Role Ambiguity and Athlete Satisfaction in Team Esports: A Study on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Abstract

As the popularity of organized competitive digital gaming, or esports, keeps growing, so does its likeness to traditional sports in media presentation and broadcasting. Acknowledging the increasing convergence recognized in current research of both esports and traditional sports, this study applies role ambiguity and satisfaction measurement tools from sports research to an esports context. Data from a survey questionnaire for players of the esports game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (n=102) was used to measure the relationship of role ambiguity and athlete satisfaction in a team esports setting using the correlation analysis tool Kendall’s tau-b correlation. The results of the study imply that the measures are valid for research in the field of esports but also suggest that the nature of roles in esports contexts might differ in nature from those in traditional sports, warranting further research. Slight limitations caused by the sample size may affect generalization of the results.