The Esports Lounge at ASU at the University Gateway building is a convenient place for students to go play and connect with other gamers who share the same passion for online gaming.
This is the place for students looking for new gaming technologies, a fun place to play games or a competitive environment during gaming tournaments. Students can choose from a variety of games such as Valorant, Minecraft, League of Legends or Apex Legends. The lounge gives students a fun way to relax after classes and immerse themselves in the world of esports.
Esports is short for electronic sports. They can be played in organized tournaments. Compared to typical gaming, it requires more collaboration and strategy in order to succeed and win in tournaments. Esports are more team-focused than individual.
Other student organizations are partnered with the Esports Lounge to provide a specialized gaming experience for anyone interested. These organizations include the League of Legends Community at ASU, Sun Devil Gaming and Friends of Esports. All of these organizations share one common goal: to get students more involved in the collaborative environment of esports at ASU.
The lounge implements high-performing technology to provide a high-quality gaming experience for the users. The lounge is home to 37 PCs, 2 PS5s and a Nintendo Switch.
"They have good specs on their PCs and a lot of variety," said Onyx Yu, a junior studying materials science and engineering.
Some of the technological specifications on these devices are 16GB RAM or 32GB RAM, depending on the computer.
Every Friday, people can find free tournaments to participate in and compete with friends and other gamers. In addition, the lounge hosts more national-level and professional tournaments where people can win cash prizes.
The lounge also offers workshops for students to take, such as one to teach students game development for the upcoming Frogs and Bogs Game Jam. They hold showcases for students to show off their game development skills to a panel of judges, and a winner is announced at the end.
Compared to other gaming environments, the Esports Lounge is a calmer and more welcoming place due to the collaborative nature of esports.
"It's a really calm and nice environment, and it's really game-focused, so it makes it easier to play games," Aayoush Iyer, a freshman studying computer science, said.
The "raging" which is commonly associated with games isn't seen at the Esports Lounge.
"As far as how people interact with each other, once you put everybody in the room together so they know who they're talking to, a lot of the the rage you might see on online play, when you don't have those people in the room, it starts to go away," said Connor Rawls, the organizer of the Esports Lounge.
The Esports Lounge is a part of the ASU School of Arts, Media and Engineering. Not only is this just a place to relax with games but it also has educational purposes. It is used as a classroom, and teaches students who are majoring in games and interactive media. Rawls said they hope to expand and start to teach more classes out of the Esports Lounge.
The lounge is meant to be a place open to students to find new friends or bond with old ones through team gaming. It is easy and accessible for students, but there is a pay-to-play rule implemented to cover the cost of the labor used to keep the lounge running. Prices are charged hourly and range from $5 an hour to $150 for 50 hours.
This lounge is a great place for students to learn and relax with their gamer friends, providing the perfect combination of high-tech devices and a comfortable environment for de-stressing after class.
"I can just walk into this lounge and approach anyone and ask them to play a game, if I see them playing the same game," Iyer said.
Edited by Sophia Ramirez, Abigail Beck and Alysa Horton.
Reach the reporter at myerrag1@asu.edu.
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Meghana is a freshman studying informatics. This is Meghana's first semester with The State Press.
