Professional Gaming: The emerging sport of being OP

The purpose of this wiki is to explore the emerging culture of professional gaming based on regional popularity, the emergence of "e-sports" culture, the developments leading up to the position of E-sports in today's society, and the social & economic impacts of gaming culture in a larger perspective.

The area that I am most interested in E-sports is how it affects traditional definitions of sports, and therefore engages in a "culture shock" with sporting culture in general. What kind of socio-cultural-economic impacts do E-sports have on the existing sporting culture of today? We define traditional sports as being physically-stressful, played in a physical field with a physical audience, and in a competitive environment that provides both contest and entertainment. Though E-sports has attributes that fulfill these traditional requirements, criticism from both professional athletes and spectators obstruct E-sports from being recognized as a "professional sport". From this analysis of E-sports and the repercussions it has on a traditionally-defined culture such as sports, I will draw out my analysis into the broader perspective of how digital culture re-defines traditional counterpart, such as the music culture.

Summary
"E-sports" is the new term used to define the sporting community of electronic gamers, who compete against each other on various platforms and various games at events all over the world. These E-sports are typically divided into several categories based on the genre of game that is being played, from First-Person-Shooters (FPS), MOBA (Multiplayer-Online-Battle-Arena), Fighting, and many more. Tournaments for these games are held regularly throughout the year, organised by both independent groups and large game organizations such as Riot Games, the creator of the MOBA-game League of Legends. Tournaments usually feature professional gamers, who are sponsored and endorsed by "gaming teams", and can have prize pools ranging in the millions. The tournaments for E-sports are held in a variety of venues, from hotels to convention centres, and even renown sporting venues such as Madison Square Garden.

Developments
On July 12, 2013, the US Government officially recognized competitive gamers as atheletes, and competitive gaming as an official sport. The ruling was made when Riot Games, producers of the competitive MOBA game "League of Legends", had negotiated with the US Government for visas for professional gamers to play and compete in the USA for extended periods. There are professional, government-endorsed organizations that manage E-sports in countries such as South Korea, where E-sports is recognized as one of their official sports with dedicated media programming for competitive gaming.

Criticisms of this new culture range from both its intrusion into the definition of "sport", as well as the continued dismissal of the community's growth, to more serous issues related to gaming addictions, poor physical health due to lack of exercise, injuries and even suicide attempts. When comparing traditional sports to the culture of video games, many see the contrast as binary: one promote physical activity whereas the other does not, one has historical significance whereas the other is too revolutionary.

Methodology
The main method in which I will conduct my research will be distributing surveys online to participants that have either lots of experience with E-sports and games, and those that do not. The purpose of conducting this research is to analyze the response of those that utilize the internet, which is the main communication channel for E-sports. I believe that the answer from those on the internet will be much more positive towards recognizing E-sports as a professional sport, compared to asking those in-person the same questions. As a secondary method, I will be conducting interviews with a focused group of participants: those that are outside of the current average age of gaming (16-30), and that do not engage with the internet or games on a frequent basis. The questions for both research methods would be the same; however, I believe the answers from the in-person interviews would be significantly more negative towards E-sports being a professional sport.

Previous Work
The significance of E-sports has begun to take notice in the academic community, and I believe that it will only continue to grow with the growth of "edutainment" and the incorporation of gaming as a tool within education and other industries. For example, E-sports has been the subject of analysis for Nicholas Taylor, a researcher from the North Carolina State University Department of Communication. In his analysis, he states that E-sports is legitimized as a spectator sport by the fact it is played in front of a crowd, much like traditional sporting events.

E-sports has also been analyzed by Marcel Martončik of Presov University in Slovakia. The aim of his research was to compare the personality traits and life goals of professional players with casual, non-professional players. Many observations, both psychological and social, were drawn from his study which lead to insight of the psychology that occurs during gaming, a field that has been under observation.

Following from the work of these two, along with many other scholars who are digging into the subject of E-sports, I will aim to further shed some light onto this growing culture that has been challenging a heavily-reinforced cultural norm.