ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION SYSTEM ISSN 2349-9392 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn. 2349-9392/2015; Volume 5 Issue 1 (2019) www.elkjournals.com TREATMENT AND REGULATION OF e-SPORTS Riya Gulati Paralegal at Law Offices of Caro Kinsella and Youth Ambassador for the ONE Campaign, Ireland. LL.M (Intellectual Property & Information Technology) from University College Dublin and BA.LLB from Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, Pune E-mail:
[email protected] Abstract The E-Sportsports industry has seen prodigious upsurge over the years both in terms of revenue and viewership. The three radical chunks that contributed to the esports industry’s rise as the succeeding major spectator sport are as follows: streamed competitions with methodical leagues, proficient contenders can be viewed from anywhere, and live events in top-tier offline sports venues. E-sports has been globally embraced but alike traditional sports, it is girdled with challenges. This paper aims to provide the pith of E-Sports by exploring the crucial issues involved in the cyber sports such as: whether eSports is contemplated as a sport or not?, lack of proper governance and regulatory framework, intellectual property rights issues, exploitation of players, gambling and cheating. It will also accentuate on the necessity to have a proper regulation of eSports by pivoting on the policy recommendations. “What makes the eSports industry such a captivating market is its ability to take video games- ideally played on a couch with a bag of chips and soft drink- to an arena suited for basketball or hockey”- Ben Charlson Key Words: Electronic sports, competitive gaming, eGames, cybersports, eGamers, traditional sport.