eSports players have the same kind of stress as professional athletes
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“ E-sports ”, which captures competitive computer games as sports competitions, has been spreading around the world every year, and various measures are also being taken in Japan to promote them. The latest research has revealed that players who are active as e-sports professionals face the same types of stress as professional athletes.
Identifying Stressors and Coping Strategies of Elite Esports Competitors
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336080393_Identifying_Stressors_and_Coping_Strategies_of_Elite_Esports_Competitors
Esports gamers experience same stressors as pro athletes, study finds | Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/11/esports-gamers-experience-same-stressors-as-pro-athletes-study-finds/
There are various professional athletes in the world such as soccer, baseball, rugby, tennis, track and field, but such professional athletes are `` strong competition with rival teams and players '', `` anxiety about their performance '', `` failure '' There are various stress factors such as “fear of” and “strain due to lack of communication” in the case of team sports. According to the latest psychological research published in the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations , professional e-sports who participate in large-scale e-sports competitions experience the same types of stress factors as professional athletes. It has become clear.
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Sport psychology has long been a popular field, but research that adds the aspect of e-sports to it is a new field with relatively few examples of research. In addition, eSports is gradually expanding in the academic field, with a new eSports related degree established at the University of Chichester in the UK.
Meanwhile, Philip Birch, a researcher at Chichester University who specializes in athletic performance psychology, investigated the stressors of e-sports players. He is conducting research to analyze the physical and psychological effects of e-sports such as nutrition, coaching, strategy, etc. from various aspects, and the paper published this time will be the first paper in a series of research is.
In order to clarify the stress factors that e-sports suffer, Birch focuses on “ Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO)”, which has aspects similar to team sports such as soccer and rugby. CSGO is a multi-player first-person shooter (FPS) that is divided into two teams, terrorists and anti-terrorists, to fight each other.
There are also professional players in the CSGO game scene, and there are several tournaments where you can earn big money if you win. The total prize money of the CSGO tournament varies depending on the tournament, but it is about $ 75,000 (about 8.1 million yen) to $ 1 million (about 110 million yen).
Psychological support for e-sports players has already been made at the field level, and in 2016, one of CSGO's professional teams,
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Mr. Birch told Ars Technica, a technology-based media, 'This survey is about how e-sports players deal with pressure and play as a team when playing games in front of the audience at competitions, etc. I felt it was a good opportunity to check if we were going to do that. '
According to the survey, many professional teams are 'like family'. Even professional players often conduct CSGO training and competition together in the same room. Mr. Birch said, “Sometimes it ’s very close, like a family, and sometimes it ’s not going well.” If the relationship within the team is cracked, it affects the performance of the whole team. There is also a possibility of affecting.
Birch et al.'S study was the first to investigate e-sport athletes' stressors, using a qualitative approach rather than a quantitative approach. “The qualitative approach was more appropriate for the initial investigation of the various stressors common to e-sports players and how to deal with them,” says Birch. In future research, more subjects may be recruited and a quantitative approach may be adopted.
by Anthony Brolin
The sample size for this survey is very small and covers 7 eSports athletes who were finalists in the CSGO division of ESL Premiership . The players surveyed were those who had a career of 2-6 years as professional players. The survey is conducted in an interview format, but the research team spread knowledge by participating in esports competitions, etc., in order to build the interview questions more correctly. Interviews are conducted on Skype within 3 weeks after the tournament ends.
After analyzing the interview, Birch et al. Concluded that eSports players face 51 different stressors. Two of the most prominent stressors are 'communication problems within the team' and 'pressures that are actually experienced when playing the game in front of the audience.' These are the same stressors experienced by professional athletes. In addition, Mr. Birch wrote that communication problems within the team lead to “do not follow instructions” and “words and criticisms that deny team leaders” during the game.
Other stress factors include 'control of emotions under pressure' and 'lack of confidence in teammates', and from this, 'avoidance of excessive risk afraid of disappointing the team', etc. It seems that we were able to confirm the case where is taken. Also, some e-sports players interviewed seemed to concentrate on raising their own scores rather than improving the performance of the entire team. In addition, there was an opinion that some team members did not work seriously at the time of practice, and “the tension ran within the team”.
Stress factors from outside the team include `` trash talk from rival teams '', `` (critical) voice from social media '', `` pressure to play in front of a large audience '', etc. Among the subjects, `` I do not know whether the camera is over my head, but there are cases where the awareness that many people are seen in the head works, and thereby the performance deteriorates '' There seems to be. In addition, I feel stressed that I have to speak a language other than my native language (mainly English) in order to communicate with the team, to communicate with the team, and to deal with the media. There seem to be players.
by Florian Olivo
Birch and others research teams have also summarized “stress management methods” adopted by e-sports players, such as “get enough rest between matches” or “zone” by blocking the camera mentally 'Enter'. Among the other countermeasures, for example, those that have a direction to solve the problem are, for example, trying to increase the confidence of teammates, or creating a place for discussion after the game, and what is good and what is not good There are communication-based methods such as confirming what was happening. In addition, there are also “measures to avoid stress” such as declining stressed media interviews and shutting out external voices by stopping social media.
Since there were no women among the players studied, in future research, we will investigate the stress factors of female gamers as the sample size increases. In addition, Mr. Birch and others want to investigate in more detail the extra stressors on the team leader. In addition, it is planned to investigate how personality traits such as neurosis , narcissism, and extroversion will affect the performance of e-sports players in a highly stressed competition environment.
Rob Black, chief operating officer of the Electronic Sports League , said, “It has long been known that stress on top players can negatively impact performance. This study proves it and reinforces what we have argued for many years, and this area needs further progress, supporting the continued increase in the number of professional players around the world. 'I should be able to help you,' he said, supporting the work of Birch and others.
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