Determinants of Esports Highlight Viewership: The Case of League of Legends Champions Korea

Studies on esports league demand via new media platforms are limited yet. This paper is the first to identify determinants of esports highlight viewership. Using set-level highlight view count from YouTube, we analyze various determinants to explain view counts. As a result, we found that the number of kills, playoff games, age of video clip, 2nd round games, and 3rd set is positively correlated to view counts. Outcome uncertainty and upset results do not affect view counts. We interpret the results that as highlight clips are released after the game is finished, viewers can know the results when making a decision. Or, relatively short highlight videos reduce opportunity costs for fans and fans do not care about game outcomes much

Ugly or Pretty: The Effects of Aesthetics and Exercise Involvement on Consumers’ Evaluations of Healthy Functional Foods

PURPOSE This study explores the impact of visual shape and exercise involvement on consumers' evaluation and happiness with healthy functional foods, specifically protein cookies. METHODS Using a one-factor design with two levels (pretty vs. ugly shape) and one measured variable (exercise involvement), we uncover interesting insights. RESULTS Consumers highly engaged in exercise show a greater purchase intention for ugly-shaped healthy functional foods compared to pretty-shaped ones. Conversely, consumers with low exercise involvement express a higher purchase intention and happiness when it comes to pretty-shaped healthy functional foods compared to their ugly counterparts. CONCLUSIONS These findings contribute to the sports management and sports science literature by shedding light on how visual shape influences the evaluation of healthy functional foods by sport consumers. Furthermore, this research offers valuable practical implications for designing the shape of such foods to cater to the preferences of sports enthusiasts

“Don’t Give Up!”: Can the competitiveness and difficulty of video games build persistence for a subsequent non-gaming task?

Video game players must face difficult challenges that require determination and dedication. Such grit is a valuable quality in other non-gaming contexts that necessitate persistent behaviors. Research suggests that competitive and difficult video game play may acclimate players to arduous challenges and steel them against hardships. Participants played competitively (one-on-one) or cooperatively with an NPC (two-on-two) against NPC opponents of varying difficulty (e.g., easy, medium, or hard) in the video game Super Smash Bros. Subsequent persistence was measured in an anagram task that included unsolvable items. Results suggest that video game competitiveness is necessary to facilitate subsequent persistence. However, the difficulty of opponents did not influence the amount of time players spent on the anagram task, despite withstanding the most competence-thwarting game play against hard opponents. The current study suggests that competitive play, in general, adequately jumpstarts persistent behaviors in players and that players may not cultivate persistence by enduring frustrating game play but, instead, may be invigorated or enticed to attain goals when challenged