Affiliation:
1. University of Kragujevac, Serbia
Abstract
As the eSports community is growing worldwide, a new modality of interactive television programme dedicated to it is also gaining momentum. eSports' primary purpose was purely recreational, but nowadays, it can be considered as an alternative form of competitive gaming with well-developed infrastructure and a vast number of members and followers. Even at its early stage, followers detached the physical presence at the tournaments from their other activities (socializing, etc.) as they were offered an alternate mean of communication via dedicated video streams. Soon after, an interactive TV eSports programme was introduced making a logical leap towards globalizing. The number of viewers/followers of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, League of Legends, Dota2, or Starcraft 2 tournaments is increasing daily, so the specialized TV programmes are providing its content accordingly. This chapter reviews the current trends in eSports community through the prism of interactive TV broadcast and analyzes it future potential.