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...
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*CFP: Special Issue of ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories on ‘Esports’ *
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?
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.
In organizing our critical inquiry into esports, we encourage contributors
to consider the following sample questions:
- How do industry narratives about esports function in the production of
esports history? How is “esports history” constructed across the esports
industry and beyond?
- 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?
- In what ways do esports dramatize broader issues of race, class,
gender, and nationality?
- 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?
- 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?
- How do the broadcast structures of platform-native esports
competitions influence esports fandom and spectatorship?
- In what ways does esports celebrity intersect with or challenge the
broader phenomenon of internet celebrity and “influencing” as a whole?
- What are the ecological and environmental costs of professional video
game competition and how have they changed over time?
- What purposes do data serve in esports, and in what ways are data
produced, collected, circulated, and monetized?
*Format*
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.
Please email romchipesports(a)gmail.com with all submissions. Please contact
co-editors William Clyde Partin (wcpartin(a)live.unc.edu) and Iris Bull (
irbull(a)indiana.edu) with any and all questions.
*Important Dates*
April 6, 2020 – Submissions Open
May 31, 2020 – Submissions Close
June 15, 2020 – Notifications
October 1, 2020 – First Drafts Due
July 1, 2021 – Publication
