Understanding complexity and dynamics in the career development of eSports athletes

TLDR

The rapid growth of the esports industry has increased the number of esports athletes, yet research on their professional career journeys remains limited. The study investigates esports athletes’ career development and develops a new esports career theory with practical implications for talent identification, recruitment, and development. The authors conducted a qualitative study with 35 esports athletes from 16 professional Chinese esports clubs. Interviews revealed that traditional career theories are inadequate for esports careers, leading the authors to propose Chaos Theory in Careers as a more suitable framework.

Abstract

With the accelerated growth of the esports industry over the last few years, there has been a corresponding increase in the number of esports athletes. Yet there is limited research examining these athletes’ professional career journeys. This study provides a novel investigation into their career development process. This qualitative study uses a sample of 35 esports athletes from 16 professional esports clubs in China. Findings from semi-structured interviews confirmed our proposition that traditional career theories may be inadequate to capture the complex and dynamic nature of the newly emerged careers within esports. The authors propose that Chaos Theory in Careers (CTC) provides principles that may more effectively describe and explain the nature and main characteristics of esports careers, compared to the more conventional linear or stage-based sports career theories. This study makes a significant theoretical contribution through developing esports career theory which is applicable to a contemporary setting and has practical implications to practitioners for esports talent identification, recruitment and development.