LAN Party: Inside the Multiplayer Revolution

A photographic celebration of the energy-drink-fuelled, furniture-rearranging, multiplayer gaming trend and its nocturnal participants, capturing the messy, ad-hoc approach to computing typical of the LAN party era.

Format: Hardback
Length: 176 pages
Publication date: 25 January 2024
Publisher: Thames & Hudson Ltd

Before the advent of high-speed internet connections and online servers, playing a multiplayer PC game meant lugging your bulky monitors and towers to a friend's place, a convention center, or a church basement for a LAN (local area network) party. These sweaty, junk-food-enriched glory days marked the origins of real community spirit in the early days of computer gaming. Many LAN party attendees were early adopters of new technology, so digital cameras were ubiquitous at these events. The photos produced by these devices were often low-resolution, blurry, and poorly lit. In their imperfections and limitations, they represent the messy, ad-hoc approach to computing typical of the LAN party—network cables snaking across recreation center floors, a monitor perched on a kitchen counter, burned CD copies of games labeled in marker pen.

In addition to documenting the nostalgic era of LAN parties, the photographs in this book are unique artefacts of a peculiar cultural and technological moment, when gaming was tipping over from a niche hobby to a mainstream obsession. This is the first full-size photobook on this beloved subculture, one that existed before the internet took shape and we started carrying it around with us in our pockets.

Weight: 1078g
Dimension: 222 x 289 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780500026953