With about six weeks to go before the German parliamentary elections, the E-Sport-Bund Deutschland has published a new definition of the term eSport. For the time being, one area remains excluded.
At the latest since the collapse of the traffic light coalition, it has been clear that eSports will not be recognized as charitable in the near future. In an interview with eSport last year, lawyer Dr. Oliver Daum admitted that “not even the first step” has been taken. What is missing? A legally adequate definition.
The E-Sport-Bund Deutschland (ESBD) would like to help the future government in this regard. The ESBD’s scientific advisory board recently published a “new, contemporary definition of eSports”, which was approved at the general meeting in December 2024.
Accordingly, the fresh principle is: “eSport is the competition between people on the virtual level of a computer game”. Titles on consoles or handhelds are included in the term “computer”.
Excel eSport is left out for now
On the other hand, programs like Excel are excluded from the definition, although there is an eSport scene and tournaments in this sector. Intentional or accidental? “Particularly with a multi-layered term like eSport, it is important that we introduce a clear-cut definition. It should clearly identify what belongs and what does not belong to the scientific and social discourse,” explains the new ESBD President Christopher Flato to eSport.
According to him, competitions “based on spreadsheets and other formats certainly have their right to exist and a wonderful community, but we do not see such content represented in our eSports cosmos. For us and our members, eSports is a combination of competition, people and, above all, gaming. We discussed this at length with everyone involved and in the end, the common consensus was not to include formats such as Excel competitions for the time being.”
