Mexico is the most interesting potential market for eSports

“The esports are an activity that will be inserted in the daily life, no matter if we want it or not,"said José Ángel Garfías, research professor of the Faculty of Political Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), who directs the research project "Electronic sports as a creative industry. Socio-economic context, communication and consumption practices".

In collaboration with the University Anáhuac, the Mexican ESports Federation (Femes) and Finisterra investigation process, investigators seek UNAM to position at the vanguard in investigation of esports.

According to Garfías,the investigation, who started last January 6, will last three years, during which three investigation articles will be developed, on the three issues to analyze:

-The socioeconomic dimension of esports in Mexico
--The communicative practices of the members of the esports communities in Mexico.
The consumer practices of the public that consumes products linked to esports.

Adolfo Gracia, professor of UNAM and member of Finisterra investigation group, said that, due to the fact that the team has developed an investigation line around videogames several years ago, the new investigation on the esports industry may start from a player profile as well as the public of this discipline.

In this sense, according to a study on the consumption of esports conducted by the Finisterra research group to 232 participants, the average age of these is 20 years and 56% is dedicated to play between five and 20 hours a week, while 69% spend between one and 10 hours to watch content about video games.

Among the premises from which the study starts is the fact that, according to PwC consulting, Latin America is the region with the fastest growth in the esports industry worldwide, since it estimated profits for this industry from 18 million dollars for 2019 and 42 million dollars by 2023, a 57% growth in four years.

Since Mexico occupies the first place in Latin America regarding the income generated by esports in the region; as well as the number 12 worldwide, for Gracia, "Mexico is the most interesting potential market for the development of an esports industry."

They leave traditional means

On the public side of this discipline, according to the Finisterra study, 61% see content related to esports between one and 10 hours a week and at least 39% consider themselves a fan of an esports team.

According to Gracia, these results make it clear that the public of esports is one who is not interested in media with traditional content, since they regularly attend streaming platforms specialized in video games, such as Twitch and Mixer.

“These audiences are not consuming other media, they are public which perhaps television and in general the traditional media are no longer interested so much, but what they are interested in are video games, videogame content and esports,” he said and He added that, in Mexico in particular, esports fans in Mexico are linked more around games in particular than teams.

This is another of the premises of the analysis that was presented yesterday, that is, video players, professional and amateur players are grouped with respect to the type of video game they prefer, whether fighting, sports competition or so-called moba, that is multiplayer format videogames. From the formation of these groups, communities are created.

Professionalization, the challenge

José Ángel Garfías, who directs the research, regretted during his participation that while different universities, such as Anahuac and Tec de Monterrey, are developing very attractive projects around this discipline, at UNAM it is still being discussed whether esports are still a sport or not, although there is already a Mexican Federation of Esports (Femes), recognized by the National Sports Commission (Conade).

In 2019, the Tec de Monterrey campus Guadalajara inaugurated the first esports arena in Mexico and Latin America; while Anahuac University has held different tournaments as required by the university community itself, something that has also reached researchers, who have decided to join the UNAM research, especially to boost the professionalization of the participants in this discipline.

According to Carlos Cienfuegos, director of the Faculty of Communication of the Universidad Anáhuac, content creation, character development and marketing of projects are unprotected areas within the industry that should be part of their research and development, to which will also add as part of the research the economic relevance of this industry in the country.