Learning esports as an educational course

Being involved in gaming does not necessarily mean playing games, there are a lot of potential avenues that gaming has, one could be a character artist, game developer, a game tester on the gaming side of things. On the esports side of things which is competitive gaming, an individual could potentially be a social media manager, an esport journalist, event organiser, among others.

Prestigious universities like EMLyon based in France have taken the first step by being the first business school in Europe to integrate esports into their curriculum. The University of California Irvine has introduced a course on Esports Management that has an advisory board that contains industry experts from some of the biggest Esport and Gaming organizations, them mainly being Twitch, Activision, Valve, Microsoft to name a few. Multiple universities in the USA are also offering esports scholarships, similar to traditional sports scholarships, getting exceptional talent to participate in various college esport leagues.

A lot of universities and high school abroad are integrating Esports into their curriculum as a potential career path, be it as a professional athlete or as a social media/community manager or as team owner/manager. Just like how schools in India are teaching students to build the foundations of becoming an engineer or a medical professional, maybe it is time for Indian schools and colleges to start preparing young adults to take steps into the esports/gaming industry considering its sheer growth globally and in India. It is important to inculcate a progression path for esport athletes once their career gets over, individuals may be great gamers but their lack of management skills could potentially hamper their personal and professional growth in the esports ecosystem.

Gaming has now become an India wide phenomenon with society understanding what it is about and with the growth of games like PUBG Mobile, Clash of Clans that are primarily mobile-driven and the games like CSGO and Dota2 played mainly on PC’s, society as a whole is slowly becoming aware of what gaming is to individuals and how being involved in gaming has multiple benefits in terms of social, mental and professional growth which is why it is time for educational entities to understand and learn about this growing phenomenon and understand that being involved in the ecosystem can be equally rewarding personally and professionally.