E-Sport

E-Sport Increasing numbers of young video gamers view esports competitive video gaming as a career opportunity, rather than just a recreational activity. Previous studies have explored the motivational differences between esport and recreational gamers and the motivational changes through career journey to become a professional esport player. The present study explored the predictors of career plans to become a professional esport player, with a specific focus on gaming motivations. Gaming time, gaming motivations, and esport-related playing experience were also examined among Hungarian gamers with competitive gaming experience (N = 190), such as years spent in esports, medium and frequency of participating in esport tournaments, the effort put into training before the tournaments, and the plans to become a professional esport player. E-Sport Binary logistic regressions were carried out and results showed that the gaming motivations of competition, skill development, and social motivations predicted career planning as a professional esport player. Additionally, results showed that younger players were more likely to seek career opportunity as professional esport players than older players. Future studies should focus on novice esport players’ psychological exposure to the hypercompetitive scene of esports, such as high expectations or the risk of becoming problematic videogame users due to their motivational changes. Competitive video gaming comprises organized esport tournaments with similar rules, systems, play, judging, and broadcasting like more traditional sporting events. Furthermore, professional esport players face similar training requirements as other sporting athletes (Taylor, 2012). Esports can be played via LAN (local area network) when gaming devices are connected or online, and events are supported by sponsors, while the large audience can follow the games with live sport-commentary via streaming platforms (e.g., Twitch, YouTube, Mixer) (Taylor, 2012; Jenny et al., 2016; Hamari and Sjöblom, 2017). Due to the popularity of esports and being considered as a sport activity, some universities provide sport scholarships for professional players (e.g., University of California-Irvine and University of California-Berkeley). Furthermore, the Olympic Council of Asia has included esports in the official program of 2022 Asian Games of China (the follow-up event to the Olympic Games) (Hallmann and Giel, 2018). calarchivesmonth.org category