40 GENIUS INTERVIEW James Dean
Words by Neil Romanek JAMES DEAN: “IT’S ALL TV TO THEM”
In our rst Genius Interview with top talents in media tech, we talk with James Dean, managing director of the UK branch of ESL, the world’s biggest eSports league. Dean helped turn UK eSports into a national concern - now he’s taking it global
FEED eSports hasn’t been around very long. What were you doing before it showed up? JAMES DEAN My background is in the geeky end of computing – which has always had a game element to it. When I was at the University of Birmingham, studying for a computer science degree, I got a part-time job writing at a computer magazine. It gave me an entry into the computing industry and opened up contacts with people I could speak
to and collaborate with on any aspect of computing – and that included gaming, of course. After I graduated, I got a job with a company that sold computers. I was building PCs and selling them – it was mainly through magazines, back then. I also launched a gaming brand within the company – the thing that was driving consumer sales of higher spec computers was gaming. So gaming started to look more like a career possibility, rather than just a personal interest.
feedzine feedzinefeed feedmagazine.tv
Powered by FlippingBook