Introduction to the Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports

Abstract

Welcome to the inaugural article published in the Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports (JEGE). It is my honor to have been selected as the founding editor-in-chief of JEGE. As the 27th title in the Human Kinetics’ portfolio of scholarly journals, JEGE joins a family of highly successful journal publications. JEGE is not the sole esports publication within the Human Kinetics’ library, as Hedlund et al. (2021) edited and co-authored the only Englishlanguage textbook in the topical area to-date, Esports Business Management (EBM). JEGE and EBMwill collaborate, and we will endeavor to make selected articles from JEGE available to EBM readers. Esports and electronic gaming are incredibly diverse in their orientation, and many existing journals such as the Journal of Sport Management and International Journal of Sport Communication have previously published exceptional research on the topics. However, there are very few journals with a specific focus on esports and electronic gaming, and none with the publisher backing that JEGE has achieved. JEGE strives to become the leading publication and outlet for research on esports, electronic gaming, video games, emerging gaming technology, and numerous peripheral areas listed later in this article. Because research in the areas of esports and electronic gaming have developed into standalone and legitimate research domains, JEGE now seeks to create new opportunities for researchers and scholars to publish domain-specific research, while opening up new opportunities for emerging research areas. One common theme we have heard from those who publish in this research domain is the need for research outlets specific to the emerging esports and electronic gaming disciplines. Much of the existing research has been published in “parent disciplines” or peripheral research domains. It is now time for esports and electronic gaming to have and develop their own library of focused research publications and journals. Esports and electronic gaming scholars and researchers need a dedicated space to dive deep into these research areas and foster discourse on existing and forthcoming research. We are grateful that a significant number of established research domains (e.g., sport management, communications, computer science, health, and medical sciences) have been inclusive of prior scholarship and research on esports and electronic gaming. We are confident many of these research areas will continue to support and provide research opportunities for esports and electronic gaming scholars. Creating a “home” for esports and electronic gaming research (and fostering these opportunities with a publisher-supported outlet) is one of the most important goals of JEGE. The Mission of JEGE