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Paper short abstract

Gaming houses organise the valuation of esports players through metrics, visibility, and training infrastructures. This paper examines how these spaces transform play into a calculable and investable asset within the emerging value economy of esports.

Paper long abstract

Recent work in science and technology studies and valuation studies has emphasised that value is not an intrinsic property of goods but the outcome of situated valuation practices (Birch and Muniesa, 2020; Muniesa et al., 2017). This paper examines these processes in the esports industry by focusing on the role of gaming houses as infrastructures through which players' value is produced and stabilised.

Drawing on qualitative research on the European esports ecosystem, the paper investigates how gaming houses assemble architectural arrangements, digital metrics, streaming infrastructures, and organisational routines that render players visible and comparable. Within these spaces, players are evaluated not only through competitive performance but also through metrics of productivity, audience engagement, and brand potential. These calculative devices enable esports organisations to frame players as assets whose future value can be cultivated and circulated.

Building on recent work on assetisation (Birch and Muniesa, 2020; Callon, 2025), the paper argues that gaming houses function as sites where play is reorganised into a governable form of labour and where players become objects of valuation oriented toward future revenue and investment. In this sense, gaming houses operate as socio-technical infrastructures that align competitive performance, affective commitment, and market visibility.

By examining the everyday practices through which player value is enacted and negotiated, the paper contributes to STS debates on valuation, economisation, and assetisation. Esports provides a revealing empirical site for analysing how emerging digital industries transform play into assets within an evolving value economy.