The Gap Between Korean Esports and Educational Gaming

Esports As A Sport

Professional video game competitions have coalesced around the term esports and gained significant online and television viewership since near the end of the 20th century. Esports has been defined as “a form of sports where the primary aspects of the sport are facilitated by electronic systems; the input of players and teams as well as the output of the esports system are mediated by human-computer interfaces” (Hamari & Sjoblom, 2017, p. 5). However, activities in which participants are playing a board or card game are being broadcast as esports to interested viewers through various streaming platforms. The definition of esports has expanded beyond electronic systems and is more of “a catchall term for games that resemble conventional sports insofar as they have superstars, playoffs, fans, uniforms, comebacks and upsets. But all the action occurs online, and the contestants hardly move” (Segal, 2014, para. 6). According to this definition, chess would be an esport if broadcasted online.