Phill Alexander

Phill "DrPhill" Alexander is a professor at Miami University's Armstrong Institute, teaching courses on esports and game design. He is also co-founder and director of Miami University's varsity esports program, the first of its kind at a school with Division I athletics.

Articles & Books From Phill Alexander

Esports For Dummies
Discover the path to the big leaguesIt's time to prove all those people who said “video games are a waste of time” wrong. Esports has rewarded top gamers with prize money, glory, and even college scholarships. Want to get in on the action?This book puts you on the path to get your share of the growing world of esports.
Article / Updated 04-24-2020
Fighting games have a fascinating ecosystem. A massive number of titles have been created, and modifications and advancements have been introduced in various games during the 30-plus years that fighting games have been a part of the gaming world. The following criteria are essential to competition and are true of almost every fighting game: Two characters appear on the screen, each controlled by a single player.
Article / Updated 07-19-2022
Historically thought of as highly competitive games, racing games have little representation in the esports landscape. Players mark this as a commentary on the skill-to-luck ratio in playing racing games, and most manufacturers still see racing games as suitable for living room play, and not as much for major competitions.
Article / Updated 04-24-2020
Unlike some other esports genres that have relatively few titles, the fighting-game genre includes literally hundreds of titles. Not all of them see regular competition in the esports world, though in the most technical sense, any fighting game could be an esport. This section takes a look at the big names so that you know what to expect if you want to dive into the most popular esports fighting-game titles.
Article / Updated 04-24-2020
In contrast to football esports, several games have the full license of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and NBPA to produce video games. Amid the sea of titles that include EA’s NBA Live and an arcade-style two-versus-two-game called NBA Playgrounds, no basketball game has found the following and competitive dedication of the NBA 2K series by 2K.
Article / Updated 04-24-2020
John Madden Football debuted in 1988 as an Apple IIe game (see the following figure). The game didn’t gain wide recognition until 1990, when John Madden Football was released for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo consoles. In 1990, the Madden game for Genesis was considered the first “killer app” for that generation of the console wars, ranking as one of the highest-rated and highest-selling titles for the life of that console.
Article / Updated 04-24-2020
To be an active esports streamer, you need to know and work with three sites: Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and the newest streaming site, Microsoft’s Mixer. Here, you see how to set up an account at Mixer and how to gather the information you need from Twitch and YouTube so that you can get started streaming to your audience.
Article / Updated 04-24-2020
Since it started in 2005, YouTube has been ever present as one of the most popular sites on the Internet, usually second only to Google in network traffic. You no doubt know what YouTube is, and the role of YouTube in esports is exactly what you probably think it is: Gamers upload videos (and sometimes livestream).
Article / Updated 04-24-2020
Esports gamers have used numerous Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services over the years, from Ventrilo to TeamSpeak. A VoIP is a service that allows numerous people to speak via vocal chat over the Internet. The most pervasive, and most functional, VoIP option mixes voice communication with a clean chat interface.
Article / Updated 04-24-2020
Twitch is the name most often mentioned in esports spaces, surpassing even Twitter. Co-founded in 2006 by Justin Kan and his partners Emmett Shear, Michael Seibel, and Kyle Vogt as Justin.tv—which livestreamed Justin's life 24/7—and relaunched as Twitch in 2011, Twitch.tv was born from the idea of streaming media live.