LAN Party

£35.00

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, before high-speed internet connections and AAA online multiplayer experiences, 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.

LAN Party is a photographic celebration of this beloved era, capturing the gloriously 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.

This beautifully produced photobook has been curated and edited by Y2K internet culture specialist merritt k, and features written contributions on the LAN phenomenon from Naomi Clark (NYU Game Center), Josh Sawyer (Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity), Robert Yang (The Tearoom, Rinse and Repeat) and Kat Bailey (IGN).