Earticle

The integration of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems and large language models (LLMs) has the potential to revolutionize the esports ecosystem by affecting game publishers, professional players, and the nature of esports games themselves. This article examines the relevant advancements in generative AI, their capabilities and limitations in context of gaming. It explores how AI-driven innovations can streamline game development processes, foster fair competition, and enable new types of esports games, including open-world and story focused collaborative games. Furthermore, the article delves into the potential impact of AI on game control mechanisms, the introduction of smart non-player characters (NPCs), and the emergence of human-AI esports.

Esports has emerged as a prominent leisure activity in the digital society, exerting a significant influence in the virtual world. Particularly for college students who have immersed themselves in gaming, the plethora of online activities can be overwhelming. However, esports activities on campus play a crucial role in shaping the identity of these students. By providing a sense of community and belonging, as well as opportunities to develop essential skills such as teamwork, communication, and problem-solving, esports clubs offer valuable experiences. Moreover, they serve as a platform for students to showcase their competitive abilities. This study aims to explore the commonalities and differences that arise from interviews conducted with regard to esports clubs on campus. The focus will be on college students who have grown up in a digital society, deeply engaged in games and esports. Additionally, the study seeks to investigate the emergence and progression of esports clubs within collegiate settings in both the United States and South Korea. The participants were interviewed via video-conferencing platforms, such as Zoom, or in-person meetings, with each session lasting approximately two hours or less. Through this research, we aim to propose that the activities of esports clubs among Korean as well as American university students can contribute to the establishment of a healthy esports culture, centered on the restoration of amateurism, which is often overshadowed by professionalism.

The main debate related to eSports is whether eSports are sports or not. This is because it determines the academic direction of eSports. However, this sentence will reduce the academic domain of eSports and work negatively to build an independent academic domain of eSports. If eSports are sports, it can be sufficiently discussed academically from the perspective of expanding the sports field. This can deal with sports business, industry, and professional eSports players’ skills from the perspective of sports. However, eSports are beyond the realm of sports. The most important digital-based platform or device influence directly affects our daily lives and culture. This is a problem to be dealt with in the realm of eSports. In order to establish an independent academic area of eSports, eSports should set eSports as the core value of human movement, digital technology, and sports under the definition of eSports, and various academic studies should be conducted based on this.