Indexing Esport Performance

Abstract

The assessment of an athlete’s performance can play a key role in determining their current state, their readiness to compete, the impact of an experimental manipulation, and/or the influence of an intervention. At present, there is limited empirical evidence stating the indicators that encapsulate individual performance within any esport. To identify the variables that are historically associated with indicating Counter-Strike: Global Offensive performance, a literature review was conducted. Identified variables were accumulated and presented to three technical expert panels composed of world-class esport athletes, researchers, and practitioners. We utilized a modified Delphi method to provide direction concerning the examination of performance in esports. The expert panelists presented numerous opinions on what encapsulates performance, considerations for best practices, and concerns associated with the semantics of performance. This study presents the opinions of various domain-specific experts and encourages the use of more explicit terminology when discussing performance measurement. It was the intention of the project to generate an open discussion rather than draw a unified conclusion on best practices.

Stress Management Strategies in Esports: An Exploratory Online Survey on Applied Practice

“…Addressing aspects such as an unhealthy lifestyle, coping strategies, and schedule issues seems to be of significant importance in esports due to short-and long-term effects associated with prolonged game play including lower levels of general and mental health (e.g., Credeur et al, 2019;Kocadag, 2020;Yin et al, 2020). Overall, it is necessary to also investigate performance (e.g., Sharpe et al, 2022) and health-related aspects in esports (e.g., Leis et al, 2021), such as sleep and self-confidence, and provide players with evidence-based interventions in the future (e.g., Brown & Fletcher, 2017;Rumbold et al, 2012).…”

“…For instance, studies could investigate individual esports (e.g., League of Legends) and the relative efficacy of strategies according to gender, competitive setting, long-term effects, and objective performance outcomes (e.g., Brown & Fletcher, 2017). In order to investigate the effects of stress management strategies on performance outcomes, however, a greater understanding of performance indicators within specific esports is needed (Sharpe et al, 2022). Future research that adopts qualitative approaches should investigate the decision-making processes of practitioners in esports who use stress management strategies, particularly those identified in the current study (e.g., breathing and imagery).…”

Do We Need Esports Ecology? Comparisons of Environmental Impacts Between Traditional Sport and Esports

“…While all esports are video games, not all video games are esports in much the same sense that anyone can pick up a ball and play a game, but that does not mean that they have engaged in regulated, competitive sport for spectator enjoyment (Funk et al, 2018). Esports have competitive infrastructures that foster athletic talent and, at the upper echelons of its practice, provide a product that is worthy of spectatorship from the audience (e.g., Jenny et al, 2018;Sharpe et al, 2022;Witkowski & Manning, 2019). In other words, esports have experienced "sportification" which makes it appear similar to traditional sport (Heere, 2018).…”

Perspectives of Elite Esports Players and Staff Members Regarding the Effects of Esports on Health – a Qualitative Study

“…For that, qualitative research is an adequate approach to generate in-depth insights into beliefs, assumptions, values, or practices and is a valuable tool [15,16]. Recently, qualitative studies have emerged in esports-related research, namely studies with players from different countries and esports modalities on subjective experiences of stressors and coping [17,18,19], perceptions of success determinants [20], perceptions of training effectiveness [21] and indexing esports performance [22]. Still, those problems and perceptions studied might depend on the context (e.g., esports modalities, country, esports settling development; [23,24].…”