“Surveys and Research on Strategies for Rule Making in e-Sports Competitions” to be Launched

1. Purpose

e-Sports, an emerging industry having been attracting a growing number of people in many countries, have been gaining popularity in Japan in recent years and are expected to become a growth field in the Japanese contents market. According to the results of a survey by a private company, the market scale of e-Sports as part of the game industry, e.g., sponsor fees, broadcasting rights and ticket sales, was more than 6.1 billion yen in 2019, while some experts expect that the market scale will exceed 15.0 billion yen in 2023.*

As for e-Sports competitions in overseas countries, the respective game publishers have been developing their own rules, and no internationally unified standards have been formulated yet, a process in which third parties are also to be involved.

To address this situation, METI will conduct a project using the FY2020 Expenditures for the Strategic Development of Industrial Standards (Project for Accelerating Strategic Development of International Standards: Surveys and Research on Strategies for Rule-Making - Initiative for Securing Trust in Competitions Involving e-Sports). Under this project, it will conduct three surveys below and strive to formulate overall strategies for making international rules for e-Sports competitions.

1. Survey on overseas trends in standards for e.g., communication environments, for securing fair and appropriate gaming;
2. Survey on and analysis of levels of people’s interest in rule-making in major countries and other regions, details of such rule-making, etc.; and
3. Survey on and analysis of information on decision-making processes, systems, etc. for rule-making.

2. Future action

METI will release the results of the surveys and research after it finishes the project.

• * Source: KADOKAWA Game Linkage Inc .

Division in Charge

Media and Content Industry Division, Commerce and Information Policy Bureau