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13. Challenge others 9.9
14. High ranking and stats 9.8
15. Fame 9.5
16. Make money from sponsor 9.5
17. Opportunity for a relationship 8.7
Table 6: Second Round Questionnaire
Chapter 5: Discussion
Bartle's Quotient
The first part of the research further investigates the Bartle's Quotient (Bartle,
2009) to re-examine the relationship between player-type Achievers, Explores,
Socializers, and the Killer with professional players. The responses are dissected and
analyzed with the premise of Bartle's Quotient.
All the professionals displayed traits of concrete measurement of success in their
game in regards to the Achievers. The players have all reached the top ranking system
called Challenger as the top 200 players amongst all the players. Even in the
Challenger rank, they still have to progress through grinding points in this ladder
system to fight for the number one spot. Besides ranking system, these professional
players are known for their positions in the game, claiming to be the top tier of their
specific roles. In order to become a professional player, a minimum requirement of at
least a Challenger ranking must be reached in order for any recruitment team to
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consider for tryouts. One of the participant stated, "I want to be the best. If I'm not the
best, there is no point in playing this game." Consequently, they do take pride in their
achievement as they enjoy being admired as a celebrity in this gaming community.
However, pride and honor do come with the sacrifices and cruel reality. Many
professional players have to abandon their normality of life just to chase their goals of
becoming the best in the world. Some have dropped out of school, quit jobs, or even
moved out to other places. For example, our participant#1 and #2 left their country,
Hong Kong, to come to Taiwan to chase their dreams of becoming full-time
professional gamers.
Specialized in studying the mechanics and concepts of the game, the sole
purpose of professional players is to adapt and acclimate new environment of the
ever-changing nature of the game. As the meta of the competition modifies with every
gaming patch, these professional players have to adjust and accommodate brand new
conditions. Therefore, the category of Explorer from Bartle clearly justifies the
behaviors of these professional players. All the players have demonstrated their
dedication to their careers by mastering the mechanics as well as the mental
challenges. Many players have mentioned that they have spent tremendous amount of
time to unearth and uncover the secrets of this game. " I put a lot of effort in the game.
Playing is very serious. It is a self-competition to myself. I put a lot of time into this
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game and try to be better every time I play," said Participant #3. Playing no longer is
mere entertainment. It becomes a meticulous, repetitive practice of formulating the
best equation to defeat one's opponent. In addition, spectating and studying other
players is a must for these professional athletes. "I play to win. I play to prove myself
that I am better than others in the game, so I put a lot of effort in this game, not just
playing, but watch a lot of streaming, a lot of players online, videos and VODS from
other professional players." Many other professional players also stated that they have
spent over 12 hours of practicing everyday to improve skills and proficiency. As
participant #4 stated, "I'd often skip sleeping and just play the game, trying to grind
and learn about the games. It takes a long time to hit the top of the ladder and
sometimes you run into bad luck with trolls. So I'll have to play a lot and really reflect
upon my mistakes in order to improve."
As a Socializer, one's purpose of gaming is to interact and make friends with
others in the virtual world. As it turns out, these professional gamers most likely
started out engaging in this game from this perspective. Many have stated that they
got to experience LoL by the introduction of friends. " I played it with my friends a lot,
and started playing until now. If I didn’t play with friends, I’m not sure if I will still
play." Another participant also commented, " I love playing with my friends. When I'm
off practice, I played with my girlfriend." However, they mentioned friends as those
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that have already been friends before the engagement of this game. They rarely try to
befriend with strangers that were gathered on this platform. Furthermore, at the
current stage of their careers, playing with friends is the least of the priorities. Some
even have abandoned gaming with friends. One of the participate stated that he has
stepped out from playing with friends because the environment was casual and
reckless. To these professional athletes, every chance of gaming time is to improve
and strengthen their skills. " But now, I don't have time to play with others. I play with
people to increase my skills." "Therefore, if I play as a professional gamer, I will be
able to have capable teammates as well as stronger opponents." When they do player
with others, the players are likely to have the same competitive skills as the
professional players. Therefore, in order to become better players, these professional
gamers must be surrounded by competitive atmosphere.
Concerning Bartle's category of the Killers, professional players find themselves
seamlessly morphed into the realm of constant action and combat. The nature of the
game, described by these athletes, is to form a team of 5 individual players. The
objective is to vanquish the opponents and destroy the base of their counterpart. " This
game is about defeating the enemy team with 4 team members on your side and by
getting objectives like towers, creeps, and dragons, you get the resources to take out
the other enemy team base." As the result, this game is composed of thrill-seeking
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encounters of numerous challenges and conflicts that really defines Bartle's 'giving
them a hard time' in Killers.
In conclusion, professional players correspond to the categories of Bartle's
Quotient in Achievers, Explorers, and Killers. They do their best to grind into the best
ranking system, simultaneously developing their individual skills. Furthermore, the
objective of their job is to win the competition, thus annihilating their opponents to
proceed to victory. However, they do not frequently foresee their career and gaming
channel as a platform to socialize and befriend with others. According to Bartle, a
person is calculated and totaled 200% across all categories, with no single category
exceeding 100%. In this case, a professional player exhibit behaviors of Achievers,
Explorers, and Killers that all exceed to 100%, with a total of 300%. Therefore, the
Bartle's Quotient should implement another category to fit the criteria of professional
players. Based on derived results, in order to attract and recruit more professional
gamers, a game developer could create an environment with high competition,
ranking system, complex game mechanics, and PVP system to generate an eSports
scenery.
ERG Theory
In addition, incorporated with in-depth interviews, the Delphi process captures
the essence of the motivations and assesses the levels of each individual motivation.
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The analysis of players' feedback will be generated from the theoretical framework of
ERG Theory by Alderfer (1969).
The first category of professional players in Taiwan exists at the level of
existence needs. As the theory states that basic human needs such as form of safety,
shelter, food, physiological and human needs, players do emphasize the importance of
existence attribute as an immense motivation to their persistence in professional
gaming.
Table 7: Existence Needs
Material needs, especially money, push players to perform and compete at the
highest level of their careers. Tournament rewards reciprocates extrinsic motivation
theory of monetary needs (Berri, 2012) that explained the interaction between the
performance of professional athletes with financial compensation. In addition,
professional gamers also accentuate sponsorship as a critical channel to receive
economic reimbursement besides tournament prizes and salary. However, it is also
imperative to investigate the low average (7.92) of salary as one of the main
motivational factors. Even though salary was not discussed through the interviews due
to confidentiality of the companies, we can assume that the currently trend of salary Existence Needs
Tournament rewards Make money from sponsor
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for Taiwanese professional gamers are relatively low compared to China and North
America. Therefore, price winning is the crux of their financial incomes that dictates
the outcomes of their careers of monetary success. For example, a renowned North
American LoL player, Xiaoweixiao, described a scenario that happened this year at
the World's League of Legend tournament where a prominent Chinese team was the
prospect that could have won it all with top notch players in all positions. However,
due to the high salary of these individual players, they were not, argued by
Xiaoweixiao, motivated to perform at the expected level and fell shortly after the
initial matches. He claimed that when players have low salaries, the only way to gain
economic remuneration is through international tournament events with tremendous
cash price, some even over the millions. In order to win it all, players must motivate
themselves to compete at the right state of mind and condition (Heitner, 2015).
Therefore, money indeed serves as one of the main elements of motivations in
professional gaming.
In addition, professional players are profusely influenced by the motivations of
relatedness needs. As belongingness plays an active role in affecting the performance
of the players to motivate their game-play skills and mentality, these gamers require
the approval by team members and other professional players. Therefore, in order to
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excel in an organizational environment, one must work extremely diligent to keep up
with the team atmosphere and skill level which emphasizes the importance of playing
for the team. Consequently, players can engage in knowledge exchange and
demonstrate their leadership skills in order to build a successful team. Besides having
a coach, every player on the team takes part in leading and guiding in forming
strategic plays and in-depth game tactics. One individual player particularly
mentioned how vital team communication is to achieve fundamental teamwork. He
stated that although staying individually motivated is extremely essential, coming
together as a team is the real key to success. For many talented players, transitioning
from excellent individual plays into a cohesive teamwork is an arduous journey that
takes incredibly long time to communicate and cooperate with teammates. Therefore,
the best way to solve this problem is to move into a gaming house to develop close
relationship with one another to build strong team dynamics. "I think we can all agree
that there has been huge improvements over the past couple of weeks since we moved
in. The team becomes more constructive. You can discuss, explain things, and group
everyone around a computer to look at strategies, instead of saying, 'hey look here's is
a video I found.' Things have been moving a lot more quickly since moving into the
house."
Relatedness Needs
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Approval by teammates and other professional players Playing for the team
The competition allows me to showcase my leadership skills The team environment allows me to help my other teammates
through good communication Seek competition Challenge Others
Winning
By playing competitively, it allows me to learn about the real world Opportunity for a relationship
Table 8: Relatedness Needs
Besides seeking solace amongst the teams, professional players aims to
challenge other with fierce competition. By outplaying their opponents, they find
great joy and motivation to stay relevant and competitive in this field. Therefore, the
desire for winning exceeds beyond mere psychological ambition. Professional players
believe that an accent on winning is a direct indicator of success. They place emphasis
on, for example, the numbers of trophies and tournaments they've won in the past.
Moreover, through surviving in constant confrontation of combat and skirmishes in
the virtual world, they develop practical skills from the simulation of the real world.
While speculators may take their talents in gaming for granted, every mouse clicked,
item bought, character selected, or magic skill shot, is meticulously calculated and
forecasted into perfection to avoid mechanical mistakes. Transitioning from the online
realm to the real world, gaming has also taught them to make precise decisions
instantaneously when obstacles are brought upon them. Furthermore, not only do
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professional gamers learn from gaming, but they are also taught to behave properly in
a white-collar environment with a full organizational system of an owner, coach,
analyst, manager, teammates, and other related staff members. Lastly, given the
condition of protracted hours into practicing and scrimming, professional players
often lack the time to participate in extracurricular events to meet their counterparts.
Therefore, they are more likely to find someone that shares similar interests in the
virtual world. As the result, professional gaming offers them the channel to meet girls.
Although physical endurance of gaming is undoubtedly a necessary attribute for
professional players, they exhibit great resilience in mental challenges as well as the
innate desire of self-development. Identical to other sports, professional gamers seek
to pursue self-esteem, knowledge, empowerment, confidence, and other
self-achieving elements. According to ERG theory, these motivations integrate
seamlessly into the category of growth needs.
Growth Needs
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With enormous hours contributed to forging their craft, these gamers must
dedicate their entire life to accommodate the reality of eSports environment. They
must learn the ability to control one's impulses, to avoid the negative emotions of
working as a team and confrontations, and the desires of giving up gaming when
facing difficult obstacles. While other young people may go out partying and
celebrating, professional gamers must be able to turn down immediate pleasure and
instant fulfillment in favor of focusing on training and perfecting every technique.
Evidential of self-discipline traits, they are required to make decisions, take actions,
and execute game plans regardless of difficulties, discomfort, or dilemma that may
come in their ways. As the result, players persist to improve their mentality as well as
physical game-play.
Moreover, when professional players reach an elite tier, a sense of gratification
would be granted, differentiating the superior amongst the rest. Thus, the sense of
accomplishment comes into play. While they are mechanically activated, out-dueling
and smarting their opponents produces sense of achievement, rewarding with
emotional satisfaction. Players also reported that they feel very contended with their
current stage of the careers, knowing that their hard work in gaming has paid off and
reached fruition. As the result, players are motivated to play for themselves, creating a
legacy of fame and glory that lasts forever.
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In addition to all the relevant motivation factors, it is also significant to reflect on
the ones that scored a low mean. One of the factors that requires discussion is playing
for nationality. According to the Allison (2004), sports are carried out to promote and
advocate political relationship with countries. By defeating the opponent from another
country, one can exemplify nationalism and constitute political dominance. Therefore,
as an assumption, professional players should embody the element of nationality
within their career. However, this discrepancy could be influenced by the nature of the
competition. As the tournaments are held in regular season, players endeavor to aspire
a name for themselves and the team. When the playoff season begins, the stage
becomes an international arena with multi-diversified cultures. Thus, professional
players then demonstrate a sense of nationalism in their mentality.
Furthermore, a comparison diagram was composed to demonstrate the
similarities between the Bartle's Quotient and the ERG Theory in professional players.
The Achievers and Growth Needs share similar attributes as both categories seek to be
the best at the gaming pyramid. In addition, the explorers carry out the analysis of
game while having the self-empowerment and self-actualization to become better. The
Killers, on the other hand, have complementary characteristics with the ERG theory
such as challenging others, seek competition, or winning. Lastly, the socializers
interact on the basis of a friendly, amateur environment whereas the ERG theory
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describes the relationship of professional players to be strictly based on professional
level. Such information could be very useful for gaming developers and companies to
recruit professional players, knowing their motivations and the various factors they
enjoy and thrive upon while playing professionally.
Table 10: Comparison of ERG and Bartle's Quotient
Summary
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Held this year from October 1 to October 31, 2015 in Europe , online game,
League of Legend, is in full swing to expand global exposure . Taiwan has also sent
two teams, the Flash Wolves and AHQ, to participate in the biggest gaming
competition this year. As the current generation surfeited with information explosion
and technology boom, it is no doubt that online gaming and eSports have become a
trend, shifting the social perception on gaming. In the past, Taiwanese parents might
consider 'playing video games' as a negative phenomenon that causes attention deficit
and sleazy cognitive behaviors. However, gaming has gradually transformed into an
expertise and accepted as sport competitions. Therefore, with much demand of online
gaming, professional players are the hierarchy of gaming as both the leaders and the
prosumers in this industry, thus projecting the potentials in gaming careers and
magnifying their significance. This study has confirmed that the professional gamers
displayed assertiveness and high sense of accomplishment in their careers. As the
result, the motivations they value the most become the sole incentives and
encouragement for professional players to stay engaged and focused in their field.
However, this research does face some limitations. Due to the high confidentiality of
gaming business, not much of monetary benefits were discussed from the interview.
In addition, with the nature of gaming industry, it was difficult to collect a higher
sample size of professional players to assemble more accurate responses and feedback.
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Although becoming a professional player would seem like a dream career, reality
does come into play. The attraction to fame -- to become the next big thing -- is a
draw of needle in a haystack. Even though money is a great motivation, alike other
professional athletes, there's more to the story. While Some could be searching for
identity, others might only be seeking acceptance . There's also the motivation of
doing what you love for a living—a feeling unfelt in many lives. It is not all for fame
and fortune, but the importance of enjoying the game and just having fun makes the
core of the motivations.
Limitation
Though the study has investigated deeply into the motivations of
professional gamers in Taiwan, it does still face some limitation. As the nature of the
gaming industry and the eSports scenery, gaming companies are reluctant to engage
in interviews and research reflections without high monetary compensation for their
time. As the result of an individual researcher, the samples of professional gamers are
time. As the result of an individual researcher, the samples of professional gamers are