Abstract
The phenomenon of eSports is omnipresent today. International championships and their competitive athletes thrill millions of spectators who watch as eSports athletes and their teams try to improve and outperform each other. In order to achieve the necessary cognitive and physical top form and to counteract general health problems caused by several hours of training in front of the PC or console, eSports athletes need optimal cognitive, physical and mental training. However, a gap exists in eSports specific health management, including prevention of health issues and training of these functions. To contribute to this topic, we present in this mini review possible avenues for holistic training approaches for cognitively, physically and mentally fitter and more powerful eSports athletes based on interdisciplinary findings. We discuss exergames as a motivating and promising complementary training approach for eSports athletes, which simultaneously combines physical and cognitive stimulation and challenges in an attractive gaming environment. Furthermore, we propose exergames as innovative full-body eSports-tournament revolution. To conclude, exergames bring new approaches to (physical) eSports, which in turn raise new topics in the growing eSports research and development community.
Highlights
In today’s digital age, eSports is an up-and-coming, widely discussed and yet mostly recognized new sports genre that is increasingly gaining social, cultural, economic, and scientific interest (e.g., Hallmann and Giel, 2018). eSports – a form of sport where the primary aspects of the sport are facilitated by electronic systems and the input of players and teams as well as the output of the eSports system are mediated by human-computer interfaces (Hamari and Sjöblom, 2017) – have become a significant part of today’s sports and gaming culture
The Olympic Council of Asia approved eSports to be part of the Asian Games in China 2022. Scientists underline this development with scientific rationales for eSports as a showcase of the merit of enhancing cognitive abilities to increase sports performance (Campbell et al, 2018)
A survey revealed that 55.6% of professional and high-level eSports athletes believe that physical exercise enhances their eSports performance (Kari et al, 2019)
Summary
In today’s digital age, eSports is an up-and-coming, widely discussed and yet mostly recognized new sports genre that is increasingly gaining social, cultural, economic, and scientific interest (e.g., Hallmann and Giel, 2018). eSports (electronic sports) – a form of sport where the primary aspects of the sport are facilitated by electronic systems and the input of players and teams as well as the output of the eSports system are mediated by human-computer interfaces (Hamari and Sjöblom, 2017) – have become a significant part of today’s sports and gaming culture. Professional eSports athletes play the video games they specialized in to improve specific gaming skills including gamepad and keyboard handling, game knowledge as well as strategy and tactics These long-term cognitive, physical and mental tenses can favor the development of negative healthrelated side effects. One part of such a health management model would include attractive and effective (training) approaches that meet the specific needs of eSports athletes in terms of overall health and gaming performance. To this day, no eSports-specific, well-founded and scientifically proven training approaches are known. Due to their playful training approach and the typical setup, exergames could offer a somewhat familiar and attractive training approach for eSports athletes while potentially achieving effective cognitive, physical and mental outcomes for eSports athletes
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