{"product_id":"9780500026953","title":"LAN Party : Inside the Multiplayer Revolution","description":"\u003cp\u003e Author(s): K, Merritt \u003cbr\u003e Binding: Hardback, \u003cbr\u003e Date of Publication: 25\/01\/2024,\u003cbr\u003e Pagination: 176 pages, 221 Illustrations, color,\u003cbr\u003e ISBN13\\EAN\\SKU: 9780500026953,\u003cbr\u003e Description: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA loving photographic celebration of the energy-drink-fuelled, furniture-rearranging, multiplayer gaming trend and its nocturnal participants.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e  Before high-speed internet connections and online servers, playing a multiplayer PC game meant hauling your bulky monitors and towers to a friend’s place, convention centre or church basement for a LAN (local area network) party. These sweaty, junk-food-enriched glory days represented the origins of real community spirit in computer gaming’s early days.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMany LAN party attendees were early adopters of new tech, so digital cameras abounded at these events. The photos produced by these devices were often low-resolution, blurry and badly 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 centre floors, a monitor perched on a kitchen counter, burned CD copies of games labelled in marker pen.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 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 niche hobby to 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Griffin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42514882986028,"sku":"9780500026953","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0379\/1365\/7388\/products\/9780500026953.jpg?v=1706519399","url":"https:\/\/www.griffinbooksonline.co.uk\/products\/9780500026953","provider":"Griffin Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}