We are excited to announce the launch of Esports Certification Institute, a Public Benefit Corporation created to foster professionalism, promote meritocracy, and increase diversity and inclusion in esports. ECI was created to give another path into esports for industry hopefuls

Traditionally, getting hired in esports has sometimes been more about who you know than what you know. Not as a function of corporate maliciousness/hiring manager nepotism, but as an unfortunate result of two smaller problems colliding with each other

A new #esportsjob listing often gets hundreds or thousands of applicants within days. It’s infeasible for many companies to go through all of the applications, let alone interview everyone. As a result, some people get ignored and having previous experience is heavily prioritized

Plus it’s extremely hard to test for deep knowledge of esports in the hiring process. Holistic knowledge of esports is important because the industry changes frequently. Surface level knowledge doesn’t prepare you to adapt when things change. "Those who don't know history..."

We’re trying to solve this problem. Our goal is to ensure that the exam is reflective of what people at the top esports organizations want in junior employees. We built the launch version of the exam to reflect this goal.

We also want to make sure we’re constantly improving. We brought together industry leaders to comprise a company advisory board. We asked our advisors to submit the esports questions and topics that appear on the exam.

See: https://esportsci.org/our-advisors 

To see what's included and to study for the exam, check out our pay-what-you-can-afford study guide.

Click: https://esportsci.org/study-guide/ 

The exam costs $400. We have priced the test at the bottom of industry-level certification exams like the CFA exams (~$3,300 per level) or the CPA exams (~$4,000). Instead we're in line with skill-specific sub industry exams despite being an industry-wide certification.

Furthermore, we have no additional fees associated with certification. The study guide is pay-what-you-can-afford. That said, we recognize that investing into the exam can be difficult. We have no intention of letting price be a permanent barrier to people taking the exam.