After setting up the appropriate televisions and local network connections, members of the ASU Gaming Club plan on playing video games, starting Saturday at noon.
And they plan to keep playing for 10 hours.
“I can speak from my end that I get stressed a lot with my course load,” said Jacob Barlow, a junior chemistry major and ASU Gaming Club treasurer. “If I’m getting to play some games and relax, it’s a great way to release stress and I’m sure it works for others, as well.”
The LAN – Local Area Connection – party, an event that takes place at least once a semester, is an excuse for the club’s 120 members and outside participants to get together and just play. This is the third event of its kind this school year.
“Contrary to popular belief, our LAN parties are less LAN PC gaming and more video, card and board gaming,” said club President and junior psychology major James Dixon. “PC games make up a large part of the LAN, but we also have Smash Bros., Yugi-Oh, Magic: The Gathering and other fighting game tournaments.”
Club sponsors will provide food, which includes CiCi’s Pizza and Hot Diggidy Dog. The decision to side with these particular sponsors was not random – it was strategic.
“The reason we choose foods like this is that you can hold them in one hand and play with the other,” said Ben Allred, senior psychology major and vice-president of the ASU Gaming Club.
Club members vote via Facebook polls on the sorts of tournaments hosted and the games played at the LAN parties. The tournaments take place throughout the night with prizes, such as gift cards.
“We’ve been focused on really hitting our stride as a group since we got a lot of new officers this year, but we’re pretty confident with where we are now,” Allred said. “So we decided to do a mystery event that nobody knows about and that won’t be announced until it occurs.”
Even though gaming is sometimes a solo act, the club aims to get all gamers together for a change
“All of us are gamers, and we can easily do what we do on our own, like ‘Hey, you like Magic, let’s play Magic: The Gathering sometime,’ but what the ASU Gaming Club provides as an entity is for all of us to get together and pool our money and say, ‘Hey, let’s do something really big and really cool,’” Allred said.
Above all, the end goal is to have a good time.
“It also just really allows other gamers to meet other gamers,” Barlow said. “A lot of the time, how it used to be with something like Magic, you only had two or three people that you were really lucky to meet, but when you go to the LAN, you say ‘Oh my gosh, there’s 50 other people who play.’”
The event goes on until 10 p.m. Saturday in the Grandfather Mountain Ballroom of the Plemmons Student Union. Entry costs are $5 for club members and $10 for non-members, with the option to join the club at the door. Entry fees go toward prizes and higher quality equipment for future tournaments.
Anyone is free to bring a game to play, as long as they can find teammates and a free console.
“We do our best to make you feel comfortable playing games with us and in our tournaments,” Dixon said. “Don’t be ashamed because of what you love to do.”
The Gaming Club meets every other Thursday in the Roan Mountain Room of the student union.
Story: LOVEY COOPER, A&E Reporter