Should we look at eSports as a seperate field of study?
Michael G. Wagner, a scholar from the Department for Interactive Media and Educational Technology, at the Danube University Krems, suggests that there is no need to identify qualities in eSports that satisfy a traditional sport definition. According to Wagner, “the scientific investigation of competitive computer gaming…is still in its infancy”. Competitive gaming is still new, and scholars are just now starting to conduct studies on it. Therefore, Wagner believes that competitive gaming could be considered “a completely separate field of study”. Competitive gaming could then be researched on its impact on society and culture, and how players communicate with each other compared to traditional athletes.
Not necessarily
Wagner does propose valid alternatives to studying competitive gaming, but it’s unnecessary to view these branches of studies as alternatives for researching the relationship between eSports and traditional sports. The studies conducted by Frobose and Pereira et al. have shown that competitive gaming is physically and mentally straining for its competitors, and revealed that physical health is important for a player’s performance. Therefore, their results suggest that competitive gaming can satisfy a traditional sport definition. However, the approaches to studying competitive gaming suggested by Wagner shouldn’t be discouraged, as they can be incorporated into a more comprehensive study of the field.