Understanding e-sports industry and impact of COVID-19 on it: a review of literature

Medhant Agrawal, Ashwani Kumar Upadhyay. Understanding esports industry and impact of Covid-19 on it: a review of literature. Cardiometry; Issue 22; May 2022; p. 371-376; DOI: 10.18137/cardiometry.2022.22.371376; Available from:

2    Methodology of research

So we went ahead and searched for all the available literature accessible to us. Once all the available documentation was collected, we went through it carefully and short-listed the literature relevant to our research problem [5]. Then we reviewed the literature and listed our findings, and clustered them together as per topics. Once everything was done, we analyzed the complete literature review, and based on that; we listed out our findings, and based on our findings, we did a final evaluation [6].

3    History of esports

The word ‘electronic sports’ and ‘eSports’ has its roots in the late ‘90s. One of the oldest trusted references uses the term ‘eSports’ as a news release for the launch in 1999 of the OGA (Online Gamers Association), of which the Mat Bettington compares classic sports to esports, states Gestalt. Esports growing as a market driver in youth culture is often a little exaggerated [7]. The reality, however, reveals two distinct communities of gaming: one is an eastern world primarily based out of South Korea, and the western world based out of North America [8]. Esports can be further divided into two eras, i.e., the Arcade era and the Internet era, studied Donghun|Schoenstedt. However, esports began from arcades having small competitions in-person. The internet era made it what it is today, i.e., a large consumer base, and made it so much more significant. One of the biggest breakthroughs which gave a massive boost to esports was the development of LAN technology, as it converted games from “HvM” to “HvH” (“Humans vs. Machines” to “Humans vs. Humans”) according to Mark D. Griffiths et al [9].

1990s and contributing to the growth in no players, especially in the 2000s, states Ayar [10].

The new online multiplayer game community also gives birth to an entirely new online/offline market for this unique service and manufacturing industries/re-tail in events and organization aspects of esports, observed Samur et al [11]. Skilled online/Lan based gaming was now under the ideology of the CPL Taken as an upcoming spectator based esports. Valve launched a computer development company in 1999, “Counter-Strike” as a redesign of their “Half-Life” FPS game. The game rapidly replaced Quake in competitive esports fame and has been around since staying at the heart of western world esports activities/events, as observed by Wagner. Moreover, as the technology grew all this year, especially mobile gaming, the boundaries between game development and consumption begins to disappear, and when that happens, “ articulations of participatory culture are augmented, ” according to Burroughs & Rama [12].

In the early 2000s, esports grew exponentially as the no of viewers base grew, so the number of entities conducting tournaments/events. South Korea took esports to different heights, and not only did they embrace esports, but it also became part of the popular culture of South Korea, studied Ayar. With the growth of the internet, places like internet cafes, often referred to as “PC Bangs’’ also grew. As such places allowed an individual to rent a PC to play games and become part of the community, these places often became social gatherings where individuals could interact & fandom over any common topic states Huhh. In the late 2000s streaming websites like Twitch in 2011, YouTube Gaming in 2015, was launched and have been the most significant contributor to the growth of esports viewership as they allowed online streaming. As a result, online streaming became the most pop-ular/standard way to watch esports;

4    What is esports?

In brief, it is most often referred to as sports, mass entertainment, and mostly just video games, studied Reitman et al. Defining esports is very important for an academic-based study. The irony is that even the word esports is spelled differently across the paper, eSports, e-Sports, E-sports, esports are the most often used terms across academicians. Esports can be seen as gaming, media, players, audience in broader sports aspects/fields, and as a result, we can see the outcome is competitive gaming, which can also be referred to as esports, according to Hutchins [14].

Researcher Michael G. Wagner defines sports as; “ Sport is a social area of activity in which people willingly interact with each other with an obvious intention to acquire and learn culturally relevant skills and to associate themselves with some of these people in compliance with widely agreed laws or without bias to anyone else,” observed Wagner; which he developed using an existing definition proposed by Claus Tiedemann, observes Tiedemann. The researcher Michael G Wagner did this to make it broad/general enough so that sports can be used as a general term for esports too. According to Wagner, Fitness is a significant differentiator between esports and sports, whereas esports also require Cyberfitness. While a portion of the academic world also has a question about how gaming can be combined with the conventional definition of competition, the reality remains that esports is developing rapidly and includes an increasing number of competitors with a participation of nearly 2 billion, studied Baltezarević & Baltezarević [16].

5    Global esports industry

Global esports revenue in 2019 stood at $950.6 million. The overall esports viewership was projected to rise to 495 million people. There were 885 big occurrences last year. All-Together they created ticket sales of $56.3 million. Overall, prize money reached $167.4 million last year, states Rietkerk et al. A most popular type of video games [17]; League of Legends is the world’s most-watched sport as of right now, the common types of sport involve competitive online combat arenas (where a player controls a single individual in a squad who has to conquer the main building of the opposing side), real-time-strategy (control an army to overpower a map), or FPS (first-person shooting games) observed by Chapman [18].

In the future, esports may just be treated as a discipline of the traditional sport as the prime factor distinguishing esports from sports is physical involvement, as sports are more dependent on a person’s physical exertion. However, the rest of the factors like practice, competitions between countries/clubs/teams are present; even esports athletes require a support team of dieticians, coaches, etc., to give its 100% to the game, according to Huk, College and university are already witnessing a rise in esports competitions, and many universities have esports clubs just like sports clubs. Moreover, in the future, we may find esports clubs being the largest clubs of universities, studied Allen, In 2019, Intel and Olympic committee announced that they would host esports tournaments in Tokyo just before Tokyo Olympics 2020, and this could have open doors for 2024 Olympic games to integrate esports too, states Chan, but due to COVID-19 Olympics got delayed to 2021as observed by Ingle.

6    COVID-19 impact on online gaming

When COVID-19 has decimated all the businesses and industries across the world and India, the gaming industry stands out as they remain relatively unaffected due to pandemics and lockdown. On the contrary, the active player base (users) is growing noticeably during this period, observes Javad. Gaming in this lockdown has become an activity that is done throughout the day, while the number of players actively playing games peak between 8 pm to midnight, stated by Bora, which is also in part with most multiplayer games today that allow you to talk with your peers/friends while playing the game, which gives a sense of togetherness, according to Amin et al., which, in many parts, is also supported by WHO with their campaign #PlayApartTogether, many gaming companies have joined this campaign, as games allow them to bring joy and closer to their loved ones while ensuring they remain healthy by maintaining social distancing, as studied by Johnston et al.

7    Esports events/tournaments

Like how regular sporting events happen in the arena, stadium, etc., esports events occur in the virtual world. For traditional sports, public viewing is one of the critical components; places like bars, clubs, or at home with friends are some of the prime ways traditional sports are consumed; in esports, these spaces are replaced by a virtual one in the form of streaming services, according to Musabirov et al. Public viewing 374 | Cardiometry | Issue 22. May 2022

of sports helps to form this community among view-ers/fans. Similarly, streaming services incorporated chat options from starting to allow fans to chat with other viewers, and you can chat with potentially millions of viewers; this allowed them to express their opinion and experiences and give a feel of being part of the community Musabirov et al.

Chat Box is a very crucial element when a game is streamed online. Apart from being helpful to form a feeling of community, it also gives a place for viewers to discuss different topics in downtime, cheer/hoot for players like one would do in-stadium. Overall, as games keep progressing, chat plays a crucial role in involving viewers more emotionally, according to Musabirov et al., with players, games, or online peers. Since the chat component is critical to streaming and esports, moderation of chat is of utmost necessity and priorities of services like Twitch. So the organizations have taken multiple steps to ensure an acceptable positive environment is maintained, like dividing it into different chat rooms based on location and language, having bot detect and not allowing bullying in chat, on spot ban, etc., states Seering et al. As esports grew, it kept its streaming community while incorporating an arena/stadium in the game, which gave two avenues to fans to connect, and become part of the community in-person or watch the game live and chat to become part of the virtual community, as studied by Musabi-rov et al. Twitch is the biggest video game streaming website, witnessing the 4th highest traffic in the USA in 2014, just behind Netflix, Google, and Apple, observed Seering et al. Before COVID-19 hit the world, esports had become a mammoth of a market force, it surpassed 1 Billion USD in 2019, states Allen.

7.1    Esports tournaments during covid-19 pandemic

Most of the tournaments have been canceled; some tournaments which were delayed indefinitely will most probably end up canceling because preparation for next year’s tournaments will become a priority. Most tournaments that are converted to the online-only format are yet to happen because new dates are either not announced or are scheduled for the last quarter of 2020. Competitions that were rescheduled are also going to happen in the last quarter of 2020. Many professional top tire esports players have also taken this opportunity to take a break and not participate in the remaining tournaments of the year. PUBG mobile league, which was converted to online-only, is already facing this issue in qualifiers, where teams from ping-friendly countries have a competitive advantage, according to Moghe. “League of Legends Championship Korea” will have competition without a live audience and show how competitions can happen in this time of social distancing. However, due to travel and government restrictions in most countries, other tournaments may not find it feasible.

8    Discussion

When the whole world suddenly stopped because of COVID-19, one industry saw the boom, i.e., the video games industry. Based on several reports and game data, we can see that the video game industry did not have to deal with the slowdown, and not only that, the sales of video games grew, especially in online stores. An active player base also grew in double digits and, in some cases, even multi-folding from previous year’s numbers. Especially, most popular multiplayer games are free-to-play games like PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty Mobile are on top of the charts in terms of active players. Moreover, having a big active player pool is more fruit-bearing for the companies in today’s world. Esports is a growing phenomenon and a very new one, especially when we look at it from the Indian market perspective. Although the esports industry is decades old, the 1990s and the current time is different for the esports industry, especially LAN technology gave the industry a real boost and made it a 1 Billion $ industry today.

Esports itself is based on tournaments happening in stadiums happening in front of thousands of live audiences, but due to pandemics, much of the tournaments are canceled this year. So viewer data for this year is an anomaly, and we should avoid it. However, because of this anomaly, multiple outside factors are working in favor of esports, which could gain more in the long term. Research hypothesis the growth of esports will expedite more once tournaments can start organizing regularly. Indian universities and colleges soon might start understanding esports and start having more and more esports tournaments and have college teams competing against one another. Generation Z will lead this market in India soon, and the prime reason behind this is that they have much more exposure to esports and video games, and this lockdown has allowed them to experience it more. Esports tournaments of India did not get canceled but were shifted to an online-only model, which was feasible and possible because Indian events do not witness international teams participating. However, because of the lack of international competitions, the viewership from India also declined. At the same time, Indian gaming platforms see a Sharp rise.

9    Conclusion

The esports industry is having a hard time because of COVID-19 related issues, just like every other industry. Unlike other industry esports is not entirely shut; many tournaments are happening in the online-only model, especially local esports matches. As per reports, we can see India is witnessing a surge in gaming, both active players per month and unique players per month (compared to 2019). Existing literature provides us with enough information about why people watch esports and the prevailing trends. Existing video game players only get converted to esports players and viewers due to multiple different factors. Moreover, literature and reports have shown that the average Indian gamer is part of the youngest generation (Gen Z mostly). So, based on reviewing the above data researcher argues that COVID-19 will be helpful to grow esports viewership in the long term, especially among Generation Z of India.

Limitations, the detailed literature review we did is limited to the English language, so all the sources used are published in English. Although most national and international publications use English only, we can still not avoid missing out on any work done in multiple different languages. Some reports and research paper access was not available to authors for review (either it was not accessible in the public domain or was hidden behind a paywall) and, as a result, was not included in this research. Moreover, as esports is a rapidly growing field, such limitations should be avoided, and removing barriers to information is important.

Future-scope, Academicians, and researchers could look into literature not covered in this review and use them to build upon this work. Esports is a very new field, so detailed data-based research on the psychology of esports players and viewers can be conducted to develop the reason behind its consumption further. Research can be done on which kind of video games are more esports friendly and how current video games can be modified to make them more esports friendly. Based on this research, a detailed survey can be conducted to approve further/disapprove our findings. As esports is growing rapidly, so is literature on esports is going to keep growing, and future researchers must keep themselves up-to-date, but this publication could act as a point to start.

Statement on ethical issues

Research involving people and/or animals is in full compliance with current national and international ethical standards.

Conflict of interest

None declared.

Author contributions

The authors read the ICMJE criteria for authorship and approved the final manuscript.