Research On Fans Culture And Economy

Recently,along with the development and changes in the IT industry and smart devices,the game industry seems to be known by increasingly more people.As the e-sports series are based on the games,the name of them are also becoming familiar to the society,nor to the academic research.As well,the e-sports industry is literally relatively young but energetic,while the situation changes quickly in this domain.At the early stage,the infant industry grew hard by its instinct,which means without much guidance.However,now it has been listed as a formal sports and Chinese government is pushing some policies to work for the benefits of e-sports gaming and the involved.For this instance,the research on e-sports should catch the pace.As I collect and read all the papers on this topic,many gaps have shown in the research domain.There are mostly practionner's research findings,lacking the fundamental theory building literature;as well,the macro environment is different in Western countries and in China.It should be difficult to compare the game series in different countries because of the imbalance of gaming skills.This research will take the perspective of fans culture and economy and discuss the phenomena between fans and competitive gaming league.This paper aims at discussing the interaction between all main factors in the fans culture.As the researcher assumes,the e-sports industry has its impact on the fans while the activeness and involvement of fans also show the influence on the shaping and growth of the industry.Based on the literature searching and review,two hypotheses in direction has been raised:1)The fans culture in e-sports is based on the activities of fans.The organizers,the participators in different activities contribute to the interaction in this domain.2)Main factors in the e-sports fans culture interact via the activities online and offline of fans,and influence on the management of the game.In the first part,definitions and literature review are present in analytic order.By introducing the main objets discussed in this paper,this part serves as a background introduction of the research.Then there goes the history of the e-sports gaming sessions.The organizer has switched from the third party to the game company.This change provoked a huge increase in the popolarity of MOBA game League of Legends.Then goes the thesis of fans culture and fans economy.Comparing the situation in Western countries and China,this part concludes the recent changes and action forms of the fans nowadays.The third part is a methodology explanation.As the object of the research represents a changing relationship and a period of time,the qualitative research approach should be used in this research.This paper is a case study of League of Legends Pro League in theChinese mainland.While the fans show different thinking pattern,it is not suitable to collect quantitative data to describe it in gross.This research is based on raw materials collected from different sources such as interviews,observation and second hand data.In the fourth part,data analysis and discussion is shown in order.There come three findings.First of all,the main factors in this interaction are fans group,LPL,clubs and media,and their interaction is laid on the foundation of fans activities.At the same time,clubs and media,sharing the same main goal,make use of their resources to help the transition of perceived value within this system.In the conclusion part,the research provides some practical advice as well.The professionalization of LPL is inspiring and worth learning to other infant e-sports series They should make full use of the resources and capacities of clubs and media in order to provide more explicit and fascinating substances for fans.Last but not the least,it is inevitable for this research to have shortage and limitations.As we all know that the discuss of a whole industry takes much time and hard work.Further study could follow the instructions of this research.