What is eSports and why do people watch it
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate why people spectate eSports on the internet and find that escapism, acquiring knowledge about the games being played, novelty and eSports athlete aggressiveness positively predict eSport spectating frequency.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to investigate why do people spectate eSports on the internet. The authors define eSports (electronic sports) as “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.” In more practical terms, eSports refer to competitive video gaming (broadcasted on the internet).,The study employs the motivations scale for sports consumption which is one of the most widely applied measurement instruments for sports consumption in general. The questionnaire was designed and pre-tested before distributing to target respondents (n=888). The reliability and validity of the instrument both met the commonly accepted guidelines. The model was assessed first by examining its measurement model and then the structural model.,The results indicate that escapism, acquiring knowledge about the games being played, novelty and eSports athlete aggressiveness were found to positively predict eSport spectating frequency.,During recent years, eSports (electronic sports) and video game streaming have become rapidly growing forms of new media in the internet driven by the growing provenance of (online) games and online broadcasting technologies. Today, hundreds of millions of people spectate eSports. The present investigation presents a large study on gratification-related determinants of why people spectate eSports on the internet. Moreover, the study proposes a definition for eSports and further discusses how eSports can be seen as a form of sports.
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TL;DR: An eight-factor socio-motivational model, based on Uses and Gratifications Theory, was trialled to explain four aspects of live-stream viewer engagement: social interaction, sense of community, meeting new people, entertainment, information seeking, and a lack of external support in real life.
365 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined five distinct types of motivations from the uses and gratifications perspective: cognitive, affective, personal integrative, social integrative and tension release.
311 citations
TL;DR: It can be posited that games are multi-purpose ISs which nevertheless rely on hedonic factors, even in the pursuit of instrumental outcomes, as well as the ways in which they are used.
207 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors reflect on whether eSports can be considered as sport based on evaluating five characteristics of sport and assessing them for eSports, and different opportunities how marketers and managers can attend to eSports are outlined.
205 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue for the inclusion of organized e-sports events and competitions within sport management vis-a-vis e-games meeting certain defining criteria of sport in general.
199 citations
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TL;DR: The factors believed to be motivations responsible for sport fandom include eustress, self-esteem, escape, entertainment, economic, aesthetic, group affiliation, and family needs as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Factors believed to be motivations responsible for sport fandom include eustress, self-esteem, escape, entertainment, economic, aesthetic, group affiliation, and family needs. However, these factor...
721 citations
TL;DR: Hierarchical OLS regression of survey results from 317 Twitter users found that the more months a person is active on Twitter and the more hours per week a person spends on Twitter, the more the person gratifies a need for an informal sense of camaraderie, called connection, with other users.
678 citations
Journal Article•
641 citations
TL;DR: The results indicate that perceived enjoyment and usefulness of the gamification decline with use, suggesting that users might experience novelty effects from the service.
634 citations
TL;DR: This study is the first to collect a combination of survey and behavioral data with the cooperation of a major virtual world operator, and the results defy common stereotypes in surprising and interesting ways and have implications for communication theory and for future investigations of games.
Abstract: Online games have exploded in popularity, but for many researchers access to players has been difficult. The study reported here is the first to collect a combination of survey and behavioral data with the cooperation of a major virtual world operator. In the current study, 7,000 players of the massively multiplayer online game (MMO) EverQuest 2 were surveyed about their offline characteristics, their motivations and their physical and mental health. These self-report data were then combined with data on participants’ actual in-game play behaviors, as collected by the game operator. Most of the results defy common stereotypes in surprising and interesting ways and have implications for communication theory and for future investigations of games.
631 citations