| Abstrakt: |
Introduction: eSports is a recent phenomenon that has been garnering interest, mostly among young people. At first, electronic games (which today make up eSports) were considered simply a game, a pastime close to the concept of leisure. Given the dizzying growth of this industry and the emergence of championships with a significant audience, however, eSports began to be related to Sports, besides the possible 'sporting' processes present therein. Currently, eSport comprises a set of activities in which people participate, train and develop mental and physical skills through information or communication technologies. Despite this, the impacts of this phenomenon are little explored by scientific literature. Objective: This study seeks to develop a co-word analysis of the eSports research field to highlight the topics addressed in the 21st century. Methods: This bibliometric research analyzed 246 articles retrieved from the Web of Science (Thomson Reuters, New York, USA) database. Letters, editorials, book reviews, conference abstracts/papers, and news were excluded. Discovery and analysis of the main research topics in eSports was performed using the SciMAT software tool. Results & Discussion: Since eSports is a recent phenomenon, the field covers several research topics such as sport, video-game, play, game, motivations and gambling. Academic interest and publications on eSports increased significantly only since 2016, with a significant number of studies within humanities. Conclusion: Despite the few studies, eSports is not just a research topic, but an area of knowledge that encompasses several themes from different areas. In fact, it is a modern human phenomenon that uses information or communication technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
