Abstract

Aims: Safe work and play are important to a healthy lifestyle, and celebrities have a responsibility to role-model good practices. Our study explored health behaviours reported by recreational players and observed in video game streamers and esports players, aiming to identify whether professionals (esports/streamers) role model healthy gaming to their audiences.

Method & Results: Survey responses were collected from recreational (N=450), streamers (N=43), and esports players (N=38). Chi-Square Tests of Independence, ANOVA models, and t-tests revealed that significantly more health behaviours were used in esports, but they also experience more negative outcomes than other players. While streamers and recreational scored significantly lower than esports players, they still experienced high rates of negative outcomes from gaming, indicating more systemic protections are needed. Although professionals reported acting as good role-models, recreational players rarely noticed the health behaviours used by them, indicating differences compared to conventional sports. In addition, 20 hours of behavioural observation of video game streamers (N=20) identified a positive relationship between popularity and health behaviours performed when broadcasting.

Conclusions: We can see that professional esports players do engage in health behaviours, but also suffer significantly more from adverse effects from gaming. Further, although streamers and esports players do value these self-protective effects, they do not consistently encourage audiences to perform such behaviours, failing to use their platform for health promotion. This calls into question duty of care in the video game industry, and further research needs to identify effective role-modelling strategies to help protect gamers of all levels.