Abstract
Recent years have witnessed the rise of an eSports market outside of personal computers. However, these forms of “latter-eSports” are often not considered “real” eSports. Thus, further insight into estrangements between the definition of eSports and the social consensus on “real eSports” is essential. Accordingly, this investigation chose Nintendo, a company that has relationships with eSports that have been described as “odd” by Western mass media, and collected chat data from the Nintendo World Championships on streaming media. A qualitative analysis was conducted based on the method of Ethnography and Virtual Worlds and research in game studies, also inspired by both gender studies and sports studies. The results evinced three ideologies: Machismo, Athleticism, and Enjoyment among spectators. Different estimations toward eSports were generated to judge games that could be confirmed as “real eSports.” Spectators who held Machismo and Athleticism values used discourse to express strict demands such as the rejection of casual engagement for a game to qualify as an eSport, whereas those with Enjoyment values believed casual engagement in eSports could remove obstacles for expanding the enthusiast community and help establish eSports as a more significant social event.
