ABSTRACT

Competitive videogames (esports) are an exciting new media format, affording experiences that are dynamic, ephemeral, immersive, social, mobile, and escapist. Instantaneous digital distribution and global reach also make this media format especially lucrative for industry stakeholders. Despite increasing attention on esports and the importance of entrepreneurship to esports, research has only begun to investigate how entrepreneurs successfully enter this new and tumultuous industry segment. The purpose of this article is to (1) assess the market dynamics at work in this sector and (2) determine some of this unique market’s most important determinants of success. Using a sample of N = 16,326 esport projects between 2009 and 2017, the analysis suggests that crowdfunding an esport project is more difficult than crowdfunding projects in other industries. Then, a logistic regression identifies several success determinants of esport projects. Overall, both stages of the investigation reinforce that a the surplus of eport projects on crowdfunding platforms reflective of significant lost opportunity costs stemming from founder-funder information asymmetries.

摘要

竞技电子游戏（电子竞技）是一种令人兴奋的新媒体形式，提供动态、短暂、身临其境、社交、移动和逃避现实的体验。即时数字分发和全球影响力也使这种媒体格式对行业利益相关者特别有利可图。尽管人们越来越关注电子竞技以及创业对电子竞技的重要性，但研究才刚刚开始调查企业家如何成功进入这个新的、动荡的行业领域。本文的目的是 (1) 评估该行业的市场动态，以及 (2) 确定这个独特市场的一些最重要的成功决定因素。使用 2009 年至 2017 年间 N = 16,326 个电子竞技项目的样本，分析表明，电子竞技项目的众筹比其他行业的众筹项目更困难。然后，逻辑回归确定了电子竞技项目的几个成功决定因素。总体而言，调查的两个阶段都强调，众筹平台上的电子口岸项目盈余反映了创始人-资助者信息不对称导致的机会成本损失。