Video game audio and sound effects echoed through the Esports Lounge on the lower floor of the Titan Student Union, where Cal State Fullerton students gathered for a night of gaming.<\/p>\n
Associated Students hosted the three-hour event \u201cPass the Controller,\u201d which was organized by Roby Ho, a third-year business major and Esports student assistant. The event allowed students to compete in friendly video game matches against fellow Titans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI play video games my whole life, and it brings me great joy, and I just want to bring that to other people. And games are always more fun with people,\u201d Ho said. \u201cSo I always try to involve community. I always try to make a space where people can play, can hang out and talk, have fun, laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n
After signing into the event, an ASI employee would hand the students a flashcard indicating which station to start at. There were four stations in total, each with games for students to play, including \u201cMortal Kombat,\u201d \u201cMario Party,\u201d \u201cStreet Fighter,\u201d \u201cGang Beasts\u201d and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ho’s vision for the event was to include a cycling mechanism, with students alternating stations every 15-30 minutes. Attendees swapped controllers or moved over to the PCs, with different groups on the card advising them where to go next. Ho said this was done in an effort to get students to interact with each other as much as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some of the games chosen by ASI for the event involved an environment where students could use teamwork on the Nintendo Switch systems. For a more competitive crowd, they also offered 1v1 games for those who enjoy showing off their gaming skills and playing against different opponents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This event had students come out of their comfort zone and try new games with their peers. Many of the students who came to the event had followed the flyers posted around the lounge or on Discord and Instagram.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was excited to try out \u2018Street Fighter,\u2019 because I’ve never played it before,\u201d said McKayla Downing, a fourth-year studio arts major. \u201cI got to play with some people from different studios or majors, and it’s cool that we all like the same games. I just met somebody who liked the same stuff that I play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many student interactions filled the atmosphere with laughter and competitiveness amongst one another. Even though the event was about gaming, the lounge also drew students who just transferred, looking to meet their fellow Titans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw the event last week, \u2018Pass the Controller,\u2019 and the way that they described it, I thought it may be an opportunity to genuinely meet new people and hopefully form genuine connections,\u201d said Alan Bell, a second-year transfer student and studio art major.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The event became the first time ASI has incorporated a game rotation for students to enjoy. At the beginning of the event, Ho faced a challenge: fellow students weren\u2019t coming into the lounge and couldn’t start the rotation time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But not long after, students began coming in one by one as classes ended at around 4 p.m. and the event started to run smoothly.<\/p>\n
ASI provides the Esports Lounge for students to pass the time between classes, game with friends and enjoy a friendly, competitive environment. Students have the option to play on consoles such as PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X and PCs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Events like these allow students to build new connections, as games can be played with multiple people, whether they are average gamers or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This style of team and competitive play gives people the opportunity to enjoy an interactive setting and allows them to step outside their comfort zone while\u00a0 conversing with others.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, it’s just people talking to each other. I’m loving the space right now. Everybody’s laughing, everybody’s talking and it’s great,\u201d Ho said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Video game audio and sound effects echoed through the Esports Lounge on the lower floor of the Titan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,38696,1043,11753,3183],"class_list":["post-232828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-esports","tag-event","tag-gaming","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}