Today, Esports or electronic sports are the largest digital business in the world with future projection in the entertainment industry, with mass events, highly organized competitions, mass audiences, and sponsors that any major sporting world event would like to have, with multimillion-dollar prizes and with a popularity of spectators that in the last World Cup of the League of Legends game, amounted to 200,000,000 people. Esports sites even rival well-known online gambling sites such as betting-sites.ca in terms of popularity.

This contrasts somewhat with what happens in Argentina, where the professional development of the activity is incipient, although it is growing day by day, hoping to reach at some point the numbers of Europe, Asia and the United States.

The international antecedents in electronic sports indicate that video games are no longer a matter of children and have become professional in every sense. That is why all members who are involved in the ESports ecosystem need legal regulation that requires them to comply with their obligations and protect their rights. 

The ball owners

To begin with, it is important to differentiate between the actors that make up the Esports space and to know who is who. In the hierarchical scale, at the top appear the videogame publishers or developers. These undoubtedly have absolute power and are the owners of the ball, but they exercise power due to the intellectual property right which they legally enjoy, as they are the creators of the videogame with which competition takes place. As such, they exercise that right of ownership, exclusivity and exclusion against third parties who use their intellectual work without their due authorization.

This intellectual creation is protected from several aspects: as a comprehensive audiovisual copyright work, the copyright on the game script, the copyright on the game's music, on the characters, on the graphics and designs of interfaces, about the software, and about the branding of the game's name. This allows the possibility of enjoying the right to exploit, promote and market the video game as they see fit and suit them.

Companies such as Riot Games, Valve Corporation or Epic Games, are some of the best examples. They are the ones that create the rules of the game and license their intellectual property rights, through a licence agreement to the companies that organise the events, competitions and tournaments, that is, the Leagues. This part is in the second order of the hierarchical scale of importance in the system.

Many times those licences they obtain are more ‘open’, where some aspects of the game and its rules can be modified, and other times not. In the latter case, they must strictly respect what the publisher indicates to them, depending on the commercial exploitation strategy that the latter decides. These licences can be exclusive or not and territorial also in many cases.

Conclusion

In short, this industry evolves every day, and there is no going back. It won't be long before they are added to the list of Olympic games. The law, as a fundamental tool for regulating relationships in a society, must be present.

Disclaimer: Play responsibly. Players must be over 18. For help visit https://www.gamcare.org.uk/.