This paper situates esports within the field of platform studies in general and the platformization of cultural production in particular. As an interdisciplinary approach to studying the complex relationship between computing technologies and cultural production, platform studies offers a valuable, antireductionist framework for placing esports within their broader sociotechnical and political economic contexts. Following an introduction to the basic tenets of platform studies, this paper details a number of ways in which esports are dependent upon major platforms, centralizing technical and economic
control over esports ecosystems in the hands of publishers. In light of these relationships, I argue that esports convert traditional sports, a platform-independent commodity, into a platform-dependent one. This paper ends by considering several ways in which esports may themselves be considered platforms.
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