The Evolution of eSports: An Analysis of its origin and a look at its prospective future growth as enhanced by Information Technology Management tools

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the growth factors of eSports, examines the impact of IT management tools, and predicts significant future growth in live and streaming audiences based on statistical and trend analyses.

Contribution

It identifies key factors influencing eSports growth and proposes data-driven decision systems to sustain and enhance future expansion.

Findings

Significant correlation between prize pools, participants, countries, and live audience size.

Projected 305.51% growth in live audiences from 2014-2019.

Expected 140.61% increase in virtual streaming audiences.

Abstract

As the last years have shown a massive growth within the field of electronic sports (eSports), several questions emerge, such as how much is it growing, and will it continue to grow? This research thesis sees this as its statement of problem, and further aims to define and measure the main factors that caused the growth of eSports. To further enhance the growth, the benefits and disbenefits of implementing Information Technology Management tools is appraised, which additionally gives an understanding of the future of eSports. Through observation of the data collection, the themes games played, games genre, and single-player or team-player was deemed most important. A statistical analysis was additionally done on the numerical data, which showed significant correlation between the themes prize pool, participants and participating countries towards live audience. This indicates that the mentioned themes affect how many people attends live eSport event. The analysis also consists of a trend analysis, which presents that nearly every theme analysed will continue to grow in a five-year period. The trend analysis further expects a 305.51% growth in the live audience from 2014-2019, while the virtual streaming audience is expected to experience a growth of 140.61%. To enhance this growth, the research thesis recommends using the presented trends and patterns found in the short-term, to conduct successful eSport events. However, in the long-term an implementation of a Data-driven Decision Support System can be done, which will periodically gather data to know the best possible way to deliver eSport events to the eSport community.