The Emerging eSport Market: Analyzing the Impact of Virtual and Augmented Reality

Abstract

This article explores the impact of immersive technologies like virtual and augmented reality on video game competitions. These electronic games are structured under an analog scheme similar to that of the sports industry, which has given rise to a new and rapidly growing global market known as “eSports”. eSports are a confluence of innovation, strategy, and marketing, in which players, or gamers, come together and compete with the same intensity and commitment as professional athletes. Gamers participate in local, national, and worldwide competitions that are broadcast over a variety of media, and are sponsored by large transnational companies/brands. For these companies, the eSports phenomenon represents a new paradigm capable of revolutionizing the very concept of entertainment. In this article, we propose a conceptual framework through which we can analyze the business repercussions of this new technology from an integral perspective that takes into account players, sports clubs, publishers, sponsors (brands), spectators and broadcasters. Through this analysis of representative companies from the eSports sector, we explore their evolution and future tendencies, like virtual-reality and augmented reality. The industry participants agree that such groundbreaking these technologies are going to be crucial to the future of eSports because they will be the new way of playing and a marketing revolution. This project seeks to stimulate further research into the profound technological transformation the entertainment sector is now undergoing with the digitalization and implementation of immersive technologies. Special attention will be paid to the institutionalization and professionalization of video game competitions and their progressive homologation with traditional sports.