Priority areas of scientific research in the field of esports: an analytical review based on publications in the scientometric database

Abstract

Esports is a complex multi-component phenomenon, which is confirmed by the presence of a large number of scientific works devoted to various subject areas. The purpose of the article is an analytical analysis of publications devoted to esports in the Scopus bibliometric database and the establishment of priority scientific research areas in this field (for the period from 2005 to 2022). We used bibliometric methods for processing the information received in the context of esports with the program VOSviewer 1.6.18. The constructed bibliometric maps made it possible to identify the leading thematic research areas, i.e. the most popular areas of research in this field: the phenomenon of esports as a multi-faceted phenomenon, the process of learning and training in esports, increasing gaming and physical performance for successful participation in competitions, health problems of players and esportspeople, physical training of esportspeople, study of the influence of computer games on human psychomotor abilities, gender and age characteristics of esports activities, psychological aspects of esports. There is lack of research on the specifics of building a training process with esportspeople, the issue of predicting success in e-sports, definition of professionally important qualities for players, study of the influence of training and competitive loads on the functional state of esports participants.