The year 1972 not only irrevocably changed the consumer entertainment ecosystem, but also set into motion events that continue to fundamentally alter the ways in which humans interrelate via media. More specifically, two distinct but related phenomena were occurring in the world.

First, the Magnavox Odyssey was released, which is widely considered to be the first home gaming console. The home console shifted the center of gravity for video games from the arcade to the home. Though the transition period would be tumultuous, including a crash that nearly capsized the entire industry less than a decade away, interactive entertainment had found a home in living rooms across the globe by merit of being an accessory to existing home technology (it connected to a standard television set) rather than requiring a separate (and expensive) monitor. In one sense, 1972 is the year that video games shifted from being occasion‐ and geographic‐bounded entertainment to personal, accessible, and scaled—attributes that would paint the success of the industry for decades to come.

Second, beyond the living room and within the venerated halls of Stanford University, the first digital gaming competition was being held. A tournament around the early‐computer gaming favorite Spacewar! was being held at the artificial intelligence lab, complete with multiple competitors and a valuable prize (a yearlong subscription to Rolling Stone). In a similar parallel to home consoles, this was the beginning of a tumultuous history, inclusive of a near‐existential industry crash all its own. Thus, in another sense, 1972 is also the year in which the now‐global phenomenon of esports was born.

As far as technological and cultural revolutions go (and I'll argue that we'll be addressing a bit of both), 1972 is a pivotal year. The commonality between these events was that interactive entertainment had come to roost (albeit in different legacies reflected in modern times). It also represents a rare opportunity where the occasionally confusing and not always well‐documented history of gaming and esports intersect in a meaningful way within a single year. Here we find one of our first major problems when discussing gaming—the industry is multifaceted, expansive, manifest in a number of forms, and carries a long history that speaks to the powerful intersection of technology and creativity.

And yet, to the uninitiated or unaware, you'd never know that was the case. For too long, gaming has been considered a monolithic entity that amounts to little more than the frivolous pastime of children. Fast‐forward to today, and the reality is that gaming represents a global, multibillion‐dollar ecosystem within which about one in every three humans on the planet is a participant, and is positioned to shape the contours of our relationship with technology for years to come. Despite the scale and influence of this sector, it has become abundantly clear that there is a significant knowledge gap between business decision makers and an industry that, in fairness, has a reputation for being extremely cloistered. Unfortunately, this gap is quickly transitioning from a curiosity to a strategic blind spot for businesses across nearly every industry as the influence of gaming and gaming‐related concepts begin to shape technologies as fundamental as the internet.

Character Sheet: Approach and Intended Audience of This Book

For business decision makers and marketers, those who know that gaming is important but haven't yet figured out their point of view, an understanding of the gaming ecosystem and knowing how to integrate with it beyond the superficial is set to become one of the most important tool kits in modern business. While there are many ways a person or organization can enter the expansive gaming ecosystem, understanding and aligning on the right strategic fit, including the proper historical background and a deep understanding of consumer psychology and need states around these media, will define the most successful integrations. In addition, having a perspective on common business concerns related to brand safety and toxicity within the gaming community, including the genesis of these (occasionally overblown) concerns from societal and cultural orientations towards gaming, will balance fact from fiction in evaluating potential opportunities.

Parents seeking to understand what is likely occupying the majority of their children's leisure time may also find value in learning more about the history, landscape, and benefits of gaming in a broader context. Although interest in gaming is not a demarcation between adults and children (given that fans of gaming are not predominately children), there are indeed some generational divides. Despite differences in how one might be exposed to gaming or why one might wish to learn more from a personal or professional standpoint, the most hyperbolic claim I'll make is that nearly everyone stands to gain something from a deeper understanding of gaming as the proliferation of this ecosystem is inevitable. It is massive, big‐budget entertainment that lives on an increasing array of devices. It is shaping or creating new economies.

However, gaming is expansive and occasionally confusing—to date, even baseline education (or pitches) for the industry have had limited impact because of how much ground needed to be covered to properly discuss the industry. Most senior officers at businesses have a baseline familiarity (and have very likely used) with a social network or have viewed a television show, but fewer may have kept up with gaming. This book is being written as an important step to creating foundational knowledge upon which better conversations within the industry can be based and better alliances between the gaming sector and interested partners can be formed. It's esoteric at first glance, but not impossible to navigate in a way that clarifies the rather immense industry that has grown behind the scenes of larger cultural attention. More generally, the consumer intention–centric view that will be a central theme throughout this work can serve as a useful rubric for evaluating virtually any new media.

Mini‐Map: How This Book Is Structured

This book is divided into roughly three parts to consider different means of ingress into the gaming ecosystem: First, through experiences where consumers are directly playing video games, second to occasions and media where consumers are watching video games being played. Lastly, we will close by considering future directions for the industry and aligned businesses utilizing the potential emergence of the metaverse as an organizing principle. Each section provides an overview of the history of the platforms, the unique need states that a consumer is satisfying within each mode of entertainment, and addresses throughout substantive topics related to the needs and orientations of three major stakeholders: businesses looking to integrate, game or content developers, and game fans.

I use the term “fan” instead of the more common parlance of “gamer” for a number of reasons. The most obvious is that some of the potential integrations into gaming may have little to do with someone playing a game per se—the intended consumer is watching an esports match or game streamer, etc. On the other hand (and the topic will be addressed more substantively later on), the term “gamer” is incredibly problematic for marketers and business executives to rely on. Even within gaming communities it's a loaded (and, occasionally, negative) term, but above and beyond that it assumes a kind of identity valuation from either the game players themselves or the marketers that want to reach them. Identity is a complicated topic, symbols and labels even more so, and much is to be lost in relying on “shorthand” language of this type when engaging with a community that prizes authenticity (though we will qualify certain groups of “traditional” game players on occasion, where useful to enunciate a small but significant subset of the larger gaming audience).

The use of the word “fan” also refocuses the discussion on semifamiliar ground. Marketers have generally acknowledged the power of fandom. People “geek out” about a whole host of media, inclusive of mainstays like TV shows or movies. However, the departure here is that we are taking fandom to a new level—fandom that is deeply participatory, shaped by the fans, and highly affective in a way that can only be accomplished when the protagonist is perhaps not a scripted figment of a professional writer's imagination but rather reflects the values and decision of the media consumer. In other words, a world where the fan is the hero of the story, or capable of taking on the same abilities and persona of their favorite athlete. We are through the fourth wall and on the stage.

The emphasis on histories and assessing different vantage points within the industry is a result of the complexities surrounding game development or creating viewership experiences from games. Video games and video game experiences come in a variety of different formats, with varying degrees of focus on things like the story, mechanics (what is the actual game to be played?), and visual world‐building. The single biggest place where brands fail in gaming is overriding any of the core game elements or intended output of a given content producer. Even now as content creators are finding a voice in larger marketing or business decisions, it's important to remember that the intent of the creators is important—particularly when it shapes an experience that encompasses the entirety of a consumer's attention.

As such, one must understand the intent of the gameplay or viewing experience to be successful. An area of focus for this book is to provide the foundational knowledge on games, esports, and related vectors through which a brand or business may wish to integrate. This relies on an understanding of the historical precedent of these industries, along with the motivations fans have towards engagement. In doing so, we'll have a platform for contextualizing key facts about the history of gaming that are less known to those outside the industry or not invested in it. Given that gaming is often at the forefront of technological innovation with consumers, there is much to be learned here, even above and beyond a desire to find a strategic point of entry into the gaming ecosystem.

Finally, the usage of the term “ecosystem” throughout is to clarify that gaming and esports are not monolithic entities, nor are there simply a singular touch point, app, or piece of hardware to consider. Gaming experiences can happen on virtually every screen. They're in the living room and on the subway. There are social portals, communities, content streams, and organized competitive leagues across a truly global audience. While seemingly daunting at first, each subsequent chapter will address a substantive aspect of this ecosystem to yield a more holistic understanding:

• Chapter 1 summarizes the current state of gaming and discusses the aim of this book in that context. It examines the different industries and forms involved in gaming, covers key data points about its prevalence, and identifies some of the reasons why broader industry knowledge around gaming has been underdeveloped.
• Chapter 2 opens with a history of the rise of gaming, emphasizing the design and monetary aspects that have pushed gaming to ubiquity and in doing so have created the most flexible canvas for integrations with the gaming ecosystem, based upon the simple fact that gaming will be increasingly reliant on these revenue sources to remain sustainable. We'll review this history through a lens that emphasizes cultural, technological, and generational factors that have created the industry that we see today.
• In Chapter 3 we'll look to the psychology and motivations behind why people play video games. Much of the appeal of integrations in this space is in reference to the unique way in which video games capture attention; understanding the “why” of this attention is therefore essential. We'll also begin to tackle the concept of what a “gamer” is and how identity is often tightly wrapped up in play due to the participatory nature of gaming media.
• In Chapter 4 we'll address concerns around gaming related to brand safety. More specifically, we'll review the facts and fictions around thorny topics such as violence, addiction, and toxicity in gaming cultures using relevant scientific literature and broader discussions around cultural acceptances of new media.
• Chapter 5 is the first of two chapters directly related to opportunities for integration, in this case focused on business and marketing integrations within or adjacent to game environments, to engage consumers playing games. Leveraging the background from preceding chapters, we'll evaluate the best mechanisms for integration pending the needs of the business.
• Chapter 6 introduces gaming as a viewing experience, beginning with an introduction to the world of esports. The business of esports and game viewing via streaming have a number of parallels to traditional competitive entertainment; nevertheless, esports still exhibit a number of important differentiators related to changing tastes in video consumption.
• Chapter 7 addresses the history of esports, if only to dispel the notion that esports are an “overnight” fad. The chapter also highlights the important social, technological, and cultural movements that created the global phenomenon as we understand it today.
• Chapter 8 opens up the discussion of viewing to streaming more generally; here we will dive into the typologies of streaming content, their numerous interactions with both the esports and generalized gaming ecosystems, and the unique pressures that arise from the overlap of “work” and “play.”
• Chapter 9 concludes our discussion on opportunities present in viewing game content, by outlining opportunities for integration in esports and generalized gaming streaming. As with the previous chapter on integration opportunities within gaming, we'll leverage the background provided by preceding chapters to outline strategies most primed for success.
• Chapter 10 adopts a future‐looking view on forthcoming opportunities in gaming and esports. Potentially influential technologies and trends, broadly related to the emergence of the metaverse, will be outlined as a guide towards what decision makers should keep their eyes on after they have established a solid foundation in gaming more generally from the preceding chapters.
• Chapter 11 is our concluding chapter, where we'll summarize the most important trends outlined throughout as a means to orient toward broader ramifications that gaming and game viewing entail for the future of communicating with consumers, if not technology more generally.

It's this approach, I believe, that is the best path to understanding the large, occasionally complicated, but undoubtedly valuable world of gaming—both as a means to understand and leverage current opportunities, but also to provide a strategic foundation for the future forms that gaming and gaming‐related opportunities will take.

A few final caveats before we begin in earnest: First, any worthwhile work addressing new or changing media recognizes that you're essentially chasing a moving target. Technology changes and preferences are fickle—what was a popular game or platform today very well may not be tomorrow. As a result, we will not be focusing on the minute details, formats, or avenues for integration so much as discussing overarching strategies with nods toward tactical themes or examples where useful.

Second, although at the time of this writing I hold an executive position at a very large gaming publisher, this book contains no specialized knowledge, nor is it intended as a long marketing proposition for any given game organization. For practical (and contractual) purposes, that isn't the point—even in my official capacity I'm quick to point out that my job isn't to extol the virtues of any one publisher. The non‐gaming industry isn't completely ready for that—we're still wrapping our head around gaming more generally, and this book is written out of recognition of that problem and to contribute to a (to date) nascent body of work that can up‐level understandings of gaming more generally, and the necessary precursors for businesses and marketers to be successful in these important worlds. I approach this work as an academic social scientist whose research has often focused on how individuals integrate new technologies in their lives, a business and technology executive who works with brands to understand new technologies, and an expert in the domain of gaming more generally (from both personal and professional practice—as you might suspect, I'm a lifelong gaming fan).

Finally, just by writing this book I'm risking the scorn of the community that I'm helping others understand. For those of you with some degree of familiarity with this space—that is, my fellow enthusiasts, who are often endlessly and ruthlessly cynical—a book like this (a business book, no less!) augurs a dark future of freemium shovelwear, lousy game experiences, and corporate interests overriding the wholly unique blend of technological innovation, creativity, and story telling that makes gaming special. The easy take is that this book, and my intentions, are yet another strike to the heart of something you hold dear.

I want you to understand that this shift is already happening. Where the eyeballs and engagement are, so goes the money. It's only a matter of time; this can be a positive or negative influence, and this book is designed to provide the necessary framework for these influences to be positive. On a personal note, gaming has framed a lot of my life, and I want it to thrive and be healthy and influential to others. In this light, I don't want to sneak outside interests in through the back door. I'd prefer to usher them in the front door, but only after taking their shoes off first. So, to my fellow fans—I wrote this book because I love gaming. Passion drove this book, passion drives the gaming community, and authenticity always wins.

To my colleagues in the business word who are not yet fans (and may never be), I wrote this book because I believe that business leaders who respect this passion and speak with authenticity can be a positive influence in this space, and they can reach consumers in one of the most affective and transformative platforms in existence. I believe that we are approaching a time when the skills and foundational understanding of gaming will not be optional, but essential—not simply for near‐term opportunities but also for the future of media that will be manifested via practices and technologies that gaming pioneered.