Draft - The growth of E-Sports and its viewership and financial backing has spurred debate over its identity as a "sport."

Over the past few years, E-sports has begun to attract worldwide attention and develop a steady following. What is E-sports? E-sports stands for electronic sports and it is oftentimes used interchangeably with the term competitive gaming. This involves organized video and computer gaming at a competitive level, oftentimes professionally, with players making E-sports a career.

It may very well be that some of you have never heard of E-sport's existence or perhaps it is difficult to understand how something like gaming, that is usually viewed as a casual activity done while sitting on one’s couch or at one’s computer, could evolve into a career. However, it is not unusual for casual activities to evolve into a person's passion and then into their career.

A number of similarities between traditional sports and E-sports blurs the line that separates them

If we look at American sports, there are popular games such as basketball, football and baseball where oftentimes people play spontaneous games for fun. Most people do not expect to able to take that casual activity of pick-up games and turn it into a lifestyle; however, many people do. Hundreds of people play sports at a professional level from the National Basketball Association (NBA)  to the National Hockey League (NHL). Teams are formed with staff and resources behind them. Games are hosted for people to see either in the comfort of their homes or live at game itself. 

E-sports shares more than just this aspect of evolving from a casual activity into a profession with traditional sports. In fact, it shares every one of the aspects of traditional sports I just mentioned. E-sports have developed an infrastructure of teams, coaches, analysts, and broadcasts and if one is willing, people can buy tickets to watch the games live. The similarities are there, which raises the question: does E-sports fall into the same category of basketball and football as a "sport" or is it something else?

I was able to talk to Dr. Stephen Roth a professor of kinesiology at the University of Maryland College Park and a specialist in Exercise Physiology, and ask him a few questions regarding the defining characteristics of a sport.

E-sports cannot be considered a sport due to a lack of physical performance

In order to determine whether E-sports is a sport or not, it is necessary to first define a sport. When asked to define what a sport is, Dr. Roth stated that a sport is an organized competition characterized by rules or guidelines, physical performance, and "a combination of two or more groups competing against each another in those rules and guidelines." Between these teams, there must be a clear way to ascertain who won and who lost or whether there is a tie.

E-sports clearly fulfills the requirement of an organized competition. There are many professional gaming organizations that sponsor leagues and competitions for specific games such as Major League Gaming (MLG), and Riot Gaming, a publisher that sponsors the professional circuit of its own game, League of Legends (LoL). The games have rules and constraints established within the games themselves and the organizations can modify these rules as the games undergo changes.

These organizations also develop and enforce rules for the professional players regarding conduct, teams, and trades just as the National Football League (NFL) does for professional football players. Punishments are also meted out according to these rules in the form of fees and player suspension or expulsion. In terms of winners and losers, all of the games within E-sports involve an objective or point system that makes the victor, loser or establishment of a tie clear to the players and to those watching.

Despite all of these factors, one factor remains missing and that is the physical performance. When asked whether the physical component was vital to defining an activity as a sport, Dr. Roth responded by saying most of the public views assumes that sports have a physical activity. He did state that there are other activities such as poker and chess that are "mental activities" or performances; however, the lack of the physical component makes these activities a performance or a competition but not a sport.

ESPN President John Skipper made a similar statement at a conference in September. Regarding E-sports, he stated, "It's not a sport - It's a competition. Chess is a competition. Checkers is a competition. Mostly, I'm interested in doing real sports." However, Chess is officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee as a sport. It is also interesting to note that ESPN began a partnership with video game publisher, Valve, to stream the world final games of DOTA 2, a popular computer game, which at the very least suggests that E-sports has monetary value.

E-sports is less physically demanding but still a sport, requiring physical ability and mental prowess

There is one argument that chess, although not an athletic sport, still represents the competitiveness of what the public usually views as a "sport." The same could be said for E-sports. Players form teams and practice relentlessly with the hope of becoming the best in their respective game. One could say that the spirit of competitiveness remains whether from behind a computer screen or on the football field. The fans of E-sports and the organizations behind the competitions themselves fuel this same competitiveness through merchandise such as apparel for professional teams like TeamSoloMid and promos such as this video made specifically for the 2014 League of Legends World Championship Finals.

Furthermore, some have made the point that, though clearly not as physically demanding, E-sports still places physical requirements upon the players in order to perform at the highest level. Players train hours at a time in order to mentally prepare themselves to play the game and to condition themselves physically. E-sports requires players to have extremely fast reflex response time and physical dexterity in order to play at a competitive level. Furthermore, each player must train and maintain the mental fortitude required to not only play the game but to play it and win.

All of this must come together whilst under the extreme pressure of thousands of viewers watching them not only at the competition but from their homes on their computers. There is clearly a physical requirement and degree of skill needed to perform in E-sports. However, beyond that, the physical basis of what makes a sport a sport, there is a cultural impact that both traditional sports and more recently E-sports have made and continue to make upon both the players and avid followers alike.

The extrinsic development of E-sports in viewership and financial backing culture support the growing popularity of E-sports.

If one looks at E-sports culture from an extrinsic perspective, in 2014, viewership exploded with over 71 million people viewing competitive E-sports worldwide and over half of them from the United States. According to a digital games market trend brief by Super Data Research, an average E-sports viewer watches competitive gaming an average of 19 times a month, and on average for about 2.2 hours. In fact, in 2013, there were more viewers of the Season 3 League of Legends World Championships than the NBA Finals Game 7 and the MLB World Series.

As viewership increased, the amount of money within the prize pools of E-sports events has also continued to rise with a total of 25 million dollars total worth of prize money for all E-sports events in 2013 with the highest prize pool of any individual event standing at 2,874,382 dollars for The International 2013 of the computer game DOTA 2.

Furthermore, with the rise in popularity major brands both gaming and non-gaming related, such as Coca-cola, Red Bull and Intel, are investing in e-sports through sponsoring events and teams. They view this as an opportunity to reach out to young affluent males, 18-34 years old, through the competitive gaming scene. Samsung, the major Korean corporation, has created and backed its own two League of Legends teams that not only represent them in sponsorship but in name, going by the names Samsung Galaxy White and Samsung Galaxy Blue. The initial input of financial baking will continue to fuel the growth of E-sports, allowing it to reach and be accepted by more audiences globally and increasing the recognition it holds for potential sponsors.

E-sport intrinsic growth is due to the rising perception of E-sports legitimacy from within the scene itself. 

This extrinsic growth in the E-sports scene also reflects the intrinsic growth of competitive gaming culture. It is demonstrative of the increasing impact competitive gaming has on all parties involved in the extrinsic growth, including players, coaches, analysts, sponsors, viewers and other people working behind the scenes of E-sports such as production crew. As E-sports has grown in monetary backing, players have seen professional gaming as a more viable option and a more legitimate career, promoting more commitment to the game itself and further growth.

A typical routine in a professional League of Legend player's life includes up to 12 to 14 hours of practice a day. This includes the discussion of strategy, watching replays of their own games and other team's games, and scrimmages against other teams. This need for a practice schedule has led to the emergence of dedicated coaches and analysts who live and work directly with these teams. All of these emerging positions within the E-sports scene suggest the growing legitimacy of E-sports, while the increase in sponsors reflect the confidence that these major companies have in E-sports as an avenue for marketing.

While the development of the both the numbers and the infrastructure behind E-sports continue to grow further, the fact remains that E-sports is not as physically demanding of the traditional mainstream group of sports. However,  it is clear that E-sports has clearly developed an infrastructure and a following similar if not the same as  these traditional sports that still leaves the ultimate question of whether E-sports can be considered a "sport" or is it simply a competition up in the air. Only time will tell if E-sports continues to grow into the giant that mainstream sports are today or whether it can earn or live up to its title as a "sport."

Jour289 Quiz 11

JOUR289 Practice Video

Vedran Lekic's research in ground research earns him the Packard Fellowship providing assurance of further research

(7)-Important News

Nearly 2 million data lines fill the screen of Vedran Lekic’s computer every day, each representing seismic waves that are detected from of the more than 1,700 seismic stations around the U.S.

(1)-important news 
In recognition of his efforts to integrate computer science and geological studies, Lekic joined the ranks of 17 other early career U.S. scientists and engineers who were awarded a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering last week.

Lekic joins the selective Packard Fellowship gaining funds for further research

(8)-important news
“If you look at the field of those who get it and try to figure out from their research summaries and letters which are the strongest candidate, it’s a difficult task,” said Franklin Orr, chairman of the Packard Fellowship panel. “We always run out of fellowships before we run out of wonderful people to give them too.”

(4)-important news
Lekic is now one of five alumni faculty members who have received the award while at this university, and he will be given access to unrestricted funds of $875,000 over a five-year period to support his extensive research on Earth’s inner structure.

(9)-important news
“The great thing about this fellowship is its flexibility to go chase a really good idea to wherever it leads,” said Orr, a Stanford University professor. “It is an incredibly valuable fund and gives the researchers an opportunity to take off with a good idea instead of waiting a year or more for federal money.”

(15)-explanation
Now that a large fund has been granted to his work, he hopes to spend more time plotting the seismic information in graphs and models so that he may better understand the Earth, Lekic said.

Lekic's research in ground vibration creates seismic maps of the Earth above and below the surface

(10)-explanation
Lekic’s research is based on ground vibration recordings, which he and his students use to detect the scattering of seismic waves across the North American tectonic plate. In conjunction with the National Science Foundation’s EarthScope Facility network, the data is collected from the 49 states and Puerto Rico and makes up about 3.8 million square miles, Lekic said.

(5)-explanation
From this data, Lekic is creating a map that will not only cover all 48 contiguous states, Alaska and Puerto Rico, but also dive deep into the Earth’s crust and core.

(2)-explanation
Lekic has already used the seismic information to investigate why and how the crust moves over the Earth’s mantle. As of now, the deepest any machine has been able to dig was about 12 kilometers into the Earth’s crust, a minuscle fracture of the roughly 6,730 kilometers it takes to get to the Earth’s core. Using the seismic information helps geologists see the shapes and sizes of the Earth’s layers.

(18)-explanation
As a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkley, Lekic formulated higher-resolution images of the Earth’s mantle structure, stemming from his creation of a global seismic velocity model. Not only is the model able to give geologists a better understanding of plate tectonics, but it also helps explain the movement of continental plates and their evolution, Lekic said.

(13)-explanation
“What we do is comparable to how an ultrasound let’s us see through our bodies,” Lekic said. “But this lets us see through the Earth.”

(3)-background

Other than his seismology research contributions, Lekic is also a forerunner in the new geological field of neutrino geoscience.

Levic and McDonough making new progress in the field of Neutrino Geoscience

(6)-background
Neutrinos are a type of electrically neutral subatomic particle that are created during radioactive decay or some kinds of nuclear reactions. The particle, which was only discovered geologically in 2005 and physically detected for the first time last year, moves through every kind of object, McDonough said.

(16)-background

“We are both interested in the energy that moves the tectonic plates and creates the magnetic shield around the planet,” geology professor William McDonough said.

(17)-background
Lekic and McDonough are attempting to harness that energy to create another way to build a model of the Earth.

(11)-background

“It sounds magical; it’s like a particle that exists but you can’t really see,” Lekic said of neutrinos.

The Growth of Interactive News Media on Devices and Mobile Apps

By Patrick36 and Michael1

News media continued to become more integrated with apps and smartphones. Society has begun to see the trends and growth patterns that users have with these new avenues for accessing news. News is now available in text, audio and visual forms that can suit different worldwide users preferences.

Growth of visual Journalism hampered by small screen sizes and technical issues

Despite an increase in visual journalism, much of the population has been found to prefer reading the news in a text format. Although certain countries have an increased importance on receiving news through video and pictures, globally, a very small portion prefers to have their news based around videos. As the image to the right demonstrates, almost a quarter of these users are turned away by the small screen size of mobile devices and about 18% are turned away by the variety of technical problems that can arise from attempting to utilize video clips over the internet. Despite high interest, local news is rarely consumed in comparison to celebrity, fun, and sports news stories. 

The rise of news apps have not discouraged users from accessing TV and printed news

Though news consumption through mobile devices has greatly increased over the past few years, it has been shown that many of these users continue to access the news through other outlets. An average of 50% of users who utilize a tablet to access the news across all countries are shown to read printed news at least once a week and 86% are shown to watch the news on TV. This pattern continues with smartphone users, suggesting that many users seek news throughout their day from different sources based on convenience. These users may also point to many users being motivated beyond the convenience of mobile devices to seek and access news. 

Access to multiple news platforms shown to encourage user subscription while quality keeps users

 The ability to access one’s news across multiple platforms has been shown to be a positive factor in getting news subscribers. News publishers have made attempts to utilize this factor through bundle subscriptions, allowing users to pay for access these multiple platforms for one news publisher. These bundle subscriptions include not only print options but digital, smartphone and tablet, options as well. While quality is also a factor in getting subscribers, it has been shown to have a greater effect on maintaining these subscribers.  The experience of this content and the quality of specific writers within the publisher are also important. 

United States Leads in Users that Consume Audio/Visual News Media

According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2014, 34% of consumers in the United States used audio/visual means for news consumption. This is the highest number out of all developed countries surveyed. The primary online sources for this included Facebook (37%) and YouTube (17%). Consumers preferred audio/visual news due to its added drama or to increase comprehension. Even given this high consumption, consumers still blamed buffering and screen size as the major issues that prevented audio/visual consumption. 

Customizable Websites are shown to be viewed as more ethical and to appeal to power users concerned about privacy.

Personalization and customization different based upon the concepts of control and agency

A normal person hearing the words personalization and customization may not think there is much of a difference between the two. However, in terms of web interfaces, these two words could not be more different. 

Personalization is when the interface and webpage adapts to the user without the user going out of his or her way to make any changes. A very simple example of this are the recommenced videos that appear on the YouTube homepage. Every time someone watches a video, YouTube keeps track of what video was watched and what that video is associated with. If I watch a video of Radiohead's live performance at the Reading Festival in 2008, YouTube now knows that I like Radiohead, and the next time I come to YouTube there will be videos related to Radiohead such as the music video for their song "Karma Police." 

On the other hand, customization is the concept of the user actively changing and modifying the interface based on their own preference. A good example of this is the very website you, the reader, are using right now. Blogger allows users to customize their blog to their own needs and wants. One can change the theme of the blog, the layout of the posts, and add a variety of gadgets to the page such as the twitter feed that you see on the right side of this page. If I so desire, I can remove that gadget or move it to a completely different section of the blog. 

Personalization places the website in control of the information that a user sees, while customization gives all control to the user. The former is more focused on the results, the relevance of the information to the user, while the latter is more focused on giving the user agency. Agency is the idea of control and freedom to make one’s own decisions. Customization serves to give users agency through the ability to actively make the website “their own.” Personalization is passive in the sense that the user does not seek to make changes, rather, the changes “just happen.”

Privacy and power usage are directly linked due to one's perception of control and convenience

The results of a study on user's response to both personalization and customization suggested that in a low privacy environment as power usage increases in a User-Initiated Customization (UIC) situation, perceived control and convenience increased, while in a System-Initiated Personalization (SIP) situation, as power usage increased, perceived control and convenience decreased. In a high privacy environment, as power usage increases perceived control and convenience increased; however, there was no significant difference between the two varying degrees of tailoring. 

It is quite interesting to find that users are actually significantly concerned with the use of their data as they utilize the web. I did not expect the introduction of privacy as a variable to so greatly affect the results seen in the second experiment. However, as society continues to become more and more integrated with the web and web-based services, it only makes sense that privacy becomes a bigger concerns for both power users and non-power users alike. I am still surprised that the results showed that power users favored the SIP in conditions of high privacy. I personally believed that power users would favor customization in either case; however, the results demonstrate that even power users favor convenience if they feel that their information is protected while utilizing personalized content.

Customization Found to be more Ethical than Personalization

Another study looked at the ethical consequences of customization and personalization. Its results mirror the conclusions found regarding privacy in the previous study. The study concluded that customization is viewed more favorably from an ethical standpoint as users were not having anything forced upon them without their prior consent as is the case in personalization. 

In the graph, the results for one of the four groups is shown and one can see that customization tended to fare better than personalization across the board. It is important to note that, although each group varied in certain percentages, that customization had a greater percentage of the sample who found it of higher quality in comparison to personalized sites for all four groups. 

Study results suggest that students perceive the web to be the most beneficial use of technology for learning.