The competitive play of digital games known as ‘esports’ has surged in popularity over the past few decades. Millions of people nowadays participate in esports as a hobby, and many consider becoming professional esports athletes as a potential career path. However, psychological factors that may predict one's long-term success in esports are not entirely clear.

 

The current Registered Report by Martončik and colleagues (2024) offered a comprehensive test of potential predictors of long-term success in the two currently most impactful PC esports games, namely League of Legends (LoL) and Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO). A wide range of predictors were examined, including native and deliberate practice, attention, intelligence, reaction time, and persistence etc. In both LoL and CSGO, deliberate practice did not meaningfully predict players' highest rank in the past 12 months, as an indicator of long-term success. Younger age predicted better performance in both titles though. Lastly, two title-specific predictors emerged: in LoL, more non-deliberate practice hours predicted better performance, while in CSGO better attention predicted better performance.

 

To explain these findings, the authors proposed the information density theory. Different games differ in the amount of knowledge that is required for achieving long-term success. For information-heavy games such as LoL, naive practice hours may be more essential for players to acquire game-relevant information via playing, compared to information-light games such as CSGO. This might also explain why deliberative practice did not meaningfully predict performance in LoL and CSGO. While this theory still needs to be further tested, the current results will be useful to individuals who are considering pursuing a professional career in esports, as well as professional and semi-professional esports teams and coaches.

 

This Stage 2 manuscript was assessed over two rounds of in-depth review. The recommenders judged the responses to the reviewers' comments were satisfactory, and that the manuscript met the Stage 2 criteria for recommendation.

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/84zbv
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that was used to answer the research question was generated until after IPA.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals: 
 

• Advances in Cognitive Psychology
• Collabra: Psychology
• F1000Research
• Journal of Cognition
• Peer Community Journal
• PeerJ
• Royal Society Open Science
• Studia Psychologica
• Swiss Psychology Open
   

 
Martončik, M., Karhulahti, V.-M., Jin, Y. & Adamkovič, M. (2023). Psychological predictors of long-term esports success: A Registered Report [Stage 2]. Acceptance of Version 1.7 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/b6vdf

Electronic sports (esports), the competitive play of video games, has seen a large surge in popularity over the past few decades. Millions of people nowadays participate in esports as a hobby, and many consider becoming professional esports athletes as a potential career path. However, psychological factors that may predict one's long-term success in esports have remained unclear.

In the current study, Martončik and colleagues (2023) propose to examine potential predictors of long-term esports success, in three currently most impactful PC esports games, namely League of Legends, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, and Fortnite. Based on an extensive review of the literature and four pilot studies, the authors will examine to what extent naive practice and deliberate practice, as well as other psychological factors such as attention, speed of decision-making, reaction time, teamwork, intelligence and persistence, can predictor player's highest rank in the past 12 months, as an indicator of long-term success. Deliberate practice has been proposed to play an essential role in the development of expertise in other domains, and the current study offers a test of the role of both naive and deliberate practice in long-term esports success. The novel measurement on naive and deliberate practice, developed as part of the current investigation, will also be a valuable contribution to future research on esports. Lastly, from an applied perspective, the results of the current study will be of great interest to individuals who are considering pursuing a professional career in esports, as well as professional and semi-professional esports teams and coaches.

This Stage 1 manuscript was evaluated over two rounds of in-depth review. Based on the comprehensive responses to the reviewers' feedback, the recommender judged that the manuscript met the Stage 1 criteria and therefore awarded in-principle acceptance (IPA).

 

URL to the preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/84zbv
 
Level of bias control achieved: Level 6. No part of the data or evidence that will be used to answer the research question yet exists and no part will be generated until after IPA.
 
List of eligible PCI RR-friendly journals: 
 

 
Martončik, M., Karhulahti, V.-M., Jin, Y. & Adamkovič, M. (2023). Psychological predictors of long-term esports success: A Registered Report, in principle acceptance of Version 1.4 by Peer Community in Registered Reports. https://osf.io/84zbv