Design of a Serious Game to Teach Esports Concepts and Career Pathways

Abstract

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.