Why did E-sports Go Mainstream?
REPORT
28 Mar 2019
Why did E-sports Go Mainstream?

Now touted as a multi-billion dollar industry, e-sports has brands queuing up to tap into a highly engaged audience and the players that are capturing their hearts and minds. What transformed a relatively niche entertainment model into a sporting leader?

Eric Cruz

Eric Cruz is the executive creative director at AKQA Shanghai and a multi-award-winning creative leader, director, designer and educator with more than 20 years of industry experience. He is a ‘hybrid creative’ – fusing design, film, moving image, digital media, music, art, technology and innovation to bring a unique perspective to storytelling in the connected age.

Jamie Madigan

Jamie Madigan is the founder of The Psychology of Video Games website. A psychology PhD, he examines and writes about the overlap between psychology and video games, straddling the line between entertainment and scholarship.

T.Bettina Cornwell

T. Bettina Cornwell is the head of the University of Oregon’s marketing department and academic director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. An expert in advertising and marketing, her primary research interest is in difficult and high-context communication where many things are left unsaid, such as in sponsorship, celebrity endorsement and brand placement.

Ian Hsieh

Ian Hsieh is a Cornwall-based journalist specialising in music, technology and visual arts. He writes words for global brands and publications, including Audi, Kodak, Highsnobiety and Bandcamp.