E-sports: The new era of Digital Sports

Abstract

Recently, mainly during lockdown periods due to Covid-19, the E-sport name has been mentioned many times by media. Though the videogames market was already in a period of huge growth, the limitations imposed on the other entertainment sectors like sports, music, and cinema, have boosted much more this evolution both in value and number of gamers, obtaining also more relevance by traditional media. This paper discusses four themes associated with videogames: the origins of gaming and the birth of E-sports, a sector in which we will focus the attention in many arguments; the E-sports market and its organization, looking at the economic situation in Italy and the world, the players involved and the new job positions created by this new market; the business model of videogames market, understanding how this market earns money with a focus also on mobile gaming and marketing strategies used; and the future opportunities of this market, looking at experts forecasting and futuristic projects that the biggest companies of this sector are developing. Finally, the increase of videogames and e-sports data availability and the growth of interest in the market provides a lot of research opportunities in economics fields but also in human behaviors and social dynamics.