Search

In order to better understand the development of play and games in modern lives, this article examines two competitive leisure groups: digital fighting game players and traditional taekwondo practitioners. Drawing on qualitative offline/online interviews (n = 56) and close reading of externally documented life narratives (n = 14), we explore how the modes and motives of engagement fluctuate in competitive players over time. The study provides a new developmental approach to continuous competitive play as leisure. Our results show rather than making linear progress from ‘casual’ to ‘serious’ leisure, individuals in both groups perceive their lasting relationships with these activities gradually evolving through their lives in three stages: acquaintance, attachment, and accommodation, The players fluctuate between casual and serious engagement, occasionally reaching a state of subjectively meaningful and socially cemented life permanence. The study suggests that the patterns of long-term play and gaming may not differ much between digital and non-digital domains. peerReviewed

Both game-based trolling and hooliganism have existed in some form since the inception of online gaming and professional sports respectively. The two share many characteristics: provocation of an opposing entity, the tendency to taunt or trash-talk others based on their social or individual identity, and disruptive and/or destructive behaviour. However, despite this and the increasing similarity between the worlds of traditional sports and esports, research on the two negatively perceived phenomena has remained largely separate. The present article aims to both link and distinguish the two types of behaviour in terms of what motivates them, the agents involved, and the spaces in which they take place. By drawing from communication theories and cases described as both hooliganism and trolling in professional sports and esports settings, we (a) refine the definition of trolling in light of hooliganism, (b) discuss practical implications for the future health of esports communities, and (c) explore deviance as inherent entertainment in mediatised sporting events. Suggestions for future collaborative research between trolling and hooliganism specialists are also included.

Lektio 22.1.2022 Jyväskylän yliopistossa nonPeerReviewed

This chapter examines toxic meritocracy in relation to gender in competitive Overwatch, asking how gender affects a player’s opportunities for engagement in that scene. It analyzes online news stories and community discussions concerning “Ellie” – a fabricated competitive woman gamer created as a “social experiment” by a man player. The confluences between gender and toxic meritocracy become visible in the assumption there must be an experienced man gamer behind the battletag, the gender-based harassment targeted at Ellie, and the reflections on the importance of setting an example as the first team taking a woman player for Contenders. The analysis shows that despite a strong belief in meritocracy upheld within the community, there are many barriers limiting the participation of those entering competitive Overwatch as women.

Lektio 23.8.2022 Jyväskylän yliopistossa nonPeerReviewed

We pursue Overwatch player profiles via a statistical cluster analysis of survey data from the UK (N = 1089) and the USA (N = 417). The profiles are based on the players’ activity, challenge, and experiential preferences as well as motivations. Our analytical process produces six esports player clusters, two of which with Overwatch. The first (OW1) plays mainly Overwatch and Fortnite on a console, and they enjoy diverse types of non-competitive play elements more than other esports players. The second cluster (OW2) plays mainly Overwatch and League of Legends on a PC, and despite appearing more “competitive”, they did not report more competitive preferences. We suggest that the alleged “casual” and “competitive” types might not be the best way to identify esports and Overwatch players.

nonPeerReviewed

Tämä artikkeli käsittelee e-urheilua osana aktiivisesti pelaavien turkulaisten poikien elämää. Laadullisen haastatteluaineiston (N=14) kautta artikkeli avaa nuorten näkemyksiä e-urheilun asemasta sekä henkilökohtaisena että yhteiskunnallisena toimintana. Tutkimus viittaa siihen, että e-urheilun rooli aktiivisesti yhdessä pelaavien poikien arjessa toimii perinteisten urheilulajien tavoin tavoitteellisena kilpailuna kuin myös vähemmän tavoitteellisena sosiaalisena ajanvietteenä. Kyseiselle joukolle e-urheilu on harrastus, jota myös perhe, ystävät ja yhteiskunta yhä useammin tukevat. Ohjattu e-urheilutoiminta sekä siihen liittyvät sosiaaliset infrastruktuurit todennäköisesti edesauttavat terveen videopeliharrastuneisuuden kehitystä. This article investigates esports as a part of the lives of Finnish boys who are active gamers. Through qualitative interviews (n= 14), we discuss the boys' views on esports as a persona! and societal activity. The research indicates that esports can be compared to traditiona! sports both as a goal-oriented competitive activity and as a social pastime for boys who play together with others. For them, esports is a hobby that is increasingly supported by family, friends, and society alike. Supervised esports and the related social infrastructures likely encourage the development of healthy gaming habits. peerReviewed

A decade ago, it was still somewhat conventional to start a study by writing how “esports is a novel phenomenon.” As we write this introduction in 2021, that is no longer true. Today, more than a thousand studies have been published on esports, including several books and special issues. Moreover, the work is no longer conducted purely in the “game studies” related fields, but across numerous domains from medical and health sciences to economics and sports. Esports is no longer a novel phenomenon, not even for researchers. As both the industry and academia of esports progress—with hundreds of digital (and some analog) game titles being played as “esports”—it is more and more difficult to address “esports” in general. As the need for more specific case studies keeps increasing, this book on Overwatch responds to that need. nonPeerReviewed

Kraemer, WJ, Caldwell, LK, Post, EM, Beeler, MK, Emerson, A, Volek, JS, Maresh, CM, Fogt, JS, Fogt, N, Häkkinen, K, Newton, RU, Lopez, P, Sanchez, BN, and Onate, JA. Arousal/stress effects of “Overwatch” eSports game competition in collegiate gamers. J Strength Cond Res XX(X): 000–000, 2022—To date, no physical response data are available for one of the most popular eSport games, Overwatch. The purpose of this investigation was to describe the stress signaling associated with competitive Overwatch play and to understand how acute hormonal responses may affect performance. Thirty-two male college-aged gamers (age: 21.3 ± 2.7 years; estimated time played per week: 18 ± 15 hours) completed the study. Subjects were randomly assigned to a 6-player team to compete in a tournament-style match. Salivary measures of cortisol and testosterone were collected immediately before (PRE) and after (POST) the first-round game, with the heart rate recorded continuously during the match. The mean characteristics were calculated for each variable and comparisons made by the skill level. Significance was defined as p ≤ 0.05. There were no differences in measures of salivary cortisol. A differential response pattern was observed by the skill level for testosterone. The low skill group displayed a significant increase in testosterone with game play (mean ± SD, testosterone PRE: 418.3 ± 89.5 pmol·L−1, POST: 527.6 ± 132.4 pmol·L−1, p < 0.001), whereas no change was observed in the high skill group. There were no differences in heart rate characteristics between skill groups. Overall, the average heart rate was 107.2 ± 17.8 bpm with an average max heart rate of 133.3 ± 19.1 bpm. This study provides unique physiological evidence that a sedentary Overwatch match modulates endocrine and cardiovascular responses, with the skill level emerging as a potential modulator. peerReviewed

publishedVersion

This chapter analyzes the discursive construction of nationality and ethnicity in the context of the Overwatch World Cup 2019 and especially among the discussions of the world cup’s spectators on the live-streaming platform Twitch. Drawing on the positioning theory and the concept of banal nationalism, our study demonstrates how esports fans are active negotiators and co-creators of the esports discourse. The analysis illustrates what kind of role nationality and ethnicity take in this environment, in other words what they come to mean for those participating in the discourses defining them.

In our article, we analyse the ways audiences engage with Overwatch esports and construct their fan relationships. We situate our research into several intersecting theoretical frames. To understand how Overwatch esports audiences engage with the esports through different media and media related practices we apply the framework of transmedia studies in our examination. To better understand how meanings related to esports are constructed through these practices we also draw from research on fandom and fan engagement. We reflect these findings on earlier research on sports fandom and esports viewership, enabling us to identify how Overwatch esports communities relate to traditional sports communities. Our study reveals how esports is intertwined with the everyday lived reality of the esports audiences, and how meanings are constructed through (mediated) audience practices. Our article contributes to the study of esports transmedia and to the understanding of the similarities and differences of esports and sports audiences., Eracle. Journal of Sport and Social Sciences, Vol 4 No 1 (2021): eSports: playing on and off the screen

peerReviewed

Esports has generated an industry of increasing economic and cultural importance. In recent years, universities and other higher education institutions have responded to its growth by establishing programmes of study which aim to satisfy the needs of innovators operating in the area. However, there is not yet consensus on what an esports curriculum should include. Despite being a technology-driven sector with ethical and professional dimensions that intersect computing, current ACM and IEEE curricula do not mention esports. Furthermore, existing courses tend to provide teaching and training on a wide variety of topics aside from those traditionally in computer science. These include: live events management; psychological research; sports science; marketing; public relations; video (livestream) production; and community management; in addition to coaching and communication. This working group examined the requirements for developing esports studies at universities with a focus on understanding career prospects in esports and on the challenges presented by its interdisciplinary complexity. In doing so, identifying key competencies and learning domains, whilst also assessing how they align with industry needs, paving the way for a framework to support the design of esports curricula in higher education.

This chapter is an extended revision of the authors' earlier study (2016) on the training routines of professional and high-level esport players, with added focus on their physical exercise. The study is methodologically mixed with a quantitative survey sample (n=115) and a qualitative interview sample (n=7). Based on this data, high-level esport players train approximately 5.28 hours every day around the year, and professional esport players at least the same amount. Approximately 1.08 hours of that training is physical exercise. More than half (55.6%) of the professional and high-level esport players believe that integrating physical exercise into their training programs has a positive effect on esport performance; however, no less than 47.0% do the physical exercise chiefly to maintain their overall state of health. Accordingly, the study indicates that professional and high-level esport players are physically active as well: those of age 18 and older exercising more than three times the daily 21-minute physical activity recommendation given by the World Health Organization.

nonPeerReviewed

Esports has often been likened and compared to traditional sports. This paper suggests an alternative interpretative framework for competitive gaming by focusing on the team-based first-person shooter game Overwatch. We explore Overwatch esports using multi-sited ethnography and demonstrate how the fans and viewers use a rich spectrum of cultural products to enrich and explain their relationship with esports. In the case of Overwatch, anime is particularly prominent, used not only to enrich and explain, but also to challenge ‘sports normativity’, which is visible in the media discussions on Overwatch as well as in the production choices of the esports tournament organizer. This also has consequences on the norms and the values of the fans and the viewer: for instance, it affects the way masculinity is constructed in the context of competitive Overwatch. peerReviewed

peerReviewed

This article looks at two televised video game tournaments from the 1980’s from the viewpoint of sports spectacle. Through the analysis of the television episodes and comparison to modern eSports-scene, the aim is to see, if there were similarities or differences between sports broadcasting and video game broadcasting at the time. The article suggests that because of visual choices made in sports broadcasting, the video game tournaments adapted this style coincidentally, which might have affected the style of eSports-broadcasting later. nonPeerReviewed

Digital gaming attracts people of all ages. Nevertheless, professional esports (also known as electronic sports, e-sports, or eSports) is dominated by under 35 year olds. In this paper, e-sports market is analysed by focusing on the performance of different age-groups. Younger generations play more digital games and dominate e-sports scene, but also older people enjoy playing various video games. Two separate datasets are analysed for testing whether age is a statistically significant explanatory variable for success in professional e-sports tournaments. According to the empirical results, success in e-sports tournaments decreases with the player’s age. The best results are gained when the players are under 25 years old. Negative relationship between age and e-sports success is confirmed by analysing both 100 best e-sports players and 100 oldest players. E-sports is gaining increasing popularity in the future and therefore it will also attract more fans amongst the birth cohorts of “boomers” and “Generation X”. peerReviewed

This study evaluated five early cases in which esport developer Riot Games made rulings regarding activities and infractions by members of various institutions related to its product, League of Legends. The findings of this study support future theoretical exploration of other esports in seeking a fuller understanding of issues related to consent, power differentials, and roles and behaviors expected of the institutional activities of players and teams in competition. Increased investigation of these—and other—issues from an ethical standpoint could lead to a framework that not only would facilitate future study but also bring opportunities for improvements in practices in concert with necessary policy changes. peerReviewed

Esports phenomena have grown rapidly in recent years, and so has research on the topic. Some of the research has also addressed esports fandom (see e.g. Taylor 2012). Nevertheless, studies comparing and contrasting how players and fans engage with the game and the esports based on that game are scarce. This study compares and contrasts how players and fans engage with playable game characters and esports players. The paper draws on previous research in fan studies, sports fandom and esports to examine the relationships of players and fans of the videogame Overwatch (Blizzard Entertainment 2016) with the fictional heroes of the game as well as with their favorite professional players in the newly started Overwatch League. We analyse how these relationships are articulated by fans and players, and pay attention to emerging similarities and differences. The findings show that personality is deemed important for engagement with both, game characters and esports players. In addition, gender and sexual orientation emerged as important factors. By contrast, nationality was deemed important for engagement with esports players, but not with player characters. Further research should concentrate on the connections between esports and identity politics, as well as player characters and identity construction. peerReviewed

eSports has boomed, the number of eSport athletes has grown rapidly, and many teenagers aspire to a have career in eSports. However, eSports athletes' careers involve many problems, such as career-entry difficulties, straining life habits, burnout, premature retirement, and post-career dilemmas. Despite a growing research interest in eSports, a void of knowledge exists regarding eSports athletes' career aspects. To address the gap in research, this paper aims to take an initial step by proposing a framework for eSports athletes' career transitions. The framework combines two approaches from sport psychology and sport literature. The framework can help eSports athletes, coaches, and other stakeholders have and maintain long-lasting and healthy careers.

This article offers possibly the first peer-reviewed study on the training routines of elite e-athletes with special focus on the subjects' physical exercise routines. The study is based on a sample of 115 elite e-athletes. According to the responses, e-athletes train approximately 5.28 hours every day around the year on the elite level. Approximately 1.08 hours of that training is physical exercise. More than half (55.6%) of the elite e-athletes believe that integrating physical exercise in their training programs has a positive effect on esport performance; however, no less than 47.0% of the elite e-athletes do their physical exercise chiefly to maintain overall health. Accordingly, the study indicates that elite e-athletes are active athletes as well, those of age 18 and older exercising physically more than three times the daily 21-minute activity recommendation given by World Health Organization. peerReviewed

Tässä tutkielmassa tarkastellaan tamperelaisten harrastajien kehittymisen tapoja ja harjoittelua elektronisessa urheilussa. Elektroninen urheilu on pelien kilpailullista pelaamista toisia pelaajia vastaan joko yksin tai joukkueena. Tarkastelun lähtökohtana on T.L. Taylorin kirjassa Raising the Stakes: E-sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming esitelty viitekehys ammattipelaajien menestymiseen tarvittavista taidoista. Tätä viitekehystä on soveltuvin osin käytetty harrastajien tarvitsemien taitojen tarkastelussa. Elektroninen urheilu on vuosi vuodelta kasvanut merkittävämmäksi ja se koskettaa yhä laajempaa ihmisten joukkoa moninaisin tavoin. Elektronisella urheilulla on yhteensä lähes 200 miljoonaa vuosittaista katsojaa erilaisissa pelaamiseen liittyvissä palveluissa. Elektronisesta urheilusta on myös koulutusohjelmia, jotka suuntautuvat opettamaan elektronisessa urheilussa tarvittavia taitoja. Lisäksi perinteisen urheilun urheiluseurat ovat viime vuosina perustaneet elektronisen urheilun joukkueita. Tutkielman kirjallisuuskatsauksessa laajennetaan Taylorin esittelemää viitekehystä ja syvennytään elektronisessa urheilussa tarvittavien taitojen eri osa-alueisiin. Nämä osaalueet voidaan jakaa pelkistetysti seuraavalla tavalla: pelaajien uran rakentamiseen liittyvät taidot, keholliset taidot, oppiminen elektronisessa urheilussa ja siihen tarvittavat tiedonhankintataidot, strategiset taidot, sosiaaliset taidot ja vastustajan toimien lukeminen. Tutkielman aineistona on seitsemän tamperelaisen elektronisen urheilun harrastajan teemahaastattelut. Haastattelut tehtiin harrastajien kotona lokakuussa 2017 ja haastatteluiden aikana tallennettu aineisto litteroitiin tekstimuotoon. Haastattelut analysoitiin Atlas.ti-ohjelmalla koodaamalla ja teemoittelemalla aineistoa sekä tarkastelemalla aineistossa esiintyviä keskeisiä diskursseja. Saatuja tuloksia tarkasteltiin sekä Taylorin viitekehyksen että muun lähdekirjallisuuden valossa. Tutkielman johtopäätösten perusteella voidaan sanoa, että elektronisen urheilun harrastajat kehittyvät paremmiksi pelaamalla pelejä säännöllisesti. Pelaamisen aikana harrastajat pyrkivät välttämään aiemmin tehtyjä virheitä. Harrastajien kehittymistä edistää aktiivinen tiedonhankinta ja pelaamiseen liittyvä sosiaalinen ympäristö tarjoaa heille tukea.

While the most popular forms of organized competitive digital gaming, also known as eSports, have begun finding their place within and in relation to both mainstream entertainment culture and the field of traditional sports, their history is one of struggling to be accepted as “true sports.” Partly because of this history, great effort has been put into the sportification of eSports by presenting competitions in familiar ways adapted from traditional sports. In this article, we examine the process of sportification of eSports in the context of tournament broadcasts. We analyze the Overwatch World Cup 2016 tournament, comparing its final broadcast to the 2014 FIFA World Cup’s final broadcast, looking for similarities and differences in the areas of broadcast structure, commentary and expertise, game presentation, game highlights and acknowledgments, teams and players, and audience. acceptedVersion

Esports – as a rapidly growing field of sport, entertainment, and business – offers an interesting arena for leadership research. In this qualitative study, we focus on Finnish esports leadership, considering both the definitions as well as the leadership processes in the professional electronic gaming. Our aim is to chart the terrain and increase understanding of the theme so far little empirically studied, and to open views for further research. This study can be seen as an opening for further empirical research on Finnish esports leadership. Due to scarcity of scientific discussions, a wider selection of literature on leadership research and international esports leadership studies have been utilized. This study aims to add value to both practice- and theoryoriented development of esports education and leadership. The empirical data consists of eight semi-structured theme interviews supplemented with ethnographic observation (field diaries). In our analysis, we describe how esports professionals define an esports organisation, and how the informants perceive management and leadership in an esports organisation. We also discuss some leadership-related challenges that emerged in our data. Based on our findings, it seems that the esports professionals have a surprisingly traditional view on leadership and management, yet it seems that the emphasis is more on a family-type leadership instead of hierarchical and rational-oriented leadership. peerReviewed

Elektroninen urheilu, eli videopelien pelaaminen kilpailullisesti, on kasvattanut suosiota ja on merkittävä osa joidenkin elämää. Elektroninen urheilu on myös luonut monille ihmisille mahdollisuuden nousta suosioon e-urheilijana. Kyseessä on kuitenkin suhteellisen tuore ilmiö, joka muuttaa muotoaan edelleen ja sen tämänhetkinen tila on epävakaa. Tässä tutkielmassa pyritään selvittämään elektronisen urheilun ”urheilullistamiseen” liittyviä haasteita. Pääpainona pyritään saamaan jonkinlainen käsitys, voiko elektronista urheilua luokitella urheiluksi. Playing video games competitively, also known as electronic sports, is a phenomenon which has lately grown in popularity and has become a great part of some people’s lives. Electronic sports has offered an opportunity for some to achieve and gain fame as an e-athlete. However, electronic sports is a relatively new phenomenon which is constantly changing its form and its current state is unstable. This thesis tries to provide information regarding the challenges of ”sportification” of electronic sports. The main focus is to achieve some kind of understanding if it is possible to classify electronic sports as sports.

Informal roles are roles that are not formally prescribed by a group or organization and are being established through group interaction that takes place among group members. Previous literature has identified twelve roles within traditional sport, however to date limited research has been done within the field of role development within competitive computer gaming (eSports). The purpose of the present study was to explore the informal roles within the eSport setting and if it is possible to use audio analysis to identify informal roles. The present study is a qualitative, multiple case study of two professional eSport teams in the game ‘Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’. The data that was used was open source voice recordings of two professional eSport teams in the game ‘Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’. Abductive reasoning was used during the thematic analysis. The research used the twelve informal roles as initial codes, but during the study more codes derived from the data. A total of 19 codes were used in the end of the study. The findings of the present study suggest that roles such as the informal leader verbal and the distracter are commonly found. The enforcer was not found in the way as defined by previous literature, but as a person who enforces rules of the team, event and makes sure leaders tactics are followed. The cancer and comedian were found less common but were present. Roles such as the malingerer, social convener, star player and mentor were not found during the present study and it is suggested that these roles might be more likely to be found outside of matches. Communication characteristics such as interrupting, talking over each other, uncomprehending speech and high amount of words per minute are influencing the clear development of informal roles. It is possible that interrupting might be considered a new role (The interrupter) within sports that require, to the point clear communication.

In this paper, esports market development is exhibited and analyzed through various data sources and literature review. Additionally, economic concepts are applied to the esports environment. Demand characteristics of this emerging market are analyzed by applying the concept of competitive balance as commonly used in economics of sport scrutiny. The elite esports demand is proxied by gathering data on total prize money in the elite esports tournaments and explaining the esports demand by testing various factors measuring the competitive market properties. The most commonly used measurement in economics of sport for measuring withinseason competitive balance is calculated as the actual standard deviation of winning percentages to the hypothesized ideal standard deviation. Nevertheless, unique market properties of esports require novel methods and measurements. Therefore, alternative methods for measuring competitive environment properties in esports markets are developed and tested. Statistical moment methods enable the measuring of the distributional properties of prize money deviation. Distributional information is applied for constructing various index measures for testing the esports market competitive balance and that information is modeled in regression estimations for explaining the demand properties of elite esports markets. One of the main contributions of this paper is to underline the different characteristics of the esports market compared to the traditional sport environment. Finally, esports market UOH testing results are contrasted with research findings from traditional elite sports markets. It appears that esports market demand is better modelled by applying “superstar” models by Rosen (1981) and Adler (1985) than traditional within-season variation UOH models. peerReviewed

In this paper, we explore women’s participation in esports and competitive gaming. We will analyze two different types of research material: online questionnaire responses by women explaining their reluctance to participate in esports, and online forum discussions regarding women’s participation in competitive Overwatch. We will examine the ways in which women’s participation – its conditions, limits and possibilities – are constructed in the discussions concerning women gamers, how women are negotiating their participation in their own words, and in what ways gender may affect these processes. Our findings support those made in previous studies concerning esports and competitive gaming as fields dominated by toxic meritocracy and hegemonic (geek) masculinity, and based on our analysis, women’s room for participation in competitive gaming is still extremely limited, both in terms of presence and ways of participation peerReviewed

In my article I address the growing interaction between esports and autosports and the possible changes to follow regarding the power relationship of these sports. Due to the pressures to change, that the automotive industry and -sports have faced, I speculate, that in the future competitive gaming with its popularity as a media-friendly sport could rise up to the popularity level of for example F1 series. This would have to do with the byproducts of esports, such as the synergy between states, constructors and teams. These would alongside have larger cultural, economic and technical consequences and even effects on fan and gaming culture. As my theoretical frame are the thoughts of Jean Baudrillard about simulation, simulacra and hyperreality, that deal with miming, experiencing and replacing of reality. With the investments of competitive gaming, carmakers, game and equipment makers, fans as well as sports and institutions into virtual gaming, there is a possibility to make it as one of the “real” motorsports due to its low costs, entertainment value and especially eco-friendliness. F1 esports however has its problems when compared to real life auto sports such as the limitations of the source code, the chances to simulate unpredictable competition incidents and the lack of affective feel that has to do with the risk of real physical injury or even death. However, the growing interest of official autosports among esports offers possibilities to different parties, but the success of a simulated racing series needs both enough popularity and sufficient, high quality gaming simulations. peerReviewed