DANIEL LISI DISCUSSES HIS NEW BOOK WORLD OF WARCRAFT, WITH JARETT KOBEK, GABE DURHAM, AND BROCK WILBUR

World of Warcraft (Boss Fight Books)

At more than 100 million user accounts created and over $10 billion made, it is not only the most-subscribed MMORPG in the world, but the highest-grossing video game of all time. Ten years after its launch, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft is less a game and more a world unto itself, and it's a world Daniel Lisi knows well. More time in his high school years was spent in Azeroth than in his hometown of Irvine, CA—a home he happened to share with Blizzard itself.

Now that Lisi has founded his own game development studio, WoW remains his most powerful example of just how immersive and consuming a game can be. Based on research, interviews, and the author's own experience in a hardcore raiding guild, Lisi's book examines WoW's origins, the addictive power of its gameplay loop, the romances WoW has both cemented and shattered, the enabling power of anonymity, and the thrill of conquering BlizzCon with guildmates you've known for years and just met for the first time.

Daniel Lisi is the CEO and co-founder of Game Over, a video game development studio based in Los Angeles, CA. He's a member of Art Share LA's board of directors and facilitates an incubator for individual artists and their projects.

Jarett Kobek is a Turkish-American writer living in California. His novellaATTA was called “highly interesting,” by the Times Literary Supplement, has appeared in Spanish translation, been the subject of much academic writing, and was a recent and unexplained bestseller in parts of Canada. His most recent book is I Hate the Internet. Presently, he's working on a book about Ol' Dirty Bastard's first album for Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series. 

Gabe Durham is the founder, editor, and publisher of Boss Fight Books. His novel FUN CAMP was one of BuzzFeed's 17 Books We Loved in 2013. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Brock Wilbur is a nightmare man with a heart of solid gold. Born in Salina, Kansas and booklearn'd at the Northwestern University in Chicago, Brock is a 6'7" writer slash comedian now living in Los Angeles. He has some books and standup albums and films that you might enjoy, and you can track them all down on the internetwebs. He accepts tributes in the form of video games and gin -- like an adult.