The How They Got Game Project is organizing a one-day workshop that will focus on bringing together participants from several slices of the professional computer gaming world with an eye toward providing some initial documentation via oral histories, artifacts, and discussions of the scene. The workshop will have a limited admission and participation is by invitation only. Lunch and coffee/tea for breaks will be provided.

• Friday, 8 May, 9:30-16:30
• Location: New Fourth Floor Space in Wallenberg Hall (160), Stanford University

The How They Got Game Project is organizing a one-day workshop that will focus on bringing together participants from several slices of the professional computer gaming world with an eye toward providing some initial documentation via oral histories, artifacts, and discussions of the scene. The workshop will have a limited admission and participation is by invitation only. Lunch and coffee/tea for breaks will be provided.

We are organizing this workshop to bring together members of the community - players, coaches, team managers, broadcasters, website and community organizers - to present their histories within the scene, ideas about where things are headed and current challenges, and generate discussion on the subject of e-sports and pro-gaming. We will be approaching cyberathletics from the general aspects of players, teams & coaching, and communities & spectatorship (one panel each). We will collaboratively investigate these related topics by looking at digital game technologies, communities, and cultures.  Topics will include team selection, game playing strategies, game hacking & cheating, open source ideas, technology studies, spectatorship and broadcasting, fan culture, and notions of competitive coaching and management. In short, we will look critically and historically at the notions of professional competitive play in digital games in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Speakers include: 

• Annie "Ecstacy" Leung
• Dave "Moto" Geffen
• David Sirlin
• Bardia "Barmoa" Moayedi
• Alex Conroy
• Alexander Garfield
• Marcus "djWheat" Graham
• Brian Thompson
• Dennish "Thresh" Fong

 
The event is organized, coordinated, and moderated by T.L. Taylor, Henry Lowood, Matteo Bittanti, Henrik Bennetsen, Susan Rojo and Amanda Glasser.