Alan Williams

The popularity of esports has gained public interest over the past decade, leading to the industries evolution, providing further avenues for career prospects and educational outreach. Esports, abbreviated from electronic sports, is the nature of playing video games casually or professionally at a competitive capacity, either as an individual, or as a team. Previous research areas in esports have focused on education, psychological factors, health and nutrition, business management, performance review, and commercialisation, factoring in the relevance of esports in sports and supporting terms. The industry has different avenues and perspectives that are advantageous to develop innovative approaches, providing information about the industry, and improving the understanding for the wider general audience. Serious games and games-based learning provides the opportunity to educate and inform about the phenomenon of esports and the potential career industry pathways. This paper presents a conceptual design for an esports serious game to educate players about esports in relation to career pathways and genres. Investigation and adaption of serious game frameworks (e.g. Learning Mechanics-Game Mechanics, Activity Theory Model of Serious Games) will be adhered to through the research. This will lead to the development of a serious game for potential stakeholders to assist in their interests in studying or learning about esports and its multi-faceted career opportunities through simulated scenarios. A mixed methods approach will support the increased frequency of new esports programmes in secondary, further, and higher education, using a serious game to inform prospective students in relation to potential career avenues. The conceptual design idea presented in this paper will support the initial research steps of a serious game to teach about esports.

The term competitive gameplay or gaming is predominantly associated with esports. Esports, a synonym, or abbreviation for electronic sports is an industry that has a global outreach with a lucrative market. This is accentuated by the event driven, business model focus and organised competitive events, often involving sponsorship. These additional characteristics associated with esports is what distinguishes it from traditional or casual gaming. Though esports games can be played individually, they are predominantly viewed as a team activity. Beyond the debate as to whether esports can be classified as a sport, it is an area that has attracted a significant amount of academic research. Research areas have often included esports psychology, esports player health and nutrition and esports management. Some research studies have also reviewed how esports have the potential to e.0quip esports players with relevant 21st century skills such as critical and lateral thinking. One area where esports appears to be under researched is in the relationship between competitive gameplay and learning theories. It can be argued that this is an important consideration when delivering esports from an educational perspective. The aim of this paper is to provide a scoping review of the esports literature identifying empirical research associated with competitive gaming and graduate attributes. Esports game genres will be explored from a gameplay perspective demonstrating via learning theory examples how these games can facilitate graduate attributes in players. Exploring the domain of esports game genres, learning theories and meta-skills, the paper presents a conceptual model illustrating the interrelationship between these areas. The paper also has practical value to educators, who may be as yet unfamiliar with esports, informing them of the subject’s educational benefits from a graduate attribute and employability perspective.