Contextual essay
For my digital artifact, I really wanted to research and talk about something that meant a lot to me and something that I also enjoyed and believed in. This was critical as I believe that if you do something you want to do then it will be better than if you do something you do not want to do. Tere I decided to do my Digital Artifact (DA) on Esports and the relevance it has in the current social and political climate of 2018. However, I really struggled on deciding on what approach I should take when it came to tackling this topic. I know that the topic of ‘why Esports is a sport’ is a very talked about topic, especially when the Olympics rolls around every 4 years, so I wanted to not just talk about why, but also compare it to another sport that has been swarmed in controversy over the past many years. This is why I chose chess. Not only is it talked about in the same sentence when it comes to what is and isn’t a sport but it also shares many similarities when it comes to the people that play chess and video games. Therefore it was the perfect fit for me. Discovering John Foley’s ‘Ten reasons why chess is a sport’ article during my research gave me the perfect format to discuss my topic. I believe that comparing Esports to chess through these 10 points perfectly shows how stupid the argument against Esports as a sport it. It is very understandable that people don’t totally get Esports. Hell, YouTube Gaming has been killing it for near 10 years now and the majority of the population still don’t understand how one can even make money off of an online platform where you just ‘play video games for a living’. I think that for an idea and genre like Esports to grow and become available for everyone, it needs to get the proper recognition that It deserves and therefore be made into a sport. Online entertainment has been on the forefront over the past decade and for it to keep growing then it’s the biggest genre of Esports needs to break into the mainstream and show that gaming and creating content online isn’t a massive waste of time but actually a viable source of entertainment and income for many many people. This is also why the success of companies like Rooster Teeth and online creators like Markiplier and PewDiePie is such a big deal. To grow and transform into the worlds greatest entertainment and pass time, online entertainment like Esports needs to be recognised by all as a sport. It’s hard for a Digital Artifact like this one to show the achievements garnered by the campaign in such a small window as this semester has been. The only hope that I had for this DA was for it to inform people who do not know much or anything at all about Esports and give those who do know a little bit, some more information for them to help argue and discuss their point.
Bibliography
https://esportsargument.weebly.com/
The Esports debate
Viewed all throughout the research of the Digital Artifact
https://londonchessconference.com/a-question-of-sport/
Ten reasons why chess is a sport
Viewed all throughout the research of the Digital Artifact
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220968200_On_the_Scientific_Relevance_of_eSports
On the Scientific relevance of Esports
Viewed all throughout the research of the Digital Artifact
My Blog 
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