Narratives of Spectatorship: E-sports in Poland

This text is focused on the question of relations between players, video game enthusiasts as spectators, and fictional content introduced by the technology: software and hardware that support he ludic experience. The first topic of interest will be e-sports, or electronic sports: competitively played games, often involving dedicated gaming arenas and TV / internet live coverage. The second point of interest will be the players experiencing game content via streaming channels or internet TV (such as twitch.tv). In-depth analysis, based on participant observation, will cover a recent major event which took place in Katowice, Poland, namely the finals of the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) World Championship of March 2014. The text focuses on a selected group of computer games, which have potential to connect both active players and spectators of the particular game in ludic experience (e.g., StarCraft, League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive). The thesis of the paper states that by recognizing the features of selected modern computer games, which create a unique environment where on-screen actions are conducted through various technological means, TV-mediated ludic pleasure is 'transferred' from professional players (who, at a certain level, do it for the sake of money, not just for 'fun') to e-sports enthusiasts, the vast majority of whom also consider themselves as active gamers. Each game, apart from having a 'storyline' created in real life by the players, is culturally encoded by secondary and tertiary narratives stimulated by the viewers, commentators and in-game observers. Nowadays, similar situations occur outside the e-sports genre, involving players who are immersed in participatory, fandom-based practices and who experience numerous games before their actual release. Therefore, my main questions of interest on the topic of e-sports relate to how and why they became so popular in Poland, and what impact they have on the ways that both gamers and non-gamers perceive modern video games. The community aspect of e-sports is also considered, with a focus on cultural (and national) diversity among e-sports enthusiasts.