research-article

"I never gave up": engagement with playable characters and esports players of overwatch

Authors:

Tanja Välisalo,

Maria RuotsalainenAuthors Info & Claims

FDG '19: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

Article No.: 40, Pages 1 - 6

https://doi.org/10.1145/3337722.3337769

Published: 26 August 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Esports phenomena have grown rapidly in recent years, and so has research on the topic. Some of the research has also addressed esports fandom (see e.g. Taylor 2012). Nevertheless, studies comparing and contrasting how players and fans engage with the game and the esports based on that game are scarce. This study compares and contrasts how players and fans engage with playable game characters and esports players. The paper draws on previous research in fan studies, sports fandom and esports to examine the relationships of players and fans of the videogame Overwatch (Blizzard Entertainment 2016) with the fictional heroes of the game as well as with their favorite professional players in the newly started Overwatch League. We analyse how these relationships are articulated by fans and players, and pay attention to emerging similarities and differences.

The findings show that personality is deemed important for engagement with both, game characters and esports players. In addition, gender and sexual orientation emerged as important factors. By contrast, nationality was deemed important for engagement with esports players, but not with player characters. Further research should concentrate on the connections between esports and identity politics, as well as player characters and identity construction.

References

[1]

Activision Blizzard (2017, November 2). Activision Blizzard announces better-than-expected third quarter 2017 financial results. Investor.activision.com.

[2]

Paul Booth. 2010. Digital Fandom. New Media Studies. Peter Lang, New York.

Digital Library

[3]

Garry Crawford. 2004. Consuming Sport. Fans, Sport and Culture. New York: Routledge.

[4]

M Fletcher (2010). 'You must support Chiefs; Pirates already have two white fans!': race and racial discourse in South African football fandom, Soccer & Society, 11(1--2), 79--94.

[5]

Allen Guttmann. 1978. From ritual to record. The nature of modern sports. Columbia University Press, New York.

[6]

Greg Guest, Kathleen M. MacQueen and Emily E. Namey. 2012. Applied thematic analysis. Sage Publications, Los Angeles, California & London.

[7]

L Grossberg 1992 Is There a Fan in the House?: The Affective Sensibility of Fandom, The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media. Routledge. London and New York.

[8]

VM Karhulahti (2017). Reconsidering Esport: Economics and Executive Ownership. Physical Culture and Sport. Studies and Research, 74(1), 43--53.

[9]

P Mora and S Héas (2003). Du joueur de jeux vidéo à l'e-sportif: vers un professionnalisme florissant de l'élite? Consommations et sociétés, 2003, 129--145.

[10]

Christopher A. Paul. 2018. The toxic meritocracy of video games: Why gaming culture is the worst. University of Minnesota Press.

[11]

James Phelan. 1989. Reading People, Reading Plots. Character, Progression and the Interpretation of Narrative. University of Chicago Press.

[12]

J Phelan, P Rabinowitz, R Warhol, D Herman and B Richardson, 2012 Character, Narrative Theory: Core Concepts and Critical Debates. Ohio State University Press, Columbus. Ohio.

[13]

Cornel Sandvoss. 2005. Fans. The Mirror of Consumption. Polity Press, Malden, Massachusetts.

[14]

Murray Smith, 1995. Engaging characters. Fiction, emotion, and the cinema. Oxford University Press.

[15]

M Smith, 2011. Engaging Characters: Further Reflections, Characters in Fictional Worlds. De Gruyter, New York, USA.

[16]

N Taylor, J Jenson and S De Castell (2009). Cheerleaders/booth babes/Halo hoes: pro-gaming, gender and jobs for the boys. Digital Creativity, 20(4), 239--252.

[17]

T.L Taylor. 2012. Raising the Stakes. E-Sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Digital Library

[18]

R Turtiainen, U Friman and M Ruotsalainen (2018). "Not Only for a Celebration of Competitive Overwatch but Also for National Pride". Sportificating the Overwatch World Cup 2016, Games and Culture, August 2018.

[19]

G Voorhees, 2015 Neoliberal masculinity: The government of play and masculinity in e-sports, Playing to Win: Sports, Video Games, and the Culture of Play. Indiana University Press, Indiana, USA.

[20]

T Välisalo (2017). Engaging with film characters: Empirical study on the reception of characters in The Hobbit films. Fafnir: Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, 4 (3--4), 12--30.

[21]

H Wirman (2007). "I am not a fan, I just play a lot" - If Power Gamers Aren't Fans, Who Are? Situated Play, Proceedings of DiGRA 2007 Conference.

[22]

H Young (2014). Race in online fantasy fandom: Whiteness on Westeros.org. Continuum, 28(5), 737--747.

Cited By

Korkeila HDashiell SHarviainen J(2023)Gaming Capital on Overwatch's Official ForumsGames and Culture10.1177/15554120231198890Online publication date: 14-Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120231198890
Zhang GWu JJeon GChen YWang YTan M(2023) Towards Understanding Metaverse Engagement via Social Patterns and Reward Mechanism: A Case Study of Nova Empire IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems10.1109/TCSS.2022.321167910:5(2165-2176)Online publication date: Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCSS.2022.3211679
Parshakov PNaidenova IGomez-Gonzalez CNesseler C(2022)Do LGBTQ-Supportive Corporate Policies Affect Consumer Behavior? Evidence from the Video Game IndustryJournal of Business Ethics10.1007/s10551-022-05137-7187:3(421-432)Online publication date: 14-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05137-7
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

"I never gave up": engagement with playable characters and esports players of overwatch
1. Information systems
  1. Information systems applications
    1. Multimedia information systems
      1. Massively multiplayer online games
2. Social and professional topics
  1. User characteristics
    1. Gender
    2. Sexual orientation

Recommendations

Emotion Regulation in eSports Gaming: A Qualitative Study of League of Legends
CSCW

Today eSports gaming is enjoying growing popularity in the world and much attention from various research areas, including CSCW. eSports gaming is a highly competitive environment commonly associated with negative emotions such as anxiety and stress. ...
Expertise in Professional Overwatch Play

eSports is a rapidly growing phenomenon in competitive gaming. Expertise is an interesting topic to study in relation to eSports, as eSports athletes are considered among the most highly-skilled players of their particular games. Examining expertise not ...
Investigating relationships between video gaming, spectating esports, and gambling

An established body of research exists in which playing video games has been associated with potentially problematic behaviours, such as gambling. An issue highlighted by the recent emergence of game-based gambling practices such as loot boxes, social ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

FDG '19: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

August 2019

822 pages

ISBN:9781450372176

DOI:10.1145/3337722

Conference Chair:
Sebastian Deterding
University of York
,
General Chair:
Foaad Khosmood
California Polytechnic State University
,
Program Chairs:
Johanna Pirker
Graz University of Technology
,
Thomas Apperley
CEGCS Tampere University

Copyright © 2019 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 26 August 2019

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

FDG '19

FDG '19: The Fourteenth International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

August 26 - 30, 2019

California, San Luis Obispo, USA

Acceptance Rates

FDG '19 Paper Acceptance Rate 46 of 124 submissions, 37%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 152 of 415 submissions, 37%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

8
Total Citations
View Citations
551
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)95
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)16

Reflects downloads up to 22 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Korkeila HDashiell SHarviainen J(2023)Gaming Capital on Overwatch's Official ForumsGames and Culture10.1177/15554120231198890Online publication date: 14-Sep-2023
https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120231198890
Zhang GWu JJeon GChen YWang YTan M(2023) Towards Understanding Metaverse Engagement via Social Patterns and Reward Mechanism: A Case Study of Nova Empire IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems10.1109/TCSS.2022.321167910:5(2165-2176)Online publication date: Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCSS.2022.3211679
Parshakov PNaidenova IGomez-Gonzalez CNesseler C(2022)Do LGBTQ-Supportive Corporate Policies Affect Consumer Behavior? Evidence from the Video Game IndustryJournal of Business Ethics10.1007/s10551-022-05137-7187:3(421-432)Online publication date: 14-May-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05137-7
Friman URuotsalainen M(2022)Gender and Toxic Meritocracy in Competitive Overwatch: Case “Ellie”Modes of Esports Engagement in Overwatch10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0_8(135-154)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0_8
Siitonen MRuotsalainen M(2022)“KKona where’s your sense of patriotism?”: Positioning Nationality in the Spectatorship of Competitive Overwatch PlayModes of Esports Engagement in Overwatch10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0_6(89-112)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0_6
Välisalo TRuotsalainen M(2022)Player Reception of Change and Stability in Character MechanicsModes of Esports Engagement in Overwatch10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0_5(67-86)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0_5
Vahlo JKarhulahti V(2022)Two Overwatch Player ProfilesModes of Esports Engagement in Overwatch10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0_2(11-30)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82767-0_2
Madden DLiu YYu HSonbudak MTroiano GHarteveld CKitamura YQuigley AIsbister KIgarashi TBjørn PDrucker S(2021)“Why Are You Playing Games? You Are a Girl!”: Exploring Gender Biases in EsportsProceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445248(1-15)Online publication date: 6-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411764.3445248

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents