Investigating the Factors Influencing Students’ Acceptance of Esports as a Career Choice

Esports is a digital entertainment and gained its popularity due to technological advancements, technology accessibility and elite competition. Esports is recognized as a formal industry and a form of occupation and led to higher career opportunities. In 2019, more than 11,000 job vacancies were advertised and are projected to reach more than 22,500 jobs in 2020. This study investigates the relationship between Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Social Influence (SI) & Facilitating Conditions (FC), towards esports Career Choice Intention (CCI) among 365 private university students. The regression analysis shows that PE, EE, SI and FC have a significant impact on CCI. The independent variables indicate that the five factors significantly predict CCI - F (5, 359) = 40.562, p<0.001. And the R2 result of 0.603 postulated that the model explains 60.3% of the variance in CCI. The research on esports as a career choice intention is few and limits the number of referencing. Possible future research on the key success factors of esports companies could illustrate the industry's career progression. Alternatively, industry players should look at the allocation of budgeting and resources, and its relationship with attitude towards esports.