Abstract
The conclusion sums up some of the findings and highlights where Asia and Pacific esports innovate and suggests directions for future studies on esports in the region. It addresses the key theoretical concerns outlined in the introduction and offers areas for further investigation from both theoretical and regional perspectives.
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Esports is global; at least that is usually how it is framed. Journalists frequently refer to esports as a global phenomenon, as do market data agencies and industry boosters (Geyser 2022; Newzoo 2022; Willingham 2018). Esports history is filled with ambitious initiatives to establish global governing bodies (some more successful than others), and academic books bear titles such as Global Esports (** 2021) or Understanding Esports: An Introduction to the Global Phenomenon (Rogers 2019). In many ways, this framing is justified. Last year’s The International, the main tournament in the popular esports game DoTA 2, was held in Singapore and featured a final with players from 10 different (mainly European) nations. Meanwhile, League of Legends, another major esports game, runs professional leagues in 9 regions covering (at least nominally) all 6 inhabited continents. However, while the League of Legends EMEA Championship (LEC) ostensibly includes franchises from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in reality, the 10-slot league, at the time of writing, comprised exclusively of Europe-based teams. Similarly, while esports does attract viewers from all over the world, audiences are disproportionately concentrated in East Asia, Europe and North America, where the lion’s share of esports’ much-discussed revenue stream is generated. Familiarity with esports is also heterogeneous across the globe, with one YouGov (2020) study finding that more than 70% of people in several East Asian and European countries know what esports is, but less than 30% do in North Africa, the Middle East and India.
All this is to say that, yes, esports is a global phenomenon, but that it is also a regional phenomenon, with structures, regulatory frameworks, practices and experiences of esports varying widely across the world. By focusing at the regional level, the research in this book has identified the regional specificities of esports in the Asia–Pacific. Several of the chapters focused on the national level, but even these demonstrated how esports spills across national borders, with regional leagues, competitions, media services and governing bodies, as well as multi-national teams and, more generally, the international flow of esports labour. These elements all have a global aspect, but the interconnections within esports regions are usually more stable and influential than those at a greater distance. For example, as Zhao and Luo’s chapter demonstrated, the mainland Chinese League of Legends tournament (the LPL) attracts some non-Chinese players, but they usually come from neighbouring Asia–Pacific countries. Similarly, as Johnson and Williams pointed out, latency is an important technological factor in esports. While players can play on any server globally, they will tend to select local servers to reduce latency, and this leads to the development of distinct regionally (often nationally) specific player communities, which has implications for a range of issues including regulation and governance (Ma et al. 2022). And, as shown by Ge and Chen in their discussion of the rivalry between the Korean and Chinese League of Legends leagues, identities that are avowedly nationalistic require other (often neighbouring) nationalities for their definition.
Experiences across the Asia–Pacific (or any other region) are not entirely homogenous, but there are significant interconnections, some of which create common issues and topics for research, others of which make intra-regional analysis absolutely necessary.
Topics Across Chapters
As is often the case in edited books, chapters from different sections approached the same topic from different perspectives. A frequent theme in this volume was the need to develop research programmes on Asia–Pacific esports that go beyond the usual sites of China and Korea. However, as this volume attests, it is often necessary to invoke these central esports nations in order to understand aspects of how other areas of the Asia–Pacific experience esports. For example, both Johnson and Williams and Zhao and Luo mention the ‘brain drain’ of esports athletes from less to more central esports nations; in the case of Johnson and Williams from Australia, in the case of Zhao and Luo from South-East Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The destination for many of these players is China.
Both chapters in the eco-system section concluded the importance of coherence in national esports strategies. Johnson and Williams report frustration in Singapore that, even though support is forthcoming, the markedly different agendas of those providing support can lead to inertia. Phan also calls for a more coherent development agenda for esports in Vietnam.
Both chapters on Vietnam identify publisher power as a major challenge in the development of esports. In future research, it would be interesting to understand the role of publishers in other countries in the Asia–Pacific.
The attitude to digital games in general and esports, in particular, varies across cultures, but several chapters in this book identify negative attitudes to games as holding back the development of esports. However, in several of the contexts discussed in this book, authors have noted a tendency for esports to normalize gaming, for example, in both Phan’s and Lefebvre and Vu Thang’s chapters on Vietnam.
The importance of communication patterns is flagged by both Esperanzate and Zhao and Luo. Esperanzate demonstrates how players engage in different sorts of communication approaches when faced with homophobic abuse. Similarly, Zhao and Luo discuss the communication styles of foreign esports players in relation to their fans. In both cases, players frequently engage in conciliatory forms of communication that fail to ‘call out’ abuses grounded in discrimination based on nationality or sexuality. This speaks to the need for systematic interventions that might actually reduce instances of such abuse.
The collection is, of course, not exhaustive, and much of the research reported here will hopefully inspire more research into esports in the Asia–Pacific. Missing from this book are several contexts in need of future scholarly attention, including major emerging esports regions such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Japan. Missing too are investigations of esports in several other countries, including Thailand, India and New Zealand to name but three.
There are areas of esports research that we might have expected to see in the collection but did not make an appearance. Esports education is an important topic, as is broadcasting and streaming, which, though mentioned in several chapters, was not the subject of a specific investigation here. The rise of mobile-based esports, not discussed in this volume, has been particularly important in South-East Asia. The research here focused on several communities, but again this is not exhaustive. As mentioned by Zhao and Luo, research on non-player workers and their experience of esports is an important area for future research. We hope that this volume serves as a platform for future research in these areas.
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06 December 2023
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References
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Gilardi, F., Martin, P. (2023). Conclusions to Esports in the Asia–Pacific. In: Gilardi, F., Martin, P. (eds) Esports in the Asia-Pacific. Palgrave Series in Asia and Pacific Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3796-7_11
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