Esports

Multidisciplinary Teamwork

Barely any parts of the esports sector (or any adjacent industry) exist with people working in isolation. In this practical application focussed module, students will develop their understanding of how to effectively work within various team dynamics and redefine their abilities to overcome obstacles as a group. Students will then reflect upon and apply current working theories to their groups’ performance, to prepare for the integration into the inevitable teamwork in and industry setting.

Module code: ESPO40016

Esports In Context

What is esports and why is it important? On this module, students will develop an introductory understanding of esports in relation to its history, key concepts and ideas, its culture, and current pressing topics/issues. From here, students will begin to speculate on esports’ future to consider where the next big development could come from to further revolutionise the industry. Students will also be introduced to the discipline of academic writing, including an introduction to research and Harvard referencing.

Module code: ESPO40014

Contemporary Marketing Applications

How do consumers decide what event to attend, which product to buy or media to consume? Marketing is a key part of not only esports, but everyday life. In our Contemporary Marketing Applications module students learn the most effective ways of marketing to the newly formed, highly critical audiences that dominate the digital landscape. Covering the history of marketing, basic implementations and analysing the forefront of emerging contemporary approaches, students will not only discover how to reach their audience, but how to innovate and create lasting impact while doing so.

Module code: ESPO40018

Live Broadcast Technology

What puts esports broadcasts at the forefront of the industry? What can esports learn from other sectors? These are the questions on the lips of the broadcast crews creating award winning live content to cover the most popular esports games across the globe. In this module, students use dedicated facilities such as our Esports Hub – an interactive broadcast studio packed with industry standard equipment – to work as part of a broadcast team creating broadcasts that would fit in among industry output.

Module code: ESPO40015

Digital Media Platforms

Esports thrives on the media platforms that make up the digital ecosystem. Dive into the research that directs platforms to govern users in the ways they do, and the ways to make the most of the algorithms they operate upon. Understand the importance of platform responsibility in a budding industry and how it all ties together to propel your presence in esports to the front of the digital landscape.

Module code: ESPO40017

Community Management

Community managers are often the front face of most esports organisations, teams, publishers and even brands. It’s vital that we understand the challenges faced by community managers working in esports and beyond and how they can capture the potential value their communities hold. At any point these communities can be engulfed by discourse, so avoiding any potential crisis situations that might endanger them is key to the role. You will consider what a community is and why their engagement is crucial to the success of the stakeholder and develop an innovative response to an hypothetical emerging crisis.

Module code: ESPO50015

Innovation, Marketing And You

This module is primarily designed for SME employees, students and graduates who are interested in innovation and entrepreneurial activities. The module is also relevant for people who would like to analyse the digital marketing and innovation strategies of their own business or other organisations. You don't need to have a background in innovation or marketing to succeed in this module. This module will equip you with all the knowledge and skills required to investigate growth strategies of other companies, learn from them and apply the learning to your own setup.Participants of the module will experience the life of an innovator. They will work within the secure environment of a university but will be encouraged to critically analyse the current markets to find new opportunities.Through several real-life exercises and interactive discussions, we will take the participants through several aspects of business innovation and marketing to highlight common mistakes that businesses make and possible solutions. The focus will be on experiential learning so you will be expected to apply the knowledge gained through this course to practical scenarios.

Module code: BUSM50012

Digital Marketing Strategy

Effective planning and strategies are key to success in marketing. In this module, you will explore the role of digital technology in business and how to develop and implement impactful digital marketing strategies to achieve the ambition and growth of organisations.

Module code: DSMM50001

Business Law And Commercial Awareness

Module code: LAWS51943

Live Production Workflows

Compounding on your knowledge gained so far, you’ll familiarise yourself with industry workflows to execute an event production aligned with a brief guided by industry figures. This module will have a strong emphasis on team collaboration in a workshop environment, allowing for persistent personal reflection for self-development in one or more areas of specialised roles. You and your production team will work through each stage of the production process using project management models, broadcasting knowhow and marketing application.

Module code: ESPO50013

Media Production Skills 2

Students will unlock the secrets of the TV studio and make a short TV show in a genre of their choice.

Module code: MEDP50201

Managing In A Digital World

How do organisations in the digital world communicate and develop? Explore how businesses have transformed through technological advances to thrive in a digital landscape, and how Esports organisations have developed themselves into leading global brands in this context.

Module code: ESPO50016

Digital Content Creation

Digital content creation is becoming ultra-valuable in a world where content is key. In this module, you will develop skills to help you create, plan and schedule effective digital marketing content, including writing techniques for different media formats such as blogging, digital storytelling and podcasting.

Module code: DSMM50004

Industry Professional Skills & Practice

Define your journey to the esports industry, or where else you may take your career in life after university. In this module students will be encouraged to identify their career pathway in a specialised area, and where that might lead them. Students will develop their professional portfolio and learn key skills that will enhance their employability skills with support from the university’s careers team.

Module code: ESPO50014

Esports Governance

The governing bodies and regulatory authorities who lay down the laws in esports are many and varied, but who are they, and what do they really do? Identify areas of research to inform ourselves about traditional governance methods in sport to ensure stakeholders in professional esports are fully protected, and justify how approaches should be changed to appropriately cater for the unique needs surrounding esports. How is the government treating our sector, and what could they be doing more or less of to assist us in innovating and driving forward?

Module code: ESPO50017

Production Cultures

Production Cultures explores the exciting ways in which different media products and stories are told across different media communication platforms, from blogs to social networks, and from movies to apps. How is transmedia branding and marketing creating content? How are storytelling practices evolving in the current landscape? What are the main franchises to engage global audiences?

Module code: FILM50361

Analytics For Industry

Data drives decisions. Learn how Esports and adjacent industries identify and use key performance metrics within data, and the key principles of analysis that contribute to an employable skillset. Develop your understanding in data collection, big data development, statistical analysis, presenting findings and how these all contribute to decision making in your desired discipline.

Module code: ESPO60018

Emerging Media & Technologies

The decision makers in Esports are always looking for the ‘next big thing’ to captivate their audiences, bring a new technique to their team or revolutionise their workflow. Finding it before your competitors will give you a big edge in the battle for growth in a well-populated space and help you stand out amongst the crowd. In this forward focussed module, you will analyse esports and adjacent industries to identify disruptive and emergent techniques, technologies, ideas and concepts that could be the key to success and how to appropriately respond to those found by competitors. Students will judge how effective they are, discuss how they could produce their own content featuring one of these concepts, or even propose some entirely new ideas to drive innovation in the esports industry forward.

Module code: ESPO60015

Final Year Project

As a capstone to the course, students will conduct a major project, driven by inquiry to innovate in a chosen esports area. Students will be given a strong degree of autonomy over their project topic and the format they wish to conduct it. Some students may choose to conduct a research project and write a dissertation, while others may seek to conduct an esports production or creative work (with an associated written exegesis explaining the work). Students are assessed individually and should have an individual goal they are seeking to achieve through their work, but can collaborate with other students on a broader, overarching project.

Module code: ESPO60014

Global Esports

The esports industry has seen substantial growth globally over the past decade, however this growth has not always been even. With many different industry and cultural practices developing across different platforms, games and regions, it has become crucial to critically frame this emerging ecosystem globally. This module gives critical focus to esports issues both at global and local levels, with attention to inclusivity, governance, and cultures.

Module code: ESPO60016

Corporate Social Responsibility

With high profile scandals from publishers such as Riot Games and Blizzard Entertainment, social responsibility is becoming a pressing issue for esports. This module will look at key areas such as: equality diversity and inclusion, sustainability, working conditions, consumer protection, ethical marketing and business and reputation management. As potential employees in this sector, it is vital that students of esports understand how and why social responsibility is important to the future sustainability of the sector. By the end of this module, students will be able to identify improvements, to innovate the approach to social responsibility for esports.

Module code: ESPO60017

Tournament Operations

Tournaments for esports is a huge part of the industry, with many publishers providing support to event organisers to help continue to grow this marketplace. Tournament creation and planning is a multi-layered process that spans across numerous different areas of business. This is a tournament operations-based module in which you will get to create a hypothetical Esports event and develop the tournament rulebook that would be associated with that event by reviewing and improving upon existing industry examples.

Module code: ESPO30010

History Of Competitive Gaming

Discover the origin of play and how it developed into different forms of competitive gaming. Exploring how competitiveness originated, we will identify key principles of play across eras and how this transitioned through different mediums into the computer games we see on our screens today.

Module code: ESPO30006

Introduction To Esports Media

Livestreaming is an integral aspect of the esports sector, and the personalities involved make the industry what it is. In this module, students will examine different livestreaming approaches and build their own profile in order to better understand the process and develop skills related to, and transferable from, livestreaming.

Module code: ESPO30008

Digital Skills And Practice

Every course and workplace has certain skills that people need to flourish in that environment. These are skills that everybody is expected to know but people don’t always get taught. This module will take you through the basic skills you need to begin to thrive at university and beyond into the professional world, and teach you why they are so important.

Module code: ESPO30007

Business Simulation

Business strategy is a key area which students will be able draw upon throughout their professional lives. In this module, you will learn the basics of ideating, creating and managing businesses using business planning models, strategies and processes to better understand a potential pathway into carving out your own space in the esports ecosystem and how you can bring the business of your dreams into reality.

Module code: ESPO30009

Dta Industrial Placement

Module code: PLAC00002