2014, PAX Australia. I stand on the outskirts of a ponderous crowd. A friend, he also writes about video games for a living, is beside me. We are confused. Ahead of us to our right is — absolutely — the largest screen present at the show. It is dozens of metres high. It dwarfs every other screen in the convention hall.
Five years ago that screen would have been playing Call of Duty, or Assassin's Creed. Halo at a push. A group of strangers might have been up on stage playing 'Hot for Teacher' on plastic instruments.
But today the screen is playing a different game. Today it is playing League of Legends. To reiterate: we are confused. 'Things' are happening on the screen, people are cheering in response but we have no way to parse precisely what they're cheering at and why.