysis, therefore, it is necessary to distinguish systematically between the national manifestation on the one hand and cosmopolitan reality of `global flows', currents of information, symbols, money, risks, people, social inequalities, on the other. This internal involuntary and often unseen cosmopolitanization from below of the national sphere of experience is occurring, however, with the power of economic globalization. So what does inner `cosmopolitanization' mean? The key concepts and questions of a way of life, such as nourishment, production, identity, fear, memory, pleasure, fate, power and politics, can no longer be located and understood nationally, but only globally whether in the shape of globally shared collective futures, capital flows, impending ecological or economic catastrophes, global foodstuff chains, transnational power games, or the `Esperanto' of pop music. In this article I look at transformation in the understanding of space-time, of identity, of the production paradigms, as well as at the resulting consequences for key sociological concepts like class and power and, within this frame, point to certain dilemmas of cosmopolitanism.
This article examines the history of moral panics about media, gleans some lessons from media studies that can help the study of electronic games, and is critical of both utopic and dystopic, cybertarian and pessimistic accounts of gaming.
From the Publisher:Enter the quiet living rooms and cacophonous gaming environs of gaming kingpins like Richard Garriott and John Carmack, who invented games such as Quake and DOOM. Learn about gamers who make their living by winning gaming tournaments, and secrets of devoted gamers who practically live at LAN parties and gaming conventions.