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Gabriella Fernbaugh:
Next week State Press Magazine comes out with November’s “Element Issue”
Tyler Abrams:
The new issue covers topics ranging from the history of sparky to a personal perspective of the Sudan War.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
I’m Gabriella Fernbaugh.
Tyler Abrams:
I’m Tyler Abrams, and this, is State Press Play.
Tyler Abrams:
The world of Esports has seen a massive boom in the past decade. The growing world of video games takes on a more athletic and professional approach. State Press reporter Gabriella Fernbaugh went to the Red Bull Campus Clutch Southwest Qualifier in San Diego to Cover ASU Maroon, ASU’s competitive Valorant Esports team.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
The competition is being held at the gaming lounge at the University of California San Diego. Refrigerators full of Red Bulls are in every corner of the room. There are four rows of five PCs. Opposing teams sit across from one another. The match begins with the players setting up their custom keyboards, headsets, mice, and mousepads. Daniel Rios is ASU Maroon’s assistant coach. He says the setup is a crucial aspect of the competition.
Daniel Rios:
That's why I was kind of saying what the peripherals to like; that's why you see everyone. That's why you see everyone plugging in their keyboard, their mouse and getting a mousepad and all that because that's their setup from home and they're trying to replicate what they’re used to.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
ASU Maroon staff and players sport matching jerseys with maroon and black details. Their gamer usernames are displayed on their backs. Tied around the top of their headsets are knitted green bean sprouts handmade by their team manager, Missy Ascencion. Coaches and managers stand nearby to motivate, prepare and bring the team together. As they do before every competition, the team raises their arms in the air and takes a huge stretch before the match begins.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
The competition is based around Valorant, a first-person shooter game launched in 2020. Two teams of five players have to complete particular objectives to win rounds. One team takes on the role of the Attackers, while the other team takes on the role of the Defenders. The attackers plant what is known as a “Spike,” which is a bomb in the game. The defenders have 45 seconds to defuse the Spike. The first team to win thirteen rounds moves to the next bracket in the competition. Parallel to the growth of Esports, Valorant’s community has grown tremendously with active concurrent players worldwide reaching over 23 million. Matthew Johnson, the brand marketing specialist for Red Bull, says it is elevating the game.
Matthew Johnson:
I think that is something that I think a lot of people can resonate with, and I hope more people um look into to Red Bull competitions and global student projects because I think it's like a really fun and unique way to maybe experience something that would maybe be out of reach otherwise.
To hear to hear the whole feature from Fernbaugh, please tune in to State Press Play.
Tyler Abrams:
On November 1st, State Press Magazine will release its Element Issue. Camila Pedrosa sits down with us to preview the magazine’s content and feature story. Thanks for coming on the podcast Camila.
Camila Pedrosa:
Thanks for having me.
Tyler Abrams:
For our first question, I just want to ask what is the overarching theme for this magazine?
Camila Pedrosa:
Yes, so this theme, the Element Issue, is kind of taking that concept of the core of a story, the element of a story or a topic and allowing our reporters to kind of explore it, have fun with it, find out things that they're curious about, especially regarding the university. So one of the stories that we have is whether it's like being Sparky, the mascot, like in the costume and that one was really, really fun for our reporter to kind of poke around about. Then there's another story about kind of the history of Barrett the Honors College and then our feature story takes this concept but it elevates it, it makes it a lot more bigger and a much more serious topic and that one was an interesting challenge to give our reporters but also a really good way to get to the element of a big issue.
Tyler Abrams:
So with last month's hot issue, that one was mainly focused on personal experiences and lifestyles. The element issue seems to be a lot more broad with an increasingly diverse number of stories.What significant changes or similarities does the element issue have with last month's hot issue?
Camila Pedrosa:
Yeah, so it's more different than it is similar honestly and we did that on purpose. The Hot Issue was meant to just kind of be big and bold right out of the gate to kind of engage readers back after a summer away and the Element Issue is a little bit of a break from that for most of our reporters with much more simple stories, more just flame reporting and the Hot Issue was a lot more about telling, you know, like you said, personal experiences and recounting their own stories and other, you know, individuals more intense stories and really the main similarities that this has is that it also has a crossword which is something that we wanted to implement across all of the issues and it focuses for the most part on ASU which is something that we do with all of our issues.
To hear more from Pedrosa, please tune in to State Press Play.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
And that’s all for this week’s State Press Play. I’m Gabriella Fernbaugh.
Tyler Abrams:
And I’m Tyler Abrams. State Press Play is produced and mixed by our podcast desk editor, Amber Victoria Singer. Additional editing was done by my cohost Gabriella. Our original music is by Ellie Willard and Jake Leroux.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
Special thanks to our managing team, Alexis Heichman and Reece Andrews.
Tyler Abrams:
You can check out all these stories and more on statepress.com.
Gabriella Fernbaugh:
See you next week, Devils.
