11 - 0 a v a a a 42 . Wednesday October 2014 5/ The Statement EB he 1989 film_"The Wizard" ends .While an enormous variety of games with a huge video game tourna- are played competitively on campus, two ment. Giant TV screens are revealed monolithic student organizations' stand in smoke-filled introductions, and three out: Michigan League of Legends (MLOL) preteens line up to compete in a "Super and the Super Smash Brothers Club, also Mario Bros. 3" speed challenge in front of a known as "Michigan Melee." huge, cheering crowd. The room is decked Super Smash Bros. is a 2D fighting game out in cyber-punk decals and moving metal series featuring a range of Nintendo char- walls. But this scene was completely staged acters. League. of Legends is a MOBA, a - a fictional '80s spectacle that presented Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. MOBAs a vision of what competitive gaming might originated with "DotA," a popular mul- look like in the future. "The Wizard" was tiplayer mod for "Warcraft III: Reign of Hollywood conjecture of the possibilities Chaos." of a still-nascent video game industry. Engineering senior Patrick Huang, Today, thousands of people watch com- president of Michigan League of Legends, petitive gaming on a daily basis. Unlike the has been a part of their competitive team ridiculous scenes in"The Wizard," eSports for two years. That's not an easy feat. The are for real, and eSports culture remains MLOL Facebook group has more than 600 one of the most important rising trends in members, and its competitive team consists gaming. of only the best of the best. One of the most popular ways to spec- "MOBAs are really unique compared to tate competitive gaming is to watch it using other games because you're forced to work online video services. Head over to Twitch as a team. There are a lot of other games and you'll experience one of the most fas- that do that, but I think it's magnified in cinating embodiments of modern competi- MOBAs," Huang said. "Jeremy Lin, the tive gaming culture. famous NBA basketball player, is a big fan A month after launch, Twitch opened of DotA 2 and he likes to make the compari- up its Partner Program, giving popular son between DotA 2 and basketball... You streamers the opportunity to earn ad rev- know, you have a five player team, every- enue from their broadcasts. one's got their own special role that they Twitch was launched in 2011 as a spin- have to fill and you have to trust your team- off of Justin.tv, a popular video stream- mates a lot in order to succeed." ing site. Justin shut down in August 2014 Even under all that pressure, Huang to focus resources entirely on Twitch. The believes that the competitive team is less magnitude of Twitch's continuing success about cutthroat dramatics and more about cannot be ignored. In August 2014, Amazon community. bought Twitch for $970 million. "There are kind of two groups. The Amazon's investment shows the far-, entire club as a whole - we're not the clos- reaching potential for online competitive est of groups but we're all friends with gaming, and it's only getting bigger. Of each other. But there's also the competitive course, online streaming isn't the only way team," he said. people watch. In-person tournaments are "The people that have been on my team huge, with some high-level professional have been some of my best friends in col- tourneys approaching the grandeur fanta- lege so far ... (League) is a great way to build sized about in "The Wizard." bonds, and build relationships with:other At the collegiate level, tournaments have people." never been bigger. Huang and the Michigan League of In September 2014, "League of Leg- Legends board members organize numer- ends" developer, Riot Games, announced ous events for the club, including tourna- that their 2014-2015 NACC (North Ameri- ments, meet-ups and viewing parties for can Collegiate Championship) would give big eSports events. out over $360,000 in scholarships. Each With Riot Games now investing tons of member of the first place team will win a money into prize pools for collegiate tour- $30,000 scholarship. naments like the NACC's and professional Most teams that compete won't be suc- circuits like the League of Legends World cessful. In general, makingeSports a career Championship, you'd think ambitious col- or even making money at all through gam- lege League players would be singularly ing is still quite difficult. focused on big-time eSports success. How- There are two main ways of pursuing a ever, Huang maintained that MLOL players - career in eSports: competing and stream- don't have their heads in the clouds. ing. Making it as a competitor requires "I know there are many people who -for a rigorous practice schedule and consid- League specifically - have dropped out of erable skill, while making a living as a school and moved to California where all streamer requires a large, dedicated fan the professional players are just to pursue base. However, "making it" is certainly not this lifestyle, and for a lot of people it's very the end-allbe-all goal for these gainers. For unsuccessful. I'd say for the majority of most, competitive gaming isn't about finan- MLOL players, they don't have these kinds cial success. It's a hobby and a passion. of high expectations." This is quite evident at The University So what is it, then, that draws students to of Michigan, which is now a thriving epi- the college League scene? Huang saidit's a center of competitive gaming culture, with legitimate love for the game. numerous student groups cropping up "I think it's definitely a passion. For a lot across all kinds of games. of people, it's a big part of their lives, myself included," he said, "But whenever you play, you're enjoying it, and maybe it's as much of a hobby as play- ing sports would be." League is no doubt one of the biggest games on cam- pus, but Michigan's Super Smash Bros. community is known as one of the big- gest collegiate scenes in the world, with hundreds of active players, biweekly tournaments, and a wel- coming weekly venue: the Duderstadt center. The group is mainly organized through its Facebook group, "Michigan Melee," coor- dinated by Michigan alum Robin Harn. Harn graduated from Michigan in 2013, but he's still the University's Smash ringleader. Today, he's organizing "The Big House 4," a national Super Smash Bros. tournament taking place in Romulus, MI, with over 500 attendees. Harn reckons the success of the group's events is due to the friendliness of the group to new players. "When people without experience go to tourna- ments, they're usually afraid of a few things, like the social stigma of tourna- Students compet ments. It's like, am I gonna get bect down so hard that it's going to be humiliating?" he said. "But people understand that there are going to be new players, and that it doesn't matter if people don't know how to do advanced techniques; they're just another part of a big family." Super Smash Bros. Melee, by far the most popular Smash game to play competitively, is now 13 years old. For many players, it's getting tougher to organize events and tournaments because competitive Melee play requires old-school CRT televisions, a rare find now that HD televisions have completely overtaken the market. Melee also lacks online play, meaning players must seek out real-life interaction in order to play competitively. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though - Harn credits the lack of online play as a highly positive benefit to the Smash scene. "If you look at other games like 'League of Legends' and 'Starcraft,' their online communities can be toxic sometimes. And if you look at Melee, there's none of that because you can't hide behind a computer screen. You have to go to the tournaments and meet people... Smash is by far the most friendly for new players," Harn said. Additionally, Harn noted that the Smash community is so friendly that he can reach out to players across the nation. "If I need graphic design done, I know a ate in bi-weekly Super Smash Bros. Melee Tournaments broadcasted live on twitch.tv at Mason Hall, where they bring their own televisions for a los guy. If I need a bouncer for an event, I know a guy. If I need housing, I'm never going to pay for housing on a random trip, anywhere in the United States ever again. I'm going to hit up the Smash network." The social appeal of collegiate eSports is clear. Both Huang and Harn attested to the positive community and the rewarding networking that comes with it. However, there is one noticeable caveat that comes with the accepting nature of these commu- nities - the hardcore gaming scene is over- whelmingly male. At a Friday night Smash. event, only one girl was in attendance. Yet, Lisa Nakamura, University Screen Arts and Cultures professor, says that this disparity is slowly changing. "I've never taught a video game class that had very many women at all. But as time has gone on, I've gotten more," she said. Professor Nakamura researches Digital Game Studies, as well as Asian American studies, Digital Media Theory, and Race and Gender in New Media. She addressed the gendered differenc- es in different categories of video games, including First-Person Shooter games, and Role-Playing Games. "It's interesting, I ask people, 'Are you a gamer?' and most of the men say yes; almost all of the women say no. And then I ask, 'Well, how many of you play 'Candy Crush?' ... and that's everyone," Nakamura said. "So women tend to view themselves not as gainers unless they're playing FPS games, or even RPGs... The disparity really is a gendered one," she said. So what's the problem? Why aren't more women involved in "hardcore" gaming and eSports? Nakamura says it's due to the fact that the majority of game developers are male. "Not very many women make games. When you make video game storylines or animations, what people tend to do is copy things they admire; they copy things that impress them or move them in some way," Nakamura said. "Because the devel- oper culture is so male, you get these same images over and over again, because people can't really think outside what their canon is. The indie canon is different, because there are more women in it." The gender disparity in the hardcore gaming scene is changing. One thing still isn't clear, though: why is competitive gam- ing so big in college? Why now? Why not in high school, when gainers have less respon- sibilities? "Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you're no longer living with your parents," guesses Julia G. Raz, a Rackham student. Raz is a Communications graduate student who has been studying games aca- demically since 2008. "Your parents might have given you a hard time about spending so much time playing video games and not focusing on your schoolwork, and now you have the opportunity to spend just as much of your free time as you want playing these games. You no longer have anyone looking over you and telling you what to do," Raz said. Harn disagrees: "The future is pretty promising for the competitive scene. I could see it becoming as big as Netflix or ESPN in the coming years, I really do." Whether eSports stays a niche market or explodes into the mainstream, the Uni- versity will remain a hotspot for this hard- core gaming culture. Campus groups like Michigan Smash and MLOL are making it clear that gamers aren't the basement- dwelling weirdos the mainstream media often depicts them as. Raz agreed with this sentiment. "I hate the stereotype that gamers are antisocial ... the reason people want to take part in these communal experiences is so they feel like they have other people who are their friends that get them. It's like a sorority or fraternity of its own," Raz said. "It's this sense of community that people want to have. When you first join college you want to have that sense of belong- ing, and what better way if you love those games than to spend time with others who love them too." FOR THE FULL VERSION SEE MICHIGANDAILY.COM