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Chess has much in common with video games — not least, the eager disdain of uninformed critics. An 1859 article in Scientific American noted the achievements of Paul Morphy ‘vanquishing the most distinguished chess players of Europe’ but concluded sniffily that ‘skill in this game is neither a useful nor graceful accomplishment’. You can’t please everyone. Gamers are used to suffering the same old brickbats — their pursuits are addictive, isolating, sedentary, a channel for violent impulses, or just a waste of time. This is mostly silly: games can offer a rich and fulfilling competitive environment. It is enough to consider that even after DeepMind’s AlphaZero attained superhuman levels of skill in go and chess, the popular eSport ‘StarCraft’ still offered a testbed for further AI research. (Last year their AlphaStar attained grandmaster status, ranked above 99.8 per cent of human players.)

Video-game streaming has exploded during lockdown. For a live online audience, players record themselves playing games like Fortnite or League of Legends, with some mix of intensity, commentary and banter.