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Podcast: New Books in Science, Technology, and Society
Episode: Zhouxiang Lu, "A History of Competitive Gaming" (Routledge, 2022)
Description: Competitive gaming, or esports - referring to competitive tournaments of video games among both casual gamers and professional players - began in the early 1970s with small competitions like the one held at Stanford University in October 1972, where some 20 researchers and students attended. By 2022, the estimated revenue of the global esports industry is in excess of $947 million, with over 200 million viewers worldwide. Regardless of views held about competitive gaming, esports have become a modern economic and cultural phenomenon.This book studies the full history of competitive gaming from the 1970s to the 2010s against the background of...