Game Boys: Professional Videogaming's Rise from the Basement to the Big Time

Game Boys: Professional Videogaming's Rise from the Basement to the Big Time

An inside look at the darker side of the competitive video-game industry traces the rivalries between such companies as 3D and CompLexity, describes the world of professional elite players, and evaluates videogaming as a big-money intersection between business and pop culture. 25,000 first printing. Readers of a certain generation are surely thinking, video games hit the big time? Get serious. But their children or grandchildren know what the author is talking about. Today’s video games can be as exciting as movies; they can require as much skill as more traditional sports; and they are very big business. The author follows two video-gaming teams, Team 3D and CompLexity, as they battle for supremacy in the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), which was formed in 1997. For a sport that many consider to be marginal (if a sport at all), gaming is highly competitive and full of players who are just as idiosyncratic, determined, and flashy as any other pro athlete. Kane does a nice job of catching us up in the excitement—no easy task, as we are reading a book about people who play a game on a computer screen. Like any good sports book, this one is about the game and the personalities in equal measure. --David Pitt Michael Kane is an entertainment features writer for the New York Post , where his greatest contribution to tabloid journalism was giving Arnold Schwarzenegger the title “Governator.” He was a sportswriter and editor at The Denver Post and his writing has appeared in ESPN Magazine and Sport magazine. Used Book in Good Condition