Gaming just leveled up

Academia's interest in e-sports signals industry's ever-growing integration

While many people still regard League of Legends and King of Glory merely as video games for children and nerds, a group of dedicated gamers, entrepreneurs and scholars treat them as a sport that deserves to be granted Olympic status. Although that debate still rages, the fact that e-sports is undergoing remarkable growth cannot be denied.

As e-sports gains more kudos with not only the gaming community but also in the corporate world, more and more competitions and promotions are springing up around the world. And now even academics are dissecting and debating the merits of e-sports. It even had a conference all to itself recently - the China-US Exchange Forum On E-sports, which took place in September in the game lab of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.