Abstract

The spectacular rise of esports and its live events have drawn increasing interests from sport and leisure studies. Little information, however, is known on motives behind spectators’ attendance of esports events. Based on a mixed-method design consisting of data collected in cross-cultural settings, we developed and validated an eight-factor measurement scale related to the motives of attending live esports events. In this study, we contend that esports event creates a space where virtual and physical experience are mutually constituted. While motives found in traditional sports and event research are present in the current study, motives unique to esports events are also highlighted, particularly related to its embodied physicality. The study further reveals that male attendees are more likely to be driven by the opportunities of knowledge acquisition, game drama, and social interaction than their female counterparts. This study, therefore, makes novel contributions to empirical knowledge on consumers of competitive gaming events.

摘要

电子竞技及其现场赛事的迅猛发展吸引了越来越多的体育和休闲研究兴趣。然而，关于观众参加电子竞技赛事背后的动机的信息知之甚少。基于由跨文化环境中收集的数据组成的混合方法设计，我们开发并验证了与参加现场电子竞技活动的动机相关的八因素测量量表。在这项研究中，我们认为电子竞技活动创造了一个虚拟和物理体验相互构成的空间。虽然在当前的研究中存在传统体育和赛事研究中发现的动机，但也强调了电子竞技赛事特有的动机，特别是与其体现的物理性有关。该研究进一步表明，与女性参与者相比，男性参与者更有可能受到知识获取、游戏戏剧和社交互动机会的驱动。因此，这项研究对竞争性游戏活动消费者的经验知识做出了新的贡献。