The societal impact of electronic sport: a scoping review

In modern society sport has become an integral part of everyday life. This rooting ranges far beyond participation as leisure or health care activities, but has differentiated into a vital economic sector, a philosophy of life and affects everyday interaction such as behavior or speech (Stichweh, 2013). It is usually positively connoted and is regarded as an engine for development, thus underlining that sport has an impact on society on many levels (De Bosscher, Shibli, & De Rycke, 2021; Pawlowski, Schüttoff, Downward, & Lechner, 2018; Spaaij, 2009). The depiction of sport has evolved throughout history and differs from culture to culture. It evolves and adapts to trends and changes in society (Heinemann, 2007). Nowadays, digitalization is a major driver of change in society and therefore also in sport (Miah, 2014; Ratten, 2019). As the digital development in sport grows, it also alters the social depiction and role of sport (Thiel & Gropper, 2017). Therefore, sport undergoes a variety of changes, like improved equipment such as the video assistant referee in football, big data usage for health and performance diagnostics, or an alteration of movement practices (Edgar, 2019; Thiel, Seiberth, & Mayer, 2013). Several reviews have shown how digitalization changes common practices in sport (Abeza, O’Reilly, Séguin, & Nzindukiyimana, 2015; Baca, Dabnichki, Heller, & Kornfeind, 2009; Filo, Lock, & Karg, 2015; Gruettner, 2019; Rigamonti et al., 2020; Xiao et al., 2017). But there is still little knowledge about electronic sport (esport), a symbiosis of gaming and sportive competition, which has seen a considerably strong growth since the 1990s, especially due to an evolving digitalization and a growing computer game industry. It is a global phenomenon, particularly popular in the far east, like China or South Korea, Europe, North America or Brazil (Parshakov & Zavertiaeva, 2018; Taylor, 2012). Regarding player base, spectatorship, or prize money, it has outperformed many traditional sports and witnessed an additional boom during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic (Droesch, 2020). While some scholars argue esport is a contemporary sport (Thiel & John, 2018), others reject the idea of competitive gaming as sport (Borggrefe, 2018). Scholars see chances and benefits but also threats and risks for society and the depiction of sport on both sides (Jonasson & Thiborg, 2010; Pfeffel, Horn, Nickolai, & Ratz, 2020; Willimczik, 2019b). This ambiguity can also be seen on a political level since some countries regard esport as a sport, while others have not reacted yet or refuse this acknowledgement (Pack & Hedlund, 2020). Still, the amount of research on esport is growing and topics shift from explanations or translations of esport’s nature, towards more precise ones (Reitman, Anderson-Coto, Wu, Lee, & Steinkuehler, 2020), like the link between nonverbal communication (Leavitt, Keegan, & Clark, 2016) or team composition (Goyal, Sapienza, & Ferrara, 2018), and in-game performance. Scholars have been raising the question on what societal impact esport has, e.g., the influence of and effects on various areas of society and how it is taking root (Holmberg, Bowman, Bowman, Didegah, & Kortelainen, 2019), but this is yet to be investigated (Bascón-Seda & Rodríguez-Sánchez, 2020; Jonasson & Thiborg, 2010). The present study examines this issue in form of a scoping review, since it allows handling a broad research question, identifying the extent of research for a specific topic, summarizing and disseminating findings, mapping out key concepts, and analyzing emerging evidence as a foundation for prospective research (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Peters et al., 2017). The aim of this study is to examine the societal impact of esport, consolidate discussions about the topic, offer a deeper base for constructive debates and contribute to research evaluating esport’s impact on society.

This section defines the terms esport and societal impact and concludes with the theoretical framework for this study, the Mapping Elite Sport Societal Impact (MESSI) model (De Rycke & De Bosscher, 2019), which is used to investigate societal impact of sport and is considered an adequate approach for studies on the topic (De Bosscher et al., 2021; De Rycke & De Bosscher, 2020; De Rycke, De Bosscher, Funahashi, & Sotiriadou, 2019).

The present review follows the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines (Tricco et al., 2018). It optimizes the methodological precision, rigor, and quality compared to the classic approach of scoping reviews introduced by Arksey and O’Malley (2005). Objectives, inclusion criteria, and method of this review were specified and documented in a protocol in advance (https://​osf.​io/​s98fc). Any divergence from the protocol is noted in the following section.

The initial search yielded a total of 16,106 articles, with 12,282 remaining after removing duplicates. After screening and cross-referencing 82 articles were eligible.

Although the earliest study included was publicized in 2005, most publications were published in recent years. More than half of all publications are from the years 2019 (n = 15, 18.52%) and 2020 (n = 34, 41.98%). While there are studies included from 26 nations, more than half are from USA (n = 28, 34.57%), Spain (n = 10, 12.35%) and Finland (n = 8, 9.88%), while 10.98% are of far eastern origin (n = 9). A total of 17 different methods are used in the studies, with the majority of 71.95% (n = 59) applying one methodology and 28.05% (n = 23) studies applied a mixed-method approach including two or three different data assessment tools. Most studies gathered data using quantitative surveys (n = 51, 62.96%) or qualitative interviews (n = 23, 28.40%). Four studies used quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews, three used observations and quantitative surveys, and two applied observations and qualitative interviews. Furthermore, quantitative surveys were combined once with MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans, once with exploratory data analysis and twice with exploratory field research. Qualitative interviews were applied twice with focus groups and once with a netnographic analysis. There are eight studies each using three tools, of which two applied quantitative surveys, qualitative and observations, two used observations, qualitative interviews, and document analysis, two combined MRI scans with qualitative interviews and a quantitative survey and one combined two types of document analysis with qualitative interviews. Sample sizes from studies including quantitative surveys ranged from 23 (Hyun et al., 2013) to 68,539 (Karakus, 2015). Qualitative interview studies included four (Bertschy, Mühlbacher, & Desbordes, 2020; Mühlbacher & Bertschy, 2020) to 35 test persons (Lin & Zhao, 2020; Zhao & Lin, 2020). The age of the sample sizes ranged from eight (Lobel, Engels, Stone, & Granic, 2019) to 80 (Macey, Abarbanel, & Hamari, 2020). Only six studies included more female probands than males. All publications can be assigned to the ten categories of the framework and their respective subcategories. More than half of them (n = 43, 52.44%) address one category. The remaining 39 studies can be matched with two to five categories each. Regarding the subcategories nearly a third cover one topic (n = 27, 32.93%) and the majority covering two (n = 30, 36.59%). In sum, 47 different subcategories of all ten categories are treated. One study can be assigned to four categories treating seven subcategories (Seo, 2016), another treats six subcategories under five categories (Schaeperkoetter et al., 2017). Most studies can be assigned to the categories Sport Participation & Health (29 times), Collective Identity & Pride (20 times) and Fans & Media Attraction, while Prestige & Image (8 times), Sponsors & Commercial Activity (8 times) and Local Consumption & Living Conditions (3 times) are the least covered topics. The most frequent subcategories treated are sport participation in 19 studies, socializing opportunities in 18 studies, media consumption in 12 studies and health awareness in ten. Because of the variety of topics addressed, it is difficult to depict in depth findings across all studies. Therefore, findings for each category are treated in the following subsections. As most studies cover more than one subcategory, they are reported multiple times in the next section. Table 3 summarizes all studies and which topics are treated across all studies.

This scoping review examines the current state of research regarding literature of esport on the societal impact of esport. It helps to map out the research environment, illustrate key findings, and explore gaps of knowledge. In the past few years, the frequency of studies treating the subject is rising and their origin and the topics are diversifying. This indicates that esport is a popular but still emerging area and field of research. The MESSI framework delivers an adequate approach to contextualize findings into ten categories depicting its potential societal impact. Regarding the categories, the impact of esport seems like the one from traditional sport, although not all potential areas of impact could be addressed. A reason could be that not all categories are transferable to esport (greening, hooliganism) or topics are yet to be studied (corruption, fraud, doping). Eventually, this section derives four areas of key findings, proposes theoretical implication, and states research desiderata.

Conducting the scoping review, there were some limitations that need to be addressed. First, the broad research question and the variety of individual topics being treated reduce the depth of analysis for each of the addressed topics. The demographics of the sample sizes differed significantly; therefore, it was difficult to compare many of the studies with each other. The research landscape can still be considered novel and not as differentiated as for traditional sports. This also manifests itself in 33 out of 79 subcategories of the framework not being treated in this scoping review. Second, due to the scoping review’s nature, quality appraisal was not conducted for the included studies (Arksey & O’Malley, 2005; Tricco et al., 2018). Third, although studies in five languages (German, English, French, Italian and Spanish) were considered, the search was conducted only in English. Furthermore, just a few papers from the Far East, where esport plays a major role, were included due to language restrictions. Fourth, while the selection process was conducted with two researchers, only one author scanned full texts for eligibility. A higher number of researchers could have increased methodological rigor. Fifth, definitions of esport and societal impact are both abstract and can differ depending on the used sources. Although the definition of societal impact and esport, and the MESSI framework used in this review are considered adequate and reasonable, there might be other frameworks and definitions which can be used to investigate the research question. Sixth, nuanced differences between the degree of professionalization are difficult to elaborate regarding certain topics, since the included studies treat all four (i.e., professional, semi-professional, amateur, and casual) gamers.

The present scoping review provides an overview on the current research of the societal impact of esport focus and shows under which scope esport is yet to be investigated. It can be stated that esport challenges traditional sport and to a certain extent initiates a change of paradigm in sport, which has been predicted by scholars of various fields of research (Cunningham et al., 2018; Heere, 2018). Although it was stated initially that this paper should not be understood as proclamation in favor or against the concept of considering esport as sport, it does intend to shed light on this discussion, underlining arguments from both sides with further insights to adequately extend the knowledge on esport. The findings show that people engage in esport for motives similar to those in traditional sports, but it offers some peculiarities originating from its digital nature which cannot be found in other sports. Still, players consider themselves and behave like athletes, regarding skill or dedication, but also regarding performance pressure. Playing esport can develop communicative, cognitive, and fine motoric skills, but can also lead to physical and mental health risk. Nevertheless, esport is finding its way into the mainstream and will presumably play a more important role in various areas of society. It opens new possibilities for stakeholders from traditional sport like players, clubs, associations, stakeholders from the gaming branch, like publishers, game developers, but also for third party systems, like educational or pedagogical institutions. However, low evidence or gaps regarding some topics shows that the field of research is still very fragmented, and more research is needed to foster existing evidence and develop new insights into the role and impact of esport in society. Because of the intense evolution of esport throughout the past decades, there is still a lot to be learned about it in terms of threats and benefits of this new global sport-like activity, which also shows in the fragmented body of research as certain topics of the framework only being addressed scarcely or not at all. Future research can pick up on this research, test the existing findings and show how its positive or negative manifestations can be guided accordingly.