Becoming someone in Esports: Identity, aspiration, and psychological commitment in a digital entertainment ecosystem

• We surveyed 297 Italian players to compare esports participants and casual gamers. • Esports participants reported more intense and collaborative gaming practices. • We identified four gamer roles with distinct identity and commitment levels. • We found that professional commitment depends more on role type than play time. • We propose a role-based typology to study labor in informal esports ecosystem. The classification of esports participants remains conceptually fragmented and empirically inconsistent, particularly in informal ecosystems lacking standardized professional criteria. This study examines how individuals involved in the Italian esports scene define their roles, occupational identities, and career aspirations within the precarious and loosely regulated esports market. Drawing on survey data from 297 gamers, including casual gamers and esports participants, we explore differences in gaming practices, digital skills, employment status, and career orientation. Informed by theories of aspirational labor and boundaryless careers, we propose a role-based taxonomy that recognizes functional roles such as administrators, content creators, and hybrid professionals. Esports participants differ from casual gamers in gaming intensity, platform preferences, and digital collaboration skills, but not in employment status or career values. Crucially, perceived professional commitment is more closely tied to functional roles than to gaming frequency. Most esports participants do not consider their engagement economically viable, underscoring the aspirational and precarious nature of esports labor. By situating player self-perceptions within broader dynamics of gaming platforms and digital entertainment, this study advances a context-sensitive model of esports engagement and contributes to comparative research and policy debates on esports and digital entertainment.