Global eSports: Transformation of Cultural Perceptions of Competitive Gaming

338 Pages·2021·8.474 MB·English

by  Dal Yong Jin (editor)

Global esports

Global esports
Transformation of Cultural Perceptions of
Competitive Gaming
Edited by
Dal Yong Jin
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First published in the United States of America 2021
Volume Editor’s Part of the Work © Dal Yong Jin
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Contents
Preface vii
1 Introduction: Esports Dal Yong Jin 1
Part 1 History, Institutionalization, and Legitimization
2 The Future of Esports Institutions: A Comparative Analysis of
“Late-Twentieth-Century Sports” and “Esports” Institutions
Rory K. Summerley 15
3 Sports versus Esports: A Comparison of Industry Size, Viewer
Friendliness, and Game Competitiveness William Campbell,
Amanda Goss, Kyle Trottier, and Mark Claypool 35
4 Esports: A Chinese Sport? Milan Ismangil and Anthony Fung 60
5 Historiography of Korean Esports: Perspectives on Spectatorship
Dal Yong Jin 77
Part 2 Money, Data Power, and Network
6 The Business Model Network of Esports: The Convergence of
Overwatch Tobias M. Scholz 99
7 Statistics, Spectatorship, and the “Attention Economy” of Esport
Ben Egliston 115
8 Counting Clicks: Esports, Neoliberalism, and the Affective Power of
Gameplay Metrics Tom Brock 132
9 Esports Transmedia Universes: The Case of Overwatch Raine Koskimaa,
Tanja Välisalo, Maria Ruotsalainen, and Veli-Matti Karhulahti 149
Part 3 Media and Esports
10 Orienting Esports: Locating the Perceptual and Cultural Work of
Shoutcasters Max M. Renner and Nicholas Taylor 169
vi Contents
11 Convergence of Music and Esports Yaewon Jin and Tae-Jin Yoon 184
12 Esports, Australianness, and Beating New Zealand: Portrayals of Esports
in Mainstream Australian News Media David Jian-Jia Cumming 202
13 The Emergence and Transformation of Global Esports: Comparative
Perspectives of Korean and Canadian Esports Scenes Dal Yong Jin 223
Part 4 Collegial Esports, Youth Culture, and Gender
14 Are Esports Only for “Youth”?: How Ageing and the Institutionalization
of Esports Blur the Generational Lines of Video Game Culture
Dan Padua 243
15 The Emergence of College Esports in North America Nyle Sky Kauweloa 262
16 Gaming on Campus: The Promotion of Esports in Chinese
Universities Paul Martin and Wei Song 281
17 A Balance between Competition and Community in Public Gaming
Spaces Ying-Ying Law 297
About the Contributors 315
Index 319
Preface
In the early twenty-first century, esports has become one of the most significant youth
cultures. As hundreds of thousands of people, in particular global youth in their teens
and twenties, enjoy esports as either amateur game players or fans, the esports industry
has transformed itself into one of the largest and most profitable cultural industries.
It was not long ago when video gaming, including early esports, was considered
as unwelcomed geek culture between the 1970s and the 1990s; however, with the
development of computers, high-speed internet, and mobile technology, as well as
the global economy, game culture has significantly grown and esports has especially
become a symbol of the convergence of culture, sport, media, and digital technology.
Esports has also become one of the most enjoyable and playful cultural segments in
recent years. Many game scholars, college students who examine esports as part of
game studies, game designers, and media, both traditional and new media, are all
highly interested in the current status of esports.
The growth of esports can be witnessed in several areas in our contemporary society.
To begin with, esports has already been related to new media and digital technologies,
including cable channels, internet TV, online streaming services (e.g., Twitch), and
social media (e.g., YouTube and Facebook). Several network channels have also
jumped onto this esports bandwagon. In college, many students play digital games on
and off campus, and many universities have established game teams, game arenas, and
game departments. Several mega corporations, in particular, telecommunication and
digital game companies, have founded professional teams to compete with each other,
while advertising companies utilize esports as a new venue for their business. Notably,
several game scholars have continued to pay attention to esports, which is exciting and
engaging.
Most of all, there are hundreds of thousands of esports fans around the globe, as
esports has become a global sensation that attracts thousands of spectators to live
events held at esports arenas and other venues. Global youth, ranging from mid-teens
to mid-twenties, have participated in esports activities. Digital games and esports have
shown a unique growth trend as well. Unlike other professional sports like soccer
and baseball, esports can gain in popularity during economic recession as well. For
example, people increasingly turned to digital games and esports during the first half
of 2020 under Covid-19, which means that people played games and watched esports
on new media with stay-at-home mandates issued around the globe.
Consequently, game scholars, policy makers, and game designers are keen about
the future directions of esports.
Regardless of the rapid growth of esports and its huge impacts on our contemporary
society, academic discourses show a lack of empirical studies and theoretical
viii Preface
breakthroughs. This edited volume examines the recent surge of esports in the global
scene to fill the gap. I believed that at this time it is crucial to document the history
of esports and discuss the backgrounds of the growth of esports. In particular, after
conducting interviews with college students who played games, as semi-professional
players or amateur players for several different time periods for my own research, I
was certain that students were eager to learn about esports as part of their academic
interests. Due to the involvements of several different actors and elements, as well as
varied approaches, I thought that it was prudent to edit the volume instead of creating
a monograph. I hope that this edited volume offers new perspectives by identifying
the major platforms relevant to learn esports, from broadcasting to smartphones, and
therefore, esports’ implications in global youth culture. This book will shed light on the
current debates on the growth of global esports culture.
There are several people whom I would like to thank. Most of all, this project is made
possible due to supports by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
Insight Grant of the Canadian government, which supported my field research,
conference presentations, and training graduate students. I also want to thank Katie
Gallof, the senior acquisitions editor of Bloomsbury, who professionally and timely
helped me develop the project. She especially emphasized the importance of history
based on proposal reviews, and therefore, we discussed and decided to include one
journal article (Chapter 4 in this edited volume) published by me in the International
Journal of Communication in 2020. Finally, I wanted to share my excitement with those
who play, watch, and enjoy digital games as part of their daily cultures and activities as
they are people who make this project real.
Dal Yong Jin
Simon Fraser University
1
Introduction
Esports
Dal Yong Jin
Esports is everywhere. From college campuses and big cities around the globe to
media, both traditional and new media, esports has expanded its popularity and
influenced people’s cultural activities. As digital games themselves become one of
the largest cultural industries in terms of export, number of users, and employees,
esports has been a global phenomenon. Esports, referring to an electronically
mediated sport and the leagues in which players compete through networked games
and related activities (Jin, 2010), has existed since the early 1970s—as a form of
competitive digital gaming—when some American students gathered at computer
labs to do battle among the stars. These students “piloted ships through a speck-
filled void, shooting missiles and dancing against gravity in one of the world’s first
video games, Spacewar,” which was played on the Programmed Data Processor-1
created by a group of students at MIT (Li, 2016, 1). Of course, after the emergence
of several esports leagues, such as the Professional Gamers League (PGL) founded
around 1997 and the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) formed in the United
States in 1997 (Taylor, 2012), contemporary esports arguably started in Korea as it
began to develop its esports league in the field of online gaming in 1998 as StarCraft
became popular in the country.
About twenty years after the emergence of esports in Korea, esports has already
become one of the most significant cultures for global youth and business models
for many venture capitals and mega media giants. In Korea, esports has continued
as a major sports event and symbol of ICT (information and communication
technology)-driven digital economy. Reflecting the popularity of esports in Korea,
Tyler Erzberger—an esports reporter—on ESPN tweeted a very interesting story
titled “The Elite 4 of South Korea,” and he included Bong Joon-ho (the director
of Parasite who won four Oscar awards in February 2020), Son Heung-min (a
soccer player who plays in the UK), BTS (a seven-member K-pop boy band), and
Lee Sang-hyeok, better known by his in-game name Faker (a Korean professional
League of Legends player) (https: // twi tter. com/F ionnO nFire / stat us/ 12 26683 98
715 17409 30) as four elites in contemporary Korean society. The inclusion of a