The Rise and Fall of Gaming Houses
Content Creation, Precarity, and Professionalization in Esports
Keywords:
esports, gaming houses, esports history, precarityAbstract
In this article, I provide an ethnographic description of an important, enduring, but shifting entity in esports culture: the gaming house. Moreover, I seek to situate esports gaming houses - cooperative living arrangements for players - within a broader cultural and economic space of precarity. Drawing on interviews, YouTube gaming house tours, news articles, and scholarly research, I chart the changes experienced by esports’ gaming houses as the industry professionalizes. Moreover, I consider the scholarship on whether or not gaming houses have helped combat the precarity from which they arise.
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