Carsey-Wolf Center at UC Santa Barbara 
Esports and Gaming Futures
- Thursday, May 3, 2018 / 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM (PDT)
- Pollock Theater
- With Dave Stewart, Executive Producer, North American League of Legends Championship Series
In a little more than a decade, esports have become a billion-dollar global industry that engage hundreds of millions of viewers with weekly gaming competitions. Video games have always had a competitive component, but the early 2000s saw the birth of a more sophisticated industry around video game competition. Beginning in Korea with cable esports broadcasts of Starcraft: Broodwar, esports has expanded into a global phenomenon built around high-stakes video game play. Supported by the rapid development of broadband networks and streaming media platforms like Twitch.TV, esports continue to change the way players use games.
Dave Stewart, the executive producer of Riot Games’ North American League of Legends Championship Series, joined Alex Champlin (Film and Media Studies, UCSB) in a discussion about the serious future of video game play.
Biographies
Dave Stewart, Executive Producer, North American League of Legends Championship Series
Moderator Alexander Champlin
Alexander Champlin studies spectator videogaming as an emergent media phenomenon. His work focuses on the conjunction of televisual broadcast production and videogame play, particularly the way play and game cultures shift as games become broadcast texts. He focuses on esports, videogame livestreaming, and Let’s Play media. Alex is a PhD candidate in the Department of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
This event is sponsored by the Carsey-Wolf Center and Gaucho Gaming.