When I visited my first ↵LAN-party, the ↑Gameparade back in 2002, the first thing that struck me was that all the common clichés of ‘the dedicated computergamer’ did not at all live up to empirical evidence. During the three days I only spotted two overweight pimpled ↵nerds among the 558 attendees. In consequence the rest of the pack consisted of ‘normal youths’ with an articulate tendency towards the sporty type. This in collusion with everybody’s main interest there—to play together—resulted in a ‘side-event’. The LAN-party was situated on a large school’s premises, the gym converted to something resembling mission control … Continue reading →