“The end product is an internet-native sport that doesn’t need any of the troublesome real-life human players who are bound to disappoint us with their bad behavior. Instead, fans create narratives for players, inventing histories and team culture to surround and explain the random, simulation-based events of the game.”
“To love a book is to constantly interrogate it. … Every time you pick up a book and it is set in another world, written long before some social changes have been made, you have to ask yourself whether or not it is problematic that the orcs are a certain color, or why the villain is disabled.”
“Little reportage has been devoted to unpacking Korean players’ personal histories and the context in which they compete. Esports, like everything else, is inextricably tied to questions of race, class, and structures of power.”