<div dir="ltr">Insofar as esports intersects with histories of video games, distributed networks, the information economy, and computation, I thought this call may be relevant to some folks on this list...<br><div>--------</div><div><br></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">CFP: Special Issue of
ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories on ‘Esports’ </span></b><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Over the last decade, esports – the most
commonly accepted term for organized video game competition – has grown from a
mostly online subculture to a modest media industry in its own right. As a
result, scholars in a range of fields have become interested in competitive
gaming as a research topic. This special issue of ROMchip both contributes to
and challenges the emerging interdiscipline of 'esports studies' by asking the
reflexive question, “what is esports history a history of?” Is it a
dispassionate record of wins and losses, a hagiography of elite players, or a
catalog of the many games that have supported professional play? An
investigation into the many technologies — from arcades to living room consoles
to digital distribution platforms — that have shaped competitive gaming? Or an
accounting of the financial arrangements that have made esports economically
viable (or, seemingly just as often, non-viable)? Whose interests do these
different constructions of esports history serve, and who or what is excluded
by particular orientations towards competitive gaming?</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">The editors of this issue take as a given that
all (esports) histories are partial and that no one approach is inherently more
valuable than any other. Even so, as critically-engaged scholars, we are
conscious of historical inquiry as a site of contestation and we welcome
scholarship that addresses professional gaming’s relationship to a range of
contemporary ills, from ecological devastation to commercial surveillance to
the concentration of corporate power. We are especially eager for contributions
from scholars who have expertise in areas with relevance to esports (science
and technology studies, critical internet studies, celebrity studies, platform
governance, political economy, content moderation, platformization,
surveillance, geography, physical cultural studies, infrastructure studies,
media theory, etc.), but for whom digital games and esports may not be a
primary research area. To support such scholars, we will be offering extensive editorial
support both prior to and after the submission of abstracts. This may include
suggestions about the objects of research based on scholars’ theoretical
interests, primers on the context of particular objects and histories in
esports, and, when appropriate, introductions to potential co-authors. </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">In organizing our critical inquiry into esports,
we encourage contributors to consider the following sample questions: </span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in;margin-bottom:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">How do industry narratives about esports function in
the production of esports history? How is “esports history” constructed
across the esports industry and beyond?</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">How do global media infrastructures serve as contexts
for practice in esports? In what ways do local cultures and political
economies intersect with the planetary computing stack?</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">In what ways do esports dramatize broader issues of
race, class, gender, and nationality?</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">For what reasons have scholastic esports programs
proliferated, and on whose terms have these programs been developed? How
do these programs interact with existing organizations, cultures, and
infrastructures? What are the implications of educational athletic
programs and campus life activities becoming dependent upon game
publishers?</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">In what ways have esports historically been commodified
and how have the affordances of particular media technologies shaped the
political economies of competitive gaming? What revenue models have
different esports stakeholders, from teams to tournaments to publishers,
utilized and to what effect?</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">How do the broadcast structures of platform-native
esports competitions influence esports fandom and spectatorship?</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">In what ways does esports celebrity intersect with or
challenge the broader phenomenon of internet celebrity and “influencing”
as a whole? </span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">What are the ecological and environmental costs of
professional video game competition and how have they changed over time?</span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="color:black;margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;vertical-align:baseline;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif">What purposes do data serve in esports, and in what
ways are data produced, collected, circulated, and monetized? </span></li>
</ul>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Format</span></b><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Prospective contributors should submit an
extended abstract of 1000-1200 words, inclusive of citations. Abstracts should
clearly detail the research object, theoretical framework, and method scholars
plan to employ; scholars should also indicate whether or not data collection
has been completed, if relevant. In particular, we ask contributors to be
reflexive about how their chosen approaches construct esports as an object of
research. We are also open to discussing alternative timelines with scholars
whose ability to perform research has been negatively impacted by the Covid-19
pandemic.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Please email <a href="mailto:romchipesports@gmail.com">romchipesports@gmail.com</a> with all
submissions. Please contact co-editors William Clyde Partin
(<a href="mailto:wcpartin@live.unc.edu">wcpartin@live.unc.edu</a>) and Iris Bull (<a href="mailto:irbull@indiana.edu">irbull@indiana.edu</a>) with any and all
questions.</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><b><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">Important Dates</span></b><b><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">April 6, 2020 – Submissions Open</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">May 31, 2020 – Submissions Close</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">June 15, 2020 – Notifications</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">October 1, 2020 – First Drafts Due</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:black">July 1, 2021 – Publication</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:107%;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> </p></div></div>