Overview
The Nordic Esports project, conducted in 2023–2025, examines esports in the Nordic countries from various perspectives, aiming to create a thorough description on how esports is organised and what kind of esports culture is being created in the Nordics. The project will examine both individual Nordic countries and their esports activities as well as the Nordic Esports Federation (NEF) and other forms of Nordic esports collaboration, such as Nordic championship tournaments. The aim of the project is to report how esports align within Nordic society, culture, language politics, and sports, and what are the special features of Nordic esports compared to global esports environments. Three central focus areas of the project are (1) organisation and funding of esports in the Nordic countries; (2) values and politics in Nordic esports; and (3) diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in Nordic esports.
Research Questions
The research project will respond to the following research questions:
RQ1: How is esports organised and funded in the Nordic countries?
RQ2: What kind of values and politics are driving Nordic esports organisations, events, and practices?
RQ3: How are questions of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), particularly in terms of gender equality, addressed in Nordic esports events and organisations?
Expected outcomes
The project will produce three studies, each responding to one research question. All studies will be published as freely available open access publications. The results presented in the studies will provide an overview of Nordic esports, its organisational and financial models, culture and values, and DEI perspectives. The results can be used to gain valuable insight into national and cultural differences within the global esports phenomenon as well as examples of good practices that can be implemented elsewhere. The results will be beneficial to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers alike.
Researchers and funding
The project is conducted by Postdoctoral Research fellows Usva Friman and Matilda Ståhl at Tampere University Game Research Lab as a part of the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies funded by the Research Council of Finland 2018–2025 (decision number: 353265).