Young Guns
Obsession, Overwatch, and the Future of Gaming
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Young Guns
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Narrated by:
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Angelo Di Loreto
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By:
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Austin Moorhead
About this listen
The fascinating inside story of the quest to build the world's most ambitious professional gaming league - and the race to win its $1,000,000 prize
Welcome to the high-stakes world of esports where shit-talking teenage gamers, billionaire sports franchise owners, and celebrity entrepreneurs are all competing to understand and conquer the fast-emerging future of entertainment. The burgeoning frontier of professional gaming has moved beyond the niche corners of the internet to become a global phenomenon, upending youth viewership for the major sports leagues and opening a generational rift over the nature of "athletics." Soon, professional video game competitions may well be as ingrained in our culture as Monday Night Football.
Young Guns: Obsession, Overwatch, and the Future of Gaming takes listeners behind the scenes of the esports boom and into the lives of the gamers and game changers leading the charge, unfurling a wry, unexpected, and often hilarious narrative about the rise of professional gaming and the business of electronic sports.
An avid gamer himself, author Austin Moorhead became fascinated by pro gaming, in particular the Overwatch League (OWL) after sports titans Robert Kraft, Stan Kroenke, and Jeff Wilpon each paid $20 million for a team. At the same time that he began investigating the inner-workings of the league, OWL launched esports into the American mainstream, inking TV deals with ABC and ESPN, selling out NBA stadiums for live competitions, and minting a new version of young pro athletes.
Embedding with two top teams in the Overwatch League, the San Francisco Shock and the London Spitfire, as they embark on the inaugural season, Moorhead pulls back the curtain on the grueling practice schedules and spartan lifestyles of the league's most popular players. In addition to the "gamer houses" and competitions in which the pros hone their skills, Moorhead takes listeners into the board room of Overwatch-developer Blizzard Entertainment, where entrepreneurs eager to capitalize on youth culture take bets on new esports franchises for tens of millions. The result is a rollicking story about the superstars of the future and the absurd collision of adolescent prodigies and high-stakes industry, an uproarious look at the future of sports and entertainment that is part Bringing Down the House, part Moneyball.
©2020 Austin Moorhead (P)2020 Hachette BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Esports is one of the fastest growing - and most cutthroat - industries in the world. A confluence of technology, culture, and determination has made this possible. Players around the world compete for millions of dollars in prize money, and companies like Amazon, Coca-Cola, and Intel have invested billions. Esports events have sold out Los Angeles' Staples Center, Seoul's World Cup Stadium, and Seattle's KeyArena. Hundreds of people have dedicated their lives to gaming, sacrificing their education, their relationships, and even their bodies to compete.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Pronunciation errors are frequent
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LeBron
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LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of the twenty-first century, and he’s in the conversation with Michael Jordan as the greatest of all time. The reigning king of the game and the first active NBA player to become a billionaire, LeBron wears the crown like he was born with it. Yet his ascent has been anything but effortless and predetermined—the truth is vastly more interesting than that. LeBron tells the full, riveting saga of how a child adrift found the will to become a titan. Jeff Benedict paints a vivid picture of LeBron’s epic origin story, showing the gradual rise of a star.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Anyone could have written this book
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 62
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Before the league’s founding, East Coast basketball had crowned just three national champions in 40 years, and none since 1954. But in the Big East’s first 10 years, five of its teams played for a national championship. The league didn’t merely inherit good teams; it created them. But how did this unlikely group of schools come to dominate college basketball so quickly and completely?
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5 out of 5 stars
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very complete well researched and entertaining
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 375
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 324
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From the New York Times best-selling author of Return of the King comes the story of LeBron James' incredible transformation from basketball star to sports and business mogul.
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3 out of 5 stars
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It was a little better than ok.
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You Herd Me!
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 506
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 459
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In this age of billion dollar athletic marketing campaigns, “feel good” philosophy with no connection to reality, and a Sports Media echo chamber that’s all too eager swallow whatever idiotic notion happens to be in vogue at the moment, it’s tough to find people who aren’t afraid to say what they’re really thinking.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great book, Repeats majority of themes from radio
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Critic reviews
"Moorhead gives readers unprecedented access to the team dynamics and drama of esports while tracking the ambitious rise of the first global league. His year-long journey yields insight on the hard work and luck required to be an esports champion." (Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles, esports personality and former OWL caster)
"Austin Moorhead gets inside the heads of the gamers... These eccentric characters may be playing a form of basketball, but they will never be confused for the real LeBron James. That's okay, because in a very different way they are just as captivating." (Filip Bondy, New York Times best-selling author of The Pine Tar Game)
"George Plimpton + Hunter Thompson = Austin Moorhead. In Young Guns, Moorhead has written a compelling, hilarious and heartbreaking account of gamers and their games. Either that, or a survival manual for the coming apocalypse. Who knew that these young armchair athletes were engaged in the most brutal sport of all. The first great cultural chronicle of this new decade." (Sam Kashner, New York Times best-selling author and editor-at-large at Air Mail)
What listeners say about Young Guns
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 04-02-20
Learned a little bit about teabagging...
Learned a little bit about teabagging and a lot about the egaming industry. Get on board with egaming. It's the future of sports.
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