Article

Beyond solitary play in

computer games:
The social practices
of eSports

Journal of Consumer Culture

0(0) 121
! The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/1469540514553711
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Yuri Seo
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Sang-Uk Jung
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Republic of Korea

Abstract
This article adopts the theory of social practices as a critical lens for understanding
computer game consumption as multiple nexuses of doings and sayings, which represent the elements of and are situated within the broader context of consumer culture.
Specifically, we explore an emerging phenomenon of an organised and competitive
approach to computer gaming, referred to as electronic sports or eSports, by offering
a novel conceptualisation of eSports as an assemblage of consumption practices. In our
endeavour, we illustrate that eSports practices are performed by consumers through
multiple interconnected nexuses of unique understandings, tools, competencies and
skills, whereby these nexuses transcend the elements of digital play to include the
watching and governing of eSports. Accordingly, eSports consumers take on multiple
roles beyond being considered merely as players, engaging with this phenomenon using
different nexuses of practical activities. Our findings suggest that, in order to gain a
more comprehensive perspective of what consumers actually do with computer
games, we should explore gaming consumption in relation to different social practices
that co-constitute multifaceted consumer engagement within this genre.
Keywords
Consumer behaviour, computer games, social practices, eSports, games and culture

Corresponding author:
Yuri Seo, School of Marketing and International Business, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600,
Wellington 6140, New Zealand.
Email: [email protected]

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Introduction
[Player] Nestea and [Player] MVP in overall series tied one and one in the nal match
of the nal best of three. Each player has defeated the other three times in the course
of this BlizzCon tournament today, and everything comes down to one nal match for
50000 dollars!. Ladies and gentlemen are you ready to make some noise?! [Audience
cheering and clapping]. The Grand Finale of BlizzCon 2011 could not have had a better
story everything comes down to one single game. If MVP wins, then he is the
champion! If Nestea wins, then he is the champ! Lets tune in to the nal match of
BlizzCon Invitational . . .

The excerpt above is derived from a commentary to the nal match at the 2011
computer game tournament BlizzCon StarCraft II Invitational, organised by
Blizzard Entertainment to endorse one of its major computer game titles
StarCraft II (Blizzard, 2013). The tournament oered a grand prize of
US$50,000, attracting professional gaming players from all over the world. The
events of Blizzcon Invitational reect an emerging cultural phenomenon referred to
as electronic sports or eSports (Seo, 2013; Taylor, 2012; Witkowski, 2012).
eSports is formally dened as an area of sport activities in which people develop
and train mental or physical abilities in the use of information and communication
technologies (Wagner, 2007: 182). Unlike other computer game practices, where
participants may enjoy storytelling (Buchanan-Oliver and Seo, 2012), eSports is
consumed as an organised and competitive approach to computer gaming.
Witkowski (2012) notes that for the past decade, this style of gaming has been
played across networked computers where structured online computer gaming
leagues and locally networked events have oered players a place to engage in
serious or career competition (p. 350).
The cultural development of eSports is associated with the emergence of professional and semi-professional tournaments, where consumers have been able to
celebrate organised and competitive gaming practices, by authenticating their consumption in a real world, traversing the boundaries between the online and oine
experience of competitive computer games (Seo, 2013: 1551). Of particular symbolic signicance is the annual World Cyber Games (WCG), a computer gaming
tournament comparable to the Olympic Games for traditional sports. International
events like WCG tend to attract substantial corporate sponsorships and media
coverage that enable tournament organisers to gather larger audiences of spectators, oer bigger prize pools for players and promote further cultural interest in
eSports, especially among youth consumers (Taylor, 2012). Moreover, as these
competitive tournaments become more sophisticated, there is an emerging trend
towards institutionalised governance of eSports, reected in a greater number of
professionalised leagues and organisations that have been appearing across the
world (e.g. Cyberathlete Professional League in the United States, Korean
eSports Association in South Korea and Electronic Sports League (ESL) in
Europe). These nascent governing bodies oer regulatory support for eSports by

Seo and Jung

standardising rules and overseeing more consistent conduct within competitive

gaming (Seo, 2013; Thiborg, 2009).
By driving cultural and societal advances that serve and benet gamers and nongamers alike, computer games have become an integral element of contemporary
consumer culture (e.g. Fromme, 2003; Williamson and Facer, 2004). The phenomenon of eSports, in particular, is illustrative of how consumers engage with computer games beyond the boundaries of self-contained digital play and leisure and
where the totality of a gaming experience is embedded within the broader frames of
social activities. More specically, eSports consumers can concurrently play, watch
and participate in institutional governance, such that these activities are dynamically intertwined within the broader social performances of eSports consumption.
This phenomenon highlights an increasing need to revisit our understanding of
how contemporary computer games are consumed, moving beyond the player
interactions with the game interface alone.
In this article, we adopt the social practice theory as a critical lens to understand
computer game consumption as not merely a form of computer-mediated experience, but as multiple, interrelated nexuses of doings and sayings (Reckwitz, 2002),
representing the elements of and situated within the broader context of consumer
culture. In this endeavour, we develop a novel conceptualisation of eSports as an
assemblage of consumption practices, where consumers actualise and sustain the
eSports phenomenon through their engagement with the interconnected nexuses of
playing, watching and governing of eSports. In doing so, we present several complementary contributions to the current discussions on eSports and computer
games. First, we illustrate that eSports consumption entitles consumers to adopt
multiple roles moving beyond being considered merely as players, by performing
multifaceted practical activities that actualise and sustain eSports as an amalgamated cultural phenomenon. Furthermore, eSports conveys a unique context
where a leisure activity is becoming professionalised by multiple actors, operating
as players, spectators and organisers. Our practice-based approach sheds light on
how these cultural developments inuence the separation, development and intersection of dierent eSports consumption practices while, at the same time, highlighting the importance of these practices, themselves, for our understanding of the
eSports phenomenon. Finally, our study discusses the theoretical and methodological implications for exploring eSports and computer game consumption within
the broader context of consumer culture and provides recommendations for future
research in this area.

A practice-based approach to computer game consumption

Reckwitz (2002) denes a practice as a routinized way in which bodies are moved,
objects are handled, subjects are treated, things are described and the world is
understood (p. 250). The elements of a practice theory can be found in many
studies from social theorists (e.g. Bourdieu, 1972; Giddens, 1984). Therefore,
rather than being a unied body of theoretical analysis, the social practice

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theory approach represents a family of multiple theories that commonly

adopt a particular theoretical position towards culturally oriented research
(Reckwitz, 2002). The purpose of this section, however, is not to compare dierent
theories and applications of social practices, but rather to focus on the key elements
within the practice-based approach, which are useful in advancing the research
agenda on computer game consumption that is proposed in this study.
Central to the practice theory is a view that the social world is populated by
diverse social practices which are carried out by agents (Schatzki, 1996; Warde,
2005). Within this view, agents are referred to as individuals who carry (accumulate) and carry out (perform) social practices (Reckwitz, 2002) such that they
understand the world and themselves, convey states of emotion and use knowhow and motivational knowledge. Therefore, rather than reecting merely the
idiosyncratic characteristics of individuals, the understandings and knowledge of
practices reect a shared possession of the collective (Barnes, 2001: 25). Reckwitz
(2002) highlights that any given practice is social in nature because it is a type of
behaviour and understanding that appears at dierent locales and at dierent
points in time and is carried out by dierent agents within a given culture and
society. Therefore, social practices as a shared nexus of doings and sayings
(Schatzki, 1996) make them understandable not only to the agent who carries
them out but also to potential observers (Reckwitz, 2002).
Reckwitz (2002) highlights that the theory of social practices oers a departure
from other approaches to culturally oriented research in two main ways. First,
when compared to mentalism (e.g. Levi-Strauss, 1962), it does not concern itself
with the analysis of psychological perceptions per se, but with how these perceptions are embedded in routinised complex doings, asserting the interconnectedness
of behavioural and mental routines (Reckwitz, 2002). Therefore, not only would a
practice-based approach address how consumers perceive computer game consumption, but it would query how these perceptions are integrated by consumers
into their routinised activities and behaviours. Second, when compared to textualism and inter-subjectivism (e.g. Geertz, 1973), the practice theory does not regard
objects (e.g. computer games) to be meaningful entities merely because they are
produced by the shared structures of discourses and propositions. Instead, they are
also things to be handled, and constitutive elements of forms of behaviour
(Reckwitz, 2002: 253). Therefore, from the social practices perspective, not only
are computer games meaningful because they represent cultural artefacts
(Buchanan-Oliver and Seo, 2012), but because consumers also understand, talk
about and skilfully use computer games as part of their routinised performances
of divergent practices such as eSports.
Furthermore, Hargreaves (2011) highlights that social practices convey the
middle level between agency and structure, which leads to the focus of analysis
being the practice itself, rather than the individuals who perform them [it] or the
social structures that surround them (p. 82). Within this perspective, the patterns
of computer game consumption are not the reections of individual decisions; they
are embedded within and occur as part of coordinated doings and sayings

Seo and Jung

performed by computer game consumers as social agents (Warde, 2005). In

other words, the theory of social practices diverts attention away from moments
of individual decision making, and towards the doing of various social practices
and the inconspicuous [normal] consumption they entail (Hargreaves, 2011: 83).
As noted earlier, despite common theoretical positions, the practice theory does
not oer a systematic body of theoretical analysis (Reckwitz, 2002). Rather, there
are multiple forms and applications that can be pursued when adopting a practicebased approach. For instance, some previous studies endeavoured to explore practices that serve specic purposes in a given context, such as value co-creation
practices in brand communities (Schau et al., 2009), and other studies have
explored dispersed practices that are not restricted by any particular topic and/
or transcend multiple contexts (e.g. Leipamaa-Leskinen et al., 2014). Still others
discussed dierent approaches to understanding the concept of practices (e.g.
Shove and Pantzar, 2005; Warde, 2005). In particular, Warde (2005) theorises
practices as coordinated understandings (practical interpretations of what and
how to do something), procedures (performance rules) and engagements (emotional and normative orientations), whereas Shove and Pantzar (2005) and
Hargreaves (2011) understand practices in terms of images (symbolic meanings),
skills (forms of competence, procedures) and stu (materials and technology). At
a broader level, practices can also refer to both coordinated entities (i.e. nexuses of
doings and sayings) and to the performance of these entities by social agents
(Warde, 2005). Accordingly, multiple research agendas, approaches and conceptions of social practices are available to consumer researchers in their attempts to
understand cultural contexts and consumption activities.
In our study, we adopt a practice-based view that the individual performances of
complex doings and sayings are embedded in sociocultural structures (Halkier and
Jensen, 2011). Within this view, eSports consumers represent the carriers of social
practices (Reckwitz, 2002) with the unit of analysis being the practice itself
(Leipamaa-Leskinen et al., 2014). Furthermore, we consider that the conditions
surrounding eSports consumption (e.g. professionalised training, spectatorial followings, corporate sponsorships, emerging governing bodies) serve as analytical
frames through which we can identify and understand the various forms of eSports
consumption practices. At the same time, these emergent consumption practices
are seen to be the constituent parts of eSports as the whole, which enables us
to explore how completive gaming has developed within consumer culture.
Informed by previous conceptions of practices as organised entities (Hargreaves,
2011; Shove and Pantzar, 2005; Warde, 2005), we dene practices as the nexuses of
understandings, tools, skills and competencies, which social actors integrate
dynamically through their routinised performances. Understandings are referred
to as the interpretations of general rules and the purpose of a practice (i.e. why and
what to do). Tools are referred to as the objects and the technology that are
involved in performing a practice. Skills and competencies are the instructions
and procedures about how to perform a practice. For example, playing computer
games for leisure involves certain understandings about computer games (e.g. that

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games are not serious), tools (e.g. knowing particular computer software) and skills
and competencies (e.g. being able to perform actions using an avatar).
The underlying purpose of our practice-based approach is threefold. First,
we identify and discuss the constituent consumption practices of organised and
competitive gaming, which include the playing, watching and governing of
eSports. Second, we illustrate how these practices are interrelated through
their shared nexuses of understandings, tools, competencies and skills. Finally,
we discuss how this assemblage of eSports practices and their
interrelationships increases our understanding of eSports as a cultural consumption
phenomenon.

Methodology
A three-stage iterative process was adopted to uncover and understand the social
practices of eSports consumption. During the rst stage, key interdisciplinary
academic texts were sourced based on their relevance for understanding the conditions surrounding eSports consumption. These were obtained through keyword
searches in ABI/Inform, ProQuest and Google Scholar, with further scans conducted by checking reference lists. The accumulated studies encompassed a range
of social disciplines including media studies (e.g. Jansz and Martens, 2005), communication (e.g. Borowy and Jin, 2013), sports studies (e.g. Jonasson and
Thiborg, 2010), game studies (e.g. Taylor, 2012; Witkowski, 2012) and marketing
(e.g. Seo, 2013). The inductive analysis of these textual sources was guided by a
theoretical discourse analysis (Buchanan-Oliver and Cruz, 2009). More specically, main concepts about eSports were rst understood in the context of their
respective studies and then compared and categorised in order to elicit higher
order abstractions based on their perceived commonalities and linkages (Spiggle,
1994). During this stage, an iterative process between the source texts and the
emerging categories was adopted to develop provisional categories, constructs,
and conceptual connections (Buchanan-Oliver and Cruz, 2009: 368), which aided
the subsequent induction of the broader underlying themes about
eSports practices.
At the second stage, we enriched and extended our analysis by sourcing
documentary evidence from popular media texts, such as business magazines
(e.g. Forbes), company and organisational websites (e.g. Blizzard, WCG),
technological patents (e.g. Wee et al., 2006), video commentaries of eSports
events (e.g. Blizzcon StarCraft Invitational) and online eSports communities
and blogs (e.g. eSports Yearbook). These texts were obtained by exploring
media references in previous research studies (e.g. Taylor, 2012) and then snowballing from these established references by scanning for new media sources.
A discourse analysis of documentary evidence followed the same analytical procedures that were used for academic texts. In particular, each reading of the text
encompassed a broader range of considerations from previous readings
(Thompson, 1997), forming a complex web of holistic interpretations about

Seo and Jung

eSports consumption practices informed by both academic and media sources.

This process continued until no further new readings and themes emerged from
the analysis. At this stage, we also started to develop our conceptual formulation of eSports practices, guided by a variation of iterative process akin to the
puzzle building described by Schouten and McAlexander (1995). Each emergent theme was viewed as a puzzle piece, and we sought to devise our conceptual formulation of practices in a way that would unite these puzzle pieces in a
holistic fashion.
At the third stage, we conducted several non-participant observations at
eSports events. In particular, one of the researchers visited two local tournaments in South Korea and one each in Australia and New Zealand. Each
tournament involved about 1025 self-identied eSports players, 3040 spectators and several organisers. Because of the constrained time that was permitted
to spend at these events (approximately 2 hours at each event), these observations were limited to recording notes about physical settings, technology and
other tools involved in organising eSports tournaments, as well as some more
general notes related to the performances of doings and sayings carried out
by players, spectators and organisers. Despite this limitation, we found that our
eldwork was useful for two key reasons. First, the observations heightened our
sensitivity to the research context, which is particularly important for interpretivist inquiries, where the researcher, responding as a whole person, serves as an
instrument in observation, selection, coordination, and interpretation of data
(Sherry, 1991; Spiggle, 1994: 492). Thus, attending eSports events enabled us to
corroborate the analysis of textual sources and to further rene the conceptual
formulation of practices.
Moreover, Halkier and Jensen (2011) assert that the practice-based approach
understands consumption as ows of happenings and processes of carrying out
activities, where one of the key analytical aordances is to neither theoretically nor
methodologically privilege an individual consumer as an actor (p. 105). In this way,
we acknowledge that other methods, such as phenomenological interviews, could
oer further insights about the lived experiences of eSports. However, non-participant observations were suitable for our purposes, given that the study
diverts focus away from the moments of individual choices and towards
constructing knowledge about eSports as sociocultural nexuses of doings and
sayings.
Trustworthiness was further ensured through regular discussions of emerging
interpretations between the authors. During these discussions, we found that the
devils advocacy technique (Schouten and McAlexander, 1995) was especially
useful for triangulation. This technique involved one researcher advancing a
theme for discussion, at which point the other researcher developed counter-arguments. Themes that managed to withstand this scrutinising process were further
rened for discussion; those that did not were either rejected or modied and
advanced again. This process continued until all the themes were scrutinised in
their nal form.

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The practices of eSports consumption: Playing, watching and

governing
What is eSports?
Among various social and cultural developments associated with the rise of
computer entertainment consumption, of particular interest has been the emergence of an organised and competitive approach to computer games. Burk
(2013) notes that while millions of consumers play games for leisure, a newer
breed of professional players are committed to making a living at what has been
labelled as eSports. Playing eSports can thus be found at the intersection of
computer games and professionalised sports, where consumers compete
against others to improve their skills and abilities and outperform their
opponents (Wagner, 2007). Accordingly, unlike some other gaming practices
where consumers may enjoy memorialised storytelling (Buchanan-Oliver and
Seo, 2012) playing eSports produces a sense of skill-based rivalry (Taylor,
2012). In recent years, this form of computer game consumption has
been fuelled by growing spectatorial followings and nascent governance
infrastructures.
Computer games played for eSports span across a wide range of platforms (e.g.
personal computers, gaming consoles) and genres (e.g. sports-themed games, ghting games, real-time strategy games). Some games imitate physical sports, others
are oriented towards combat or ghting activities and yet other games simulate
military battles (Burk, 2013). Despite their contextual and playing dierences,
however, all games played for eSports feature some forms of comparative measures, which can be used to determine a players level of skilful performance within
the game (Seo, 2013). For instance, in sports-themed games, these measures could
be consistent with the rules of a physical sport (e.g. scoring goals in soccer games)
(Crawford and Gosling, 2009), whereas in real-time strategy games, players are
required to defeat their opponents (Buchanan-Oliver and Seo, 2012). Moreover, in
addition to these in-game rules, the formats of eSports competitions are often
governed by external governing bodies and communities of eSports
players, which now perform an institutionalising role in ensuring the
consistency of conduct among various competitive computer-gaming practices
(Seo, 2013: 1544).
While eSports is still in its infancy, it already oers a rich context to observe
the multifaceted social performance associated with the consumption of contemporary computer games. In 2012, the ESL reported over 3.6 million registered
users in Europe (Adamus, 2012; Seo, 2013). According to Adamus (2012), there
are more than 430 professional athletes in South Korea who make a
living from playing computer games, and the 2013 WCG an eSports tournament comparable to the Olympic Games for traditional sports saw
400 computer game players attend from 40 countries, 400 journalists
and 155,000 on-site spectators (WCG, 2013). Furthermore, various national
(e.g. Korean eSports Association) and international (e.g. International

Seo and Jung

eSports Federation (IeSF)) governing bodies have been established to oversee

the practice of professional computer gaming. Despite these developments, however, there have been few attempts to understand eSports practices in consumer
research.
In the remainder of this section, we examine eSports consumption using three
distinct nexuses of social practices, which include (1) the playing, (2) watching
and (3) institutionalised governing. In doing so, we illustrate that the contemporary practices of computer games surpass the elements of leisure and digital
play; they are embedded within even broader nexuses of practical activities,
where consumers take on multiple interrelated roles that comprise the social
performance of computer game consumption. In the following section, we will
be drawing the threads together in order to provide a more integrated view of
eSports as an assemblage of consumption practices and discuss how this conceptual formulation informs our understanding of eSports as a cultural
phenomenon.

Playing eSports The elements of competitive gameplay

Playing eSports has been described as eliciting a rich sensory experience that calls
for layer upon layer of physically demanding action in order to be competitive in
the high-performance game (Witkowski, 2012: 369, italics added). As such, this
type of gameplay varies from the user gratications obtained in other computer
game practices, such as virtual daydreaming or tourism (e.g. Molesworth, 2009). In
particular, eSports consumers do not seek temporary escapism, but rather, as
Wagner (2007) points out, they strive to become ever more competitive and to
improve their mastery of the game. If we are to adopt a practice-based view, this
implies that playing eSports is coordinated by its own nexus of understandings,
tools, competencies and skills that consumers use in their routinised performances
of the practice.
First, it appears that playing eSports connotes a form of understanding,
where competitive gaming is more than just fun for players; rather, it represents
a serious activity, which has been compared to playing sport (Wagner, 2007),
adhering to a particular subculture (Taylor, 2012) and even to mastering a
profession (Adamus, 2012). In Chees (2006) research on gaming culture in
South Korea one of the major eSports hubs in the world she asserts that
for many young Koreans
online games represents [. . .] way of life. The activities surrounding this media ecology
determine how its members navigate within their vital orientations and make choices
about how they take nourishment, spend money, earn money, and even partake in
courtship rituals. (p. 232)

Furthermore, Adamus (2012) reports that there are a growing number of professional players who earn a living by playing computer games as a form of sport.

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Consider the following excerpt from a Forbes interview with a famous eSports
player, Steven Bonnel (Tassi, 2012):
I worked as a professional carpet cleaner! I still played the original Starcraft [computer game] quite a bit, but never for money, and never at a high level. As for when
you cross over to playing full time, I think that line changes for every person, based on
their personal situation at the time. For me, I own my house and have a little baby to
support now, so I crossed the line when I was able to realize an income capable of
supporting my lifestyle and nances.

The excerpt demonstrates that playing eSports conicts with Caillois (2001)
denition of pure play found in leisure activities, where play creates neither
goods, nor wealth, nor new elements of any kind; and, except for the exchange
of property among the players, end[s] in a situation identical to that prevailing at
the beginning of the game (p. 9). Instead, eSports players are empowered to nd
extrinsic benets, such as prize money and social status. Accordingly, playing
eSports could be understood better using the notion of false play found in professional sports, where the intrusion of extrinsic gains and reality (e.g. money)
brings with it the possibility of corruption of play, whereby a leisure activity
becomes a form of labour (Caillois, 2001). In the following section, we will be
returning to Caillois concepts of leisure and labour to discuss the cultural development and professionalisation of eSports within the broader eSports consumption
practices and their roles.
Furthermore, playing eSports is coordinated by a unique set of competencies
and skills required to perform the practice. It has, for instance, been suggested that
eSports players develop a tacit knowledge about how to play competitively
(Wagner, 2007; Witkowski, 2012), whereby eSports can be distinguished from
playing computer games for other purposes. This is particularly evident from the
rules governing eSports tournaments, such as those set up for playing the computer
game StarCraft II at the WCG (WCG, 2013). StarCraft II is a real-time strategy
computer game produced by Blizzard Entertainment. In this game, a player chooses
to control one of the three races: the Terrans, the Zerg and the Protoss. The game
requires players to defeat their opponents by overcoming their armies, and the
game ends when one of the opponents is completely defeated (Blizzard, 2013).
However, on top of these generic in-game rules, eSports players participating in
WCG must also adhere to the tournament rules (WCG, 2013).
These additional requirements outline the code of conduct, prescribed by the
tournament organisers, to ensure fair play among the competitors (WCG, 2013).
Accordingly, many of these rules such as not using certain types of the games
applications or disclosing a players race to a higher seeded opponent are specied only for organised and competitive gameplay and, therefore, may not be followed necessarily by the players for other gaming purposes (e.g. when
playing casually). In other words, since participating in eSports tournaments
represents an important element of an organised and competitive approach

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11

to playing computer games (Wagner, 2007; Witkowski, 2012), this suggests that
by regularly adhering to the tournament rules, eSports players routinise and sustain these rules as an integral part of the socially understood skills and
competencies required for playing the particular games as eSports rather than
for leisure.
The performance of playing eSports is also evident outside gaming tournaments.
In particular, Huhh (2008) discusses how the Internet cafes in South Korea, called
PC bangs, have become a social space for nurturing organised and competitive
computer gaming. Huhh (2008) observes that players use PC bangs to compete
regularly in the same oine space:
Players derived much pleasure in playing StarCraft with players while sharing the
same physical and cultural environment. Even today, professional computer league
game players (pro-leagues) still conduct preliminary elimination contests in PC bangs
still the ground for aspiring eSports superstars. (p. 30)

Thus, similar to eSports tournaments, these Internet cafes routinise playing

eSports by reinforcing a particular form of conduct in specic locations.
Furthermore, studies report that playing eSports involves routinised training in
order to develop the necessary skills required for competitive gameplay. For
instance, Wagner (2007) suggests that eSports training is focused on optimising
players skills for maximum performance within a particular software environment.
This is also echoed by Witkowski (2012), when she outlines a number of uniquely
developed skills and competencies required for competitive gameplay, such as team
management, balanced body and composure, and the salience and sensuousness of
the technologies in play. These studies highlight the seriousness of competitive
gameplay, reected by the particular sets of skills and competencies, which also
dierentiate playing eSports from other forms of gameplay.
Finally, playing eSports is further dened by the tools and technology involved.
More specically, there is a tendency towards using a specic type of computer
equipment, which is designed for playing games competitively. For instance,
Slocum et al. (2005) note that since most competitive games rely on the fast and
accurate movements of the mouse for manipulating movements during competitions, playing eSports requires optimised user input performance. Consequently,
manufacturers of computer accessories have beneted from gamers increased
demand for high-dpi optical mice, specialised input devices and specialised
mouse pads to give them a competitive edge with regard to control of input
(Slocum et al., 2005: 706). Similarly, Wee et al. (2006) noted that fast response is
critical in competitive gaming and that there is an increasing need to ensure that
the keyboard and mouse used by the games [are] appropriate just for the purposes
of gaming (p. 8). From the practice-based view, these emerging specialised tools
produced for competitive gameplay further dierentiate playing eSports from other
practices of computer game consumption. In addition, these developments illustrate that commercial market actors can participate in shaping the nexuses of

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eSports practices, whereby they produce specialised tools, which empower consumers to distinguish eSports playing from other forms of gaming (Seo, 2013).

Watching eSports The importance of the audience

Practicing eSports does not only involve playing computer games competitively. As
it is evident from many of the essays on eSports collected in Christophers and
Scholzs (2011) eSports Yearbook, the same consumers nd pleasure in watching
others playing, particularly if those others are exceptionally skilled players.
Consider, for instance, the major professional computer gaming tournaments,
such as WCG. In these tournaments, while not everyone can participate, even
those who come to watch can become immersed in the competitive culture of
eSports (Christophers and Scholz, 2011; Taylor, 2012). These events authenticate
the consumption of eSports in a real world, traversing the boundaries between
what consumers do inside the computer games and how they engage with
eSports oine (Seo, 2013). In this way, the tournaments oer a venue for
eSports consumers to share their devotion to the practice.
Our analysis suggests that watching eSports can also be dened by its own nexus
of understandings, tools, skills and competencies that are used by consumers to
coordinate this practice. The recent studies in particular illustrate that, as with
playing competitively, watching eSports engenders an understanding of competitive gameplay as a form of sport (Su and Shih, 2011; Taylor, 2012). In this sense,
the practice is comparable to watching traditional sports. For instance, when consumers attend a soccer match, they understand that the match involves two opposing teams who try to outperform each other using their skills and competencies.
Likewise, watching eSports conveys a particular form of understanding, where
eSports represents a staged performance of competitive rivalry, involving skilled
players and their narratives (e.g. Christophers and Scholz, 2011; Taylor, 2012).
The studies also suggest that watching eSports requires distinct skills and competencies to perform the practice. For instance, it is important for consumers to
internalise tacit knowledge about computer games and the rules of competition in
order to follow the happenings of the game (Taylor, 2012). In other words, some of
the skills and competencies needed to play computer games competitively may be
also required for watching eSports which could explain why so many eSports
spectators are the computer game players themselves. This requirement is particularly evident in Taylors (2012) ethnographic study on eSports, where she describes
the diculties associated with being an outsider to eSports and understanding the
happenings of eSports matches:
Things that were otherwise obvious for the insiders generally werent for me. When
claims were made about how one game was naturally easier to watch than another, for
example, I felt the unspoken assumptions all too clearly. I perhaps sensed the gap
moments and breakages more acutely because I often lacked any easy internalised
interpretive schema. (p. 29)

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13

Finally, watching eSports can be also dierentiated by the specialised tools used
by consumers to perform the practice. In particular, it has been reported that
Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) is increasingly becoming a preferred platform
for watching eSports (Scholz, 2012). IPTV provides a number of unique features
and benets compared with traditional television. For instance, this media channel
enables a shared access for viewers from any part of the world, whereby the viewers
watching an eSports tournament in Asia can connect to the viewers from Europe
by using the same IPTV station. Such features enabled the 2012 WCG to attract
over 9.5 million viewers worldwide (WCG, 2013). Moreover, IPTV integrates communication capabilities (e.g. video chat) that enable interaction among and
between viewers, encouraging these parties to connect with the broader crowd of
spectators (Su and Shih, 2011). Finally, viewers are able to take control of their
viewing cameras, which enhances their interactivity with the broadcasting event
(Scholz, 2012). In turn, this suggests that the unique elements of watching eSports
require consumers to develop new skills and competencies in using the associated
tools that are necessary to perform the practice. Interestingly, many computer
games have now integrated the ability to watch live streams of computer game
events within the game interface itself (Su and Shih, 2011). From the practice
theory perspective, this means that the playing and watching of eSports are becoming more integrated through the shared tools which are used to perform the two
practices.

Governing eSports Towards the institutionalisation of competitive gaming

Following the increasing popularity of eSports playing and watching, we have
witnessed the emergence of nascent governing bodies that begin to institutionalise
the practices of competitive computer gaming (Thiborg, 2009). These organisations, formed by and consisting of parties involved with eSports, perform a
range of governing functions, such as providing a strategic vision for eSports
growth, developing and overseeing the rules of practice and bringing a sense of
coherent structure and organisation to eSports consumption (Seo, 2013). Some
examples include Major League Gaming (MLG), which aims to build a full-edged
sports league around competitive computer gaming (Gaudiosi, 2013), and the IeSF,
which denes its key mission as to set global standards of eSports for integrated
development of each country by instituting international eSports standardisation
(IeSF, 2013). The emergence of these organisations suggests that there is an emerging trend towards the development of more institutionalised and, perhaps, more
professionalised eSports practices.
Consistent with the playing and watching, eSports governing appears to assume
the understanding of competitive gaming as an organised and competitive activity.
In particular, Thiborg (2009) notes that the process of institutionalisation plays a
vital role within the transformation of hectic play into organised sports, asserting
the signicance of emerging governing bodies in dening eSports as a form of
sport. Moreover, the practice is also consistent with the understanding of

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eSports as a form of subculture since the activities of governing organisations are

aimed not only at those playing eSports but also at the broader community of
eSports stakeholders (Thiborg, 2009).
Furthermore, the practice of governing eSports assumes the development of a
particular set of skills and competencies necessary to perform this practice. For
instance, we have noted that eSports players must adhere to the tournament rules
of competition established by the relevant governing organisations (such as WCG).
This suggests that, in order to perform governance successfully, skilled practitioners would require not only an understanding of current rules but also of the
ways in which changes in these rules might impact the existing practice of competitive gameplay. As an example, the current tournament rules state explicitly that
the administrators of WCG (2013) reserve rights to change rules based on their
interpretation of the fairness and spirit of gameplay. This implies that these
administrators are responsible for setting standards, which may determine what
the fairness and spirit of gameplay connote within the boundaries of eSports
consumption.
Finally, governance would also require competencies in ensuring the assimilation of the rules and policies within the community of eSports stakeholders. This
process could, in turn, engender the development of skills and their associated tools
(such as online forums, blogs, news), which are required to communicate eectively
with players, spectators and other stakeholders, such as computer gaming companies and broadcasting channels (Seo, 2013). Overall, this suggests that, while still in
its infancy (Thiborg, 2009), the governing practice brings yet another nexus to
eSports consumption, where eSports is becoming increasingly institutionalised.

Discussion: Constructing the assemblage of eSports practices

We have so far illustrated how a practice-based approach can inform our understanding of the various eSports consumption practices. Specically, we explored
how the multiple nexuses of eSports understandings (e.g. eSports as a form of
sport), tools (e.g. specialised eSports equipment), competencies and skills (e.g.
rules of competitive play) coordinate the playing, watching and governing of competitive gaming. In this section, we draw the threads from our analysis together and
propose a novel formulation of eSports as an assemblage of consumption practices
(Figure 1), where each practice is developing in accordance with and coordinated
by its own discrete yet dynamically interrelated nexuses of understandings, tools,
competencies and skills. In doing so, we discuss how this theoretical assemblage
extends our understanding of eSports by connecting the emerging insights into the
broader cultural development and professionalisation of competitive gaming.
At the basic level, the assemblage of eSports practices highlights that competitive gaming is consumed beyond the boundaries of self-contained digital play. In
particular, not only does eSports entitle competitive gameplay, it also integrates
two more distinct nexuses of practical activities the watching and governing of
eSports. Consequently, if we are to focus only on the playing aspects of gaming,

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Figure 1. The assemblage of eSports practices.

such an approach would oer a limited insight into the broader sociocultural
aspects of eSports consumption. This position becomes particularly useful when
we endeavour to distinguish and understand eSports in relation to other similar
forms of computer game practices. For instance, Novak (2005) describes a practice
of hard-core gaming, where consumers play games on a regular basis, [. . .] and
often enjoy competitive features and deep gameplay (p. 373). According to Dena
(2008), hard-core gamers are exceptionally skilled in playing games, and devote
substantial time to training and leading the gameplay, and participating in the
community. These descriptions may suggest that, since both hard-core gaming
and eSports require participants to be ever more competitive in playing computer
games, the two practices are one and the same. However, within the broader
assemblage of consumption practices, not only do eSports consumers play computer games competitively, but this gameplay is also dynamically intertwined with
spectatorial followings that add an element of staged performance and eSports
governance that aims to institutionalise the practice. Thus, while some overlapping
understandings, tools, competencies and skills may indeed be found between playing eSports and hard-core gaming, by lensing competitive gaming through the
assemblage of consumption practices we can draw out more apparent distinctions
and the unique features of eSports.
Moreover, the observed mutual entanglement and complexity of eSports practices suggest that eSports is an amalgamated cultural phenomenon, where separate
practices of eSports are interrelated through a ow of shared understandings, tools,
skills and competencies. If there were no players who developed their own competencies and skills in playing computer games, it is unlikely that the practice of
watching and/or the practice of governing eSports would have emerged and been
sustained. Likewise, if there was no subculture of spectatorial followers, there
would be less motivation to perform eSports competitively, and there would be
less need for governance organisations to institutionalise the practice.
These intertwined cultural processes are particularly important to understand
when we revisit the notion of eSports as becoming a form of professionalised sport.

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In particular, Taylor (2012) discusses that competitive features and rivalry have
been present in computer game consumption long before the emergence of eSports,
suggesting that the skill-based rivalry found in eSports could be a necessary condition for understanding eSports as a form of sport (e.g. Wagner, 2007; Witkowski,
2012); however, this element alone is not a sucient condition. Indeed, many other
practices such as cooking (Stitt, 1996) and even gambling (Griths, 1990) can
involve various forms of games of skill. However, in our endeavour to understand
eSports as a form of sport, further insights can be drawn from Caillois (2001)
argument about leisure and labour, where professionalised sport is perceived to be
the form of the latter.
Caillois (2001) argues that professionalised sport corrupts play found in leisure
by contaminating the world of play with extrinsic reality (e.g. money). From this
perspective, eSports is becoming professionalised and even, perhaps, oers opportunities for cheating and corruption (e.g. Thiborg and Carlsson, 2010) because the
practice embraces various external-to-play elements. Among these, of particular
importance are spectatorial followings that allow eSports players to earn money
and gain a cult-like status similar to that of professional athletes competing in
major sporting leagues (Wagner, 2007: 184). In other words, the watching practice
of eSports can be perceived as alluding to our understanding of competitive gaming
in relation to professionalised sport since eSports becomes not only about the
rivalry of computer games but also about the staged performance of this rivalry
for the audience of fans who desire to immerse themselves in the subculture of
eSports consumption.
In the same vein, the regulatory functions performed by governing bodies and
leagues extrinsically guide the cultural development of playing eSports towards
professionalised practice, by institutionalising external features familiar from the
world of physical sports and entertainment, including tournaments, leagues, fans,
teams, team owners, player contracts, sponsors, and the like (Burk, 2013: 1536).
Consequently, our observations highlight that the cultural development and professionalisation of computer gaming cannot be reduced to any one individual practice of eSports. Instead, these developments are better understood within the
broader dynamically intertwined assemblage of eSports, which coordinates a complex social performance of multiple practices, where each of the three practices
sustains the importance of and contributes to the cultural development of the
others.
Finally, our conceptualisation draws attention to the consumers who carry and
carry out (Reckwitz, 2002) a diversity of roles in actualising and sustaining eSports
practices. More specically, our explorations suggest that people who play eSports
are often the same people who are involved in the watching and governing practices. In particular, Taylor (2012) highlights how playing computer games enable
consumers to develop tacit knowledge that assists them in watching and organising
eSports events. This implies that although we can delineate separate practices of
eSports consumption (i.e. playing, watching and governing), these practices can be
performed by the same actors. Such dynamics, in turn, set the assemblage of

Seo and Jung

17

eSports apart from other sporting practices, where dierent parties (e.g. the audience, performers and organisers) are more segregated in terms of their respective
roles and practices that they are allowed to perform. Accordingly, a distinctive
element of eSports consumption is that eSports consumers are able to concurrently
develop multiple understandings about what eSports connotes (e.g. competitive
rivalry, staged performance, institutionalised practice), acquire various sets of
skills (e.g. playing by the rules, streaming IPTV) and use this know-how to wield
the multiple specialised tools (customised keyboards, streaming software) that are
necessary to perform the consumption practices.

Conclusion
Our observations highlight that, despite the increasing interest in computer game
consumption (e.g. Buchanan-Oliver and Seo, 2012; Denegri-Knott and
Molesworth, 2010), the central marketing and consumer behaviour issues for
the entertainment software industry are [still] yet to be signicantly addressed
(Prugsamatz et al., 2010: 382). Moreover, the case of eSports presented in this
study illustrates the relevance and usefulness of social practices in exploring new
avenues for understanding computer games within contemporary consumer culture. In particular, we draw attention to the social aspects of eSports as a coordinated assemblage of multiple practices, where consumers carry and carry out
dierent roles and activities beyond their interactions with the game interface
alone.
At the beginning of this article, however, it was noted that practice theory does
not oer a systematic body of theoretical analysis (Reckwitz, 2002; Schatzki, 1996).
Therefore, multiple agendas can produce dierent insights about the social practices, their performances and how practices are related to broader consumption
contexts. Accordingly, the nexus of eSports practices presented in this study as well
as those of many other gaming activities should be explored to seek further conceptual understandings and empirical ndings. Of particular interest could be to
investigate how consumers, themselves, experience and interpret their performances of eSports and/or of other computer game practices in relation to dierent
aspects of their lives.
For advancing future research in this area, Schatzki (1996) oers a useful distinction between the notions of practice as a coordinated entity and practice as a
performance. The rst notion of practice as an entity connotes the view of practice
as a temporally unfolding and spatially dispersed nexus of doings and sayings. In
our study, this notion of practices informed us as we constructed the theoretical
assemblage of eSports consumption. However, future research could also explore
the performativity of computer game practices, referring to the carrying out of
practices, the performing of the doings and sayings which actualizes and sustains
practices in the sense of nexuses (Schatzki, 1996: 90). As performances of the
practice are not always the same, the focus on performativity can provide further
insights into how consumers, themselves, understand, actualise and sustain their

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consumption of computer games in the context of border identity issues and consumer culture.
Finally, we suggest that more attention should be given to whether and how
dierent types of emerging computer game practices (e.g. eSports, virtual tourism,
hard-core gaming) could complement each other within even broader realm of
computer game consumption. For instance, we illustrated some similarities and
dierences between eSports and hard-core gaming. Our ndings suggest that in
this endeavour, the social practice theory oers researchers critical theoretical and
methodical lenses by positing a unique perspective of consumers as being not
merely players of computer games, but as the carriers of broader consumption
practices associated with this genre. More specically, the theory draws our attention to the multifaceted and interrelated nature of practical activities and roles
performed by consumers in playing (with) computer games.
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Author Biographies
Yuri Seo is a Postgraduate Director and Lecturer in the School of Marketing and
International Business, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His
research interests include consumer culture, cultural branding and the sociocultural
aspects of computer games consumption.
Sang-Uk Jung is Assistant Professor in Marketing at Hankuk University of
Foreign Studies. His research interests focus primarily in understanding the
impact of social network and social inuence on individual consumer purchase
decisions. A large proportion of his current work involves online game and
mobile phone usage where network structure and relational issues are particularly
important.