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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2021

From Esports to Virtual Sports: The Olympic Strategy Regarding Competitive Video Gaming

Résumé

Introduction Organized video games competitions, or esports, has been growing in popularity since the turn of the 2010s among younger generation, as evidenced by the continuous increase in the number of players, the size of audiences, the amounts of investments or the revenues generated (Scholz, 2019). At the same time, the Olympic movement is developing a global strategy to attract new audiences and rejuvenate its fanbase (Thorpe & Wheaton, 2011), whether through the creation of the Youth Olympic Games since 2010, the implementation of digital-oriented content since 2016, or the integration of new disciplines such as skateboarding in 2021 or breakdancing in 2024. To pursue this ambition, the IOC has started since 2017 a reflection about the possible synergies between the sports world and the esports industry (Miah & Fenton, 2020). How have these reflections been conducted? What are the main outcomes? And what issues does this convergence reveal? Methods To provide elements of answers to these questions, I conducted an ethnographic study within the international Olympic movement between March 2018 and December 2020 as an advisor to the Global Association for International Sports Federations (GAISF). I took part in the multiple discussions that occurred within the Esports & Gaming Liaison Group (ELG), the thematic group specially created by the IOC, both in institutional gatherings and in more informal working meetings. In addition to this primary data, secondary data was collected and analyzed, such as all official publications produced during the period (e.g. Olympic Summit reports, Agenda 2020, IOC sessions). Results The data reveals an evolution in the way the Olympic movement apprehends esports and integrates it in its reflections. If the statement made by the IOC in 2017 indicated a relative acceptance of competitive forms of all video game genres except those that are contrary to the Olympic values, the Agenda 2020+5 presented at the beginning of 2021 definitively targets a specific genre designated under the term "Virtual Sports". Beyond the stated desire to make the term "esports" invisible to the point of making it completely disappear from the last public statements, the new categorization of video games proposed by the Olympic movement (physical and non-physical virtual sports) is implicitly symbolized by the ELG chairperson position granted to the president of the International Cycling Union (UCI), whose electronic version of cycling (“eCycling”) is presented as a reference. At the same time, the IOC is encouraging International Federations to take control, govern and regulate the virtual and electronic versions of their sports, at the risk of coming into conflict with the publishers who own the intellectual property of these games. Discussion These findings confirm the challenges facing the Olympic movement, from the private, commercial, and monopolistic aspect of video game publishers (Gries, 2019) to the compatibility of esports with the Olympic Games, i.e., the lack of legitimate national and international esports governance bodies and the violence inherent in certain types of esports (Pack & Heldlund, 2020). In addition, the study also reveals how the IOC is attempting to leverage this collaboration, by redefining the types of games that would be legitimate and worthy of interest to the Olympic movement regardless of esports culture and history, by attempting to take control and governance of certain games, and by using players as a vehicle to promote its own values. Conclusion The evolution in the way the Olympic movement apprehends esports requires a clear understanding of its role and ambitions. Under the pretext of modernization, the IOC and the international federations are finally trying to reproduce the institutionalization model of sport on an intrinsically commercially driven industry. If the esports sector seems to a certain extent to be interested in benefiting from the Olympic influence, it seems that it is only under the conditions decided by the IOC.
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hal-03981717 , version 1 (09-02-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03981717 , version 1

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Nicolas Besombes. From Esports to Virtual Sports: The Olympic Strategy Regarding Competitive Video Gaming. 19e Congrès de l'Association des Chercheurs en Activités Physiques et Sportives (ACAPS), EuroMov Digital Health in Motion, Oct 2021, Montpellier (Le Corum), France. ⟨hal-03981717⟩
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