LAN party

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. Many 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 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.