Drink a coffee, win a gold medal
A brief look at doping in esports
Issue #12 of The Journal Club is a timely look at doping in esports! What do you think about the recent announcement of the inaugural Olympic Esports Games in 2025? Let me know in the comments below or in the subscriber-only chat!
Hello JOMT Reader!
You may have guessed, from the title of my publication, that I am not very big on first-person shooter (FPS) games. Most of the games I write about are turn-based games or strategy games. But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate FPS games. These games offer some of the most intense gaming experiences that require hand-eye coordination, quick reaction times, and both strategic and tactical thinking all at the same time.
FPS players have been testing their skills against one another in competitive online play and more recently, in international esports competitions. This past July, video game players were treated to the ultimate form of recognition: the International Olympic Committee officially announced the inaugural Olympic Esports Games, to be held in Saudi Arabia in 2025.1 Controversy aside, I am excited for the future of video games being recognized not only as a leisurely past time but as a way to bring the world together.
International competitions of skill are built on a foundation of fair play. The Esports Games in 2025 will be no different. For traditional Olympic Games events, there are anti-doping controls to ensure that substances that enhance an athlete’s performance are not used by athletes to create an unfair advantage over others.2 There’s even an extensive list of prohibited substances published by the World Anti-Doping Agency.3
If you look at the very long list of prohibited substances, you’ll find ones, like anabolic steroids, that have made news headlines. These substances are typically used to build muscle and enhance athletic performance, which doesn’t seem directly applicable to esports. But other substances, like caffeine, are not prohibited according to the anti-doping rules.
Should some of these substances, previously considered harmless from an athletics point of view, be reconsidered in the context of esports? Several studies have shown that caffeine can enhance performance in games.45 Even though the effect of caffeine is very small in some cases — sometimes on the order of 0.01 seconds — that very small difference could mean the difference between gold and silver.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at a recent study about the effects of caffeine on esports performance. Will that grande americano or Monster energy drink help you become better at FPS games?
How the researchers approached the problem
How does caffeine affect performance in an esports setting? To answer this question, researchers asked 24 people to run through a series of tests using a software called KovaaK’s Aim Trainer (https://kovaaks.com/kovaaks/main). It’s an app with a bunch of scenarios, like shooting at non-moving targets, that’s designed to help players improve their reaction times, tracking of moving targets, and accuracy. If you’re interested in trying out aim training software, there’s a similar free app called Aimlabs (https://store.steampowered.com/app/714010/Aimlabs/).
After a warm-up session, the 24 participants completed an initial test to measure their baseline performance. Once the baseline test was complete, the participants were given plain water, water with a small dose (1 mg/kg) of caffeine, or water with a high dose (3 mg/kg) of caffeine and told to wait an hour. Studies have shown that caffeine has the strongest effect about an hour after intake and the researchers wanted to make sure that the caffeine effect was at its maximum.
The participants then completed the same test they did for the baseline at 60, 80, and 100 minutes after caffeine (or plain water) intake. There were three parts to each test:
The first part of the test was a static clicking task, which required players to quickly and accurately click on one of six non-moving targets randomly placed on the screen. Once a target was eliminated, a new one appeared in a random location, so that there were always six targets on the screen. This continued for 60 seconds, and the goal was to eliminate as many targets as possible. Four metrics were tracked: number of shots fired, hit rate (number of successful hits ÷ 60 seconds), accuracy (successful hits ÷ shots fired × 100), and the score (hit rate × accuracy).
The second part of the test was a reactive tracking task, which required players to track a moving target as accurately as possible for 60 seconds. The performance metric for this task was accuracy (time on target).
The third and final part of the test was a reaction time test, which required players to respond as fast as possible by pressing the spacebar after a prompt on screen. You can try a similar free version of this reaction time test here: https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime. The metric for this task was average reaction time.
A cup of coffee improves hit rate and score
When the researchers looked at the results from the first part of the test, they noticed that caffeinated players had a higher hit rate and score, compared to non-caffeinated players (see panels A and B in the figure below).
Curiously, the other metrics, shots fired and accuracy, were not different between caffeinated and non-caffeinated players (more on that later).
It’s worth noting that the numerical difference in hit rate between caffeinated and non-caffeinated players was about 0.1. That is caffeinated players hit 0.1 more targets per second compared to non-caffeinated players. That may not sound like much, but these tests lasted 60 seconds, which means that at the end of the test, caffeinated players had about hit about 6 targets more than non-caffeinated players.
A cup of coffee improves tracking accuracy and reaction time
Caffeine also improved the tracking accuracies of players (see panel C above). The differences weren’t huge — anywhere from 1–2% difference in accuracy between caffeinated and non-caffeinated players. But as we’ve seen already, that 1–2% could make a big difference over a longer period of time.
Finally, caffeine also improved reaction times, in some cases as much as 20 ms (see panel D above). It doesn’t sound like a lot but that difference in reaction time could mean the difference between you getting the first shot against your opponent and being cannon fodder. It could also mean the difference between gold and silver, based on some of the results from the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Can we trust these results?
The biggest question on my mind is how hit rate and overall score in the static clicking task turned up as differences while accuracy and shots fired did not. You would expect one of these things to change — more shots fired or more shots hitting the target — for these metrics to change. The only way I can make sense of this is that doing math on these small numbers (dividing and multiplying) exaggerated the initially small differences.
Does a mathematical artefact mean that the results aren’t valid? I’m not sure — but it does raise questions about caffeine’s true effects. But combined with the reactive tracking and reaction time results, caffeine does look like it can affect in-game performance.
Keep in mind though, this study was done with only 24 people, 22 of which were male. It is hardly a representative sample and certainly not big enough to make solid statements about whether caffeine should be considered for the anti-doping list for the Esports Games.
The other limitation to keep in mind is that the performance metrics were measured in a controlled environment using aim training software. These metrics may change in the chaos of an actual game or under stressful situations during a Esports Games match. Other factors, like the rush of adrenaline during a competition, may mask or enhance the effects reported here.
Final remarks
We’re still a while away from the Esports Games, it’ll be interesting to watch how the anti-doping conversation specific to esports evolves. Nicotine, which belongs in the stimulant category like caffeine, is also not currently regulated although there aren’t any studies regarding nicotine’s effects on esports performance. My sincere hope is that the IOC and WADA will take a good, hard look at some of these substances from the perspective of fair play.
If you’re interested in the study, you can read it for free here: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sports-and-active-living/articles/10.3389/fspor.2024.1437700/full
If you liked what you read, please consider giving this post a like and sharing it with your community! What issue would you like to see addressed for the Olympic Esports Games? Let me know in the comments below!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10808346/
This study looked at the effect of caffeine on performance in FPS games and found that caffeinated players were more accurate, had a higher kill ratio, and were faster at finding targets to kill in the game.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031938420303450?via%3Dihub
Another study that looked at the effect of caffeine on performance in FPS games. This study found very similar results to the study above: caffeine made players better at FPS games.
This is super interesting! I didn't expect to see differences, but the gaps here are noteworthy and definitely deserve more research.
Practically speaking, I figure every esports player is on caffeine already, so there's probably no real-world implication . A bit like the use of steroids in competitive bodybuilding. Bad news for your esports career, though, if you can't handle caffeine!