Convincing collection, furthering the field of sociological esports studies

Kalle Jonasson
Halmstad University

In a recent anthology, the prolific and critical sport scholar Anne Tjønndal musters a fine crew of researchers with an interest in the social issues of esports.

One interesting aspect of the point of departure in the book is that the question of whether esports is to be seen as sport is sidestepped. Partly, this choice emanates from the fact that esports associations now often fill the ranks of regular sport umbrella NGOs.

But in a way the question is still addressed, albeit in an epistemological way. Are the same problems that we see in sport existent in esports, and could the theoretical tools used to unpack and explain social issues in sport be utilized as assets in esports research.

The overall impression is that Tjønndal really knows what she does. The topics are very varied, but the exact degree of variation is explained and thematized in a way that convincingly frames this emergent field. Just to give a quick review of the number of papers being published in this strand, there has been around 10 papers published each year since 2018.

But what I found primarily lacking in this fine collection of papers was the conceptual and philosophical work.

So, is the same problematic identified in the field of esports as in its virtual namesake? One cynical way of answering is, yes, the problems are the same since the same tools and perspectives are used. But this is more of a problem pertaining to critical theory as a whole (Latour, 2005), than specifically to this field. Another way of answering is, no, they are not the same, but the methods and theories still apply and function to reveal new and fascinating findings from this white spot on the map of sports.

The most emergent social issues pertain to gender and mental health, and this aspect is given thorough treatment throughout the treatise. Sjoberg and Wilner thus look in to how women and transwomen have fared in the world of Hearthstone, while Piggott, Tjønndal and Hovden scrutinize the gender pitfalls of recruitment to esports organizations. The final chapter of this theme is given by Rogstad and Skauge in their inquiry into the preferences based on intersectional aspects about the gender representations of sports videogame avatars among players.

The next theme covers mental health, doping, and cheating in three revealing chapters. Poulus and Polman comprehensively reviews the literature of stress and coping in esports, followed by Wall Tweedie, Rosenthal, and Holden discussing how to address the question of doping in esports, both from a historical perspective and from sports perspective. Concluding this part, Dyer offers a detailed and fascinated report on the many ways cheating is possible in virtual cycling. They do so by misrepresenting their avatars, deceiving in-game, and by manipulating both data and hardware.

One final empirical section covers inclusion and diversity in esports. Hayday and Collison engagingly teases the reader by asking if esports could fill the shoes of sports in contemporary CSR and inclusion agendas, where the latter’s proficiency might be waning or out of date. Abanazir’s concomitant chapter is a rich description of all the hindrances there might be for esports to fully be integrated in the Olympic Movement, from the perspective of esports, as well as from the viewpoint of the Movement.

With this volume Tjønndal demonstrates two things: firstly, that the social study of esports is a thing, and that it needs to be further researched, and, secondly, that she continues to impress on and push the field of sport studies with her precision, speed, and networking skills.

The book could use a chapter on e-sport and education and one on the aspects of gaming youth staying at home (or perhaps a combination of them both). But what I found primarily lacking in this fine collection of papers was the conceptual and philosophical work. So, when Dyer starts to, en passant, ruminate over virtual cycling athleticism as simulation or illustration, I feel that the level is heightened. It doesn’t take more than a rhetorical question to sublimely stimulate the reader:

Ultimately, then, the philosophical question that should be addressed is whether an e-cycling app is intended to simulate an athlete actually cycling in reality, or whether it is only concerned with the performance of the avatar in the simulation (p. 124-125).

As if she anticipated my concern here, Tjønndal raises her case against there having been too much theoretical and conceptual work in this body of knowledge, and that what is lacking is a robust corpus of empirical studies. To this end, the book at hand is purposeful. Perhaps her second warrant to the field, more sociological work, might fill my theoretical need, as I am one of those conceptual esports theorists who launched the field (in this very fine web journal nigh on twenty years ago).

Copyright © Kalle Jonasson 2024