From Closure to Gradual Release: Evidence from the Spatial Evolution and Causal Mechanism of EGS Industry in the Main Town Area of Wuhan, China

With the economic impact and increasing popularity of the electronic gaming industry, EGS (Electronic Gaming Sports) had become an important topic of debate in sports academia regarding its conceptual delineation and attribute characteristics. This paper jumped out of the hotpot academic perspective of the concept, characteristics, and impacts of EGS. In response to the gaps in the spatial development of the EGS industry and the lack of empirical research findings, an interpretive empirical research method was adopted, focusing on Wuhan as the study area to gain insight into the situation where the spatial development of the EGS industry was unclear. The spatial evolution of the EGS industry in the main town area of Wuhan was interpreted through a quantitative approach and based on the spatial data of EGS companies from 2006 to 2022 using Average Nearest Neighbor (ANN), Kernel Density Estimation (KDE), and Ordinary Kriging (OK) of geospatial analysis. The results indicated closure to the gradual release of the EGS industry, with specific findings as follows. (1) The EGS industry in the main town area of Wuhan from 2006 to 2022 developed rapidly, and the overall spatial distribution showed a process from discrete to cluster, accompanied by an apparent deepening of aggregation in recent years. The local aggregation of the EGS industry transformed from dual to multiple cores, and the multiple cores formed stronger groups of aggregation as the cluster spread and merged. (2) The spatial interpolation of the registered capital of companies predicted the hot spot of high- capital distribution of EGS companies in the Optics Valley vice town area of Hongshan to the southeast, indicating that more competitive EGS companies and larger EGS industry groups might emerge in Optics Valley in the future. (3) The spatial evolution of the EGS industry in the main town area of Wuhan could be divided into an early start phase from 2006-2010, a rapid development phase from 2010-2014, an aggregate explosion phase from 2014-2018, and a cluster integration phase from 2018-2022. (4) The spatial evolution of the EGS industry was influenced not only by the main factors of industrial economic agglomeration, industrial chain derivation, and industrial policy environment but also by the other factors of land and talent market, adjacent infrastructure support, city industrial promotion, and globalization dissemination. The future development of the EGS industry could be guided by the government's industrial policies, supported by high-quality talent teams, and driven by local promotion and international communication to provide an essential impetus for the optimal EGS industry.