What’s the future for competitive video gaming?

Look, you might not be interested in video games. I wouldn’t blame you. And of the people who are interested in them, only an incomplete percentage will be interested in the competitive element (a percentage, I suspect, far lower than the equivalent with, say, football or tennis). But it’s a thing.

I was never into video games. I had an Xbox growing up and I would work my way through the FIFA franchise, or play the Harry Potter movie tie-in games, but really I never got into it. Partly that was because I was no good, and it was excruciatingly difficult for me to get beyond the first few levels (I remember being stuck once in the Whomping Willow for about three weeks). Occasionally there would be games that came along and just captured my brain like a good book or movie (I’m thinking Oblivion/Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption, Uncharted 2/3) but as a rule, I’d stay away.

When I was doing my Masters degree a few years back I managed, due to an administrative error, to end up doing a paper on video games. And even though it didn’t result in me playing any more than before, it made me appreciate the complexity of what they represent within our current framework for understanding cultural commodities. Fast forward a few years and I’m obsessed with Fortnite. I enjoy playing it, sure (even though I’m garbage at it), but, above all, I enjoy watching…