While the most popular forms of organized competitive digital gaming, also known as eSports, have begun finding their place within and in relation to both mainstream entertainment culture and the field of traditional sports, their history is one of struggling to be accepted as “true sports.” Partly because of this history, great effort has been put into the sportification of eSports by presenting competitions in familiar ways adapted from traditional sports. In this article, we examine the process of sportification of eSports in the context of tournament broadcasts. We analyze the Overwatch World Cup 2016 tournament, comparing its final broadcast to the 2014 FIFA World Cup’s final broadcast, looking for similarities and differences in the areas of broadcast structure, commentary and expertise, game presentation, game highlights and acknowledgments, teams and players, and audience.
This chapter examines toxic meritocracy in relation to gender in competitive Overwatch, asking how gender affects a player’s opportunities for engagement in that scene. It analyzes online news stories and community discussions concerning “Ellie” – a fabricated competitive woman gamer created as a “social experiment” by a man player. The confluences between gender and toxic meritocracy become visible in the assumption there must be an experienced man gamer behind the battletag, the gender-based harassment targeted at Ellie, and the reflections on the importance of setting an example as the first team taking a woman player for Contenders. The analysis shows that despite a strong belief in meritocracy upheld within the community, there are many barriers limiting the participation of those entering competitive Overwatch as women.
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