Full Description
This Open Access book provides a comprehensive review of the rapidly developing esport phenomenon by examining one of its contemporary flagship titles, Overwatch (Blizzard Entertainment 2016), through three central themes and from a rich variety of research methods and perspectives. As a game with more than 40 million individual players, an annual international World Cup, and a franchised professional league with teams from Canada, China, Europe, South Korea, and the US, Overwatch provides a multifaceted perspective to the cultural, social, and economic topics associated with the development of esports, which has begun to attract attention from both commercial and academic audiences.The book starts with an introduction chapter to Overwatch and esports engagement in general, co-authored by the editors. This is followed by 15 unique chapters from scholars within the field of game cultures and esports, representing ten different nationalities. The contributions construct thematicsections that divide the book into three parts: Players, Diverse Audiences? and Fan & Fiction Work. As such, the parts provide a wide-ranging overview of esport engagement, thus disclosing the phenomenon's cross-cultural, transmedial, and interconnected relations that have not been probed earlier in a single anthology.
Contents
1. Introduction; Maria Ruotsalainen, Maria Törhönen & Veli-Matti Karhulahti.- 2. Two Overwatch Player Profiles; Jukka Vahlo & Veli-Matti Karhulahti.- 3. One Tricks, Hero Picks, and Player Politics: Highlighting the Casual-Competitive Divide in the Overwatch Forums; Courtney Blamey.- 4. The Player's Interpretative Agency and the Developer's Disruptive Powers: How Blizzard Entertainment Enforces Authorial Intention in Overwatch; Joleen Blom.- 5. Player Reception of Change and Stability in Character Mechanics; Tanja Välisalo & Maria Ruotsalainen.- 6. "KKona Where's Your Sense of Patriotism?" - Positioning Nationality in the Spectatorship of Competitive Overwatch Play; Marko Siitonen & Maria Ruotsalainen.- 7. A Region of Contenders: Overwatch in Brazil; Mayara Caetano.- 8. Gender and Toxic Meritocracy in Competitive Overwatch: Case "Ellie"; Usva Friman & Maria Ruotsalainen.- 9. Overwatch Fandom and the Range of Corporate Responses; Hanna Wirman & Rhys Jones.- 10. Overwatch to Oversnatch: The Mutually Reinforcing Gendered Power Relations of Pornography, Streaming, and Esports; Thomas Apperley.- 11. The Talk of the Town: Community Perspectives on Loot Boxes; Joseph Macey & Mila Bujić.
