This weekend gamers all around the world will gather together for a good cause; to help out kids who are under the Children’s Miracle Network of Hospitals. It’s an annual 24-hour gaming session hosted by Extra Life and joined by studios and writers alike. Unfortunately, this writer will be traveling during these 24 hours and will just have to make do with streaming everything off of his phone and keeping an eye on the proceedings.

You can either join as a spectator or a gamer and you don’t have to watch or play all 24 hours, it’s all in good fun and it’s for a good cause. You get to do what you love and help someone while doing it, it’s win-win for everyone. So, head on over to the site, register for some gaming or keep an eye out for the streams on their website. Don’t forget that you can also head on over to Extra Life to donate to this cause as well.

One of the biggest challenges of running PUGG was dealing with Purdue’s administration and its sometimes insulting stereotypical view of our organization, so I asked Ian what kind of challenges SLP has to face when dealing with MSU’s administration and if there was a stereotype associated with being a gaming organization on a college campus. On the stereotype part, Ian explained that he didn’t know what the administration thought of SLP; “I don’t know what the administration thinks about us, but there are a lot of groups on campus who seem useless, like the coffee drinking club”, “I bet we seem more productive than some frats that clearly advertise drinking” he added. There is one challenge that Ian described is the lack of funding to expand SLP’s LAN parties. The limiting factor, from our experience of running LAN parties, is almost always the availability of adequate power, Ian explained to me that “if we [SLP] want to host a 100+ people LAN party we need to rent a power system that runs for about 800-1000 dollars” he went on to say that “we don’t want to charge more for our events so we are trying to ask the University for more funding but they have so much red tape to get a dime it’s ridiculous.”

FragFest 2011

Ian’s point of funding led to the discussion of sponsors and how SLP goes about acquiring sponsors and how important sponsorship is to them and their continued operation. It goes without saying that sponsors are extremely important, but different organizations require different amounts and types of support to be able to operate. Ian admitted that without sponsors, SLP would still be able to operate: “two of our LANs a year are basement LANs which means no raffles, no sponsors, no tournaments; just casual gaming”, “our unsponsored events have become just as popular as our sponsored ones because it takes away that fully scheduled, competitive edge away from the LAN” he further explained. Ian explained how different sponsors help with different things, things which in turn SLP doesn’t have to worry about: “sponsors are great because while most provide prizes for the raffle, others, such as NOS, provide enough energy drinks for the night and t-shirts, it’s one less thing to worry about”. We also discussed college gaming and where it was headed, Ian believes that it will keep growing as “more than  ever, gaming is really integrated in people’s lives”, “it will probably just get bigger.”

Before ending our discussion, I asked Ian if he had any advice he wanted to share with people who are looking to create a similar organization to SLP or with someone who is already running one. Ian stressed that “finding people who are interested” is key, they have to be passionate. Ian further added that once an organization is setup, nurturing and growing the community is extremely important; “maintain and expand your community, the more people who are involved, the more help and ideas you get”.

Be sure to check out SLP’s website and their tUg profile, also don’t forget to like them on their Facebook page!

Put your best “surprised face” on because Blizzard has just announced that Diablo III will ultimately be delayed till early 2012, keeping in line with what Blizzard business practices. “I know that many of you were hopeful that Diablo III would ship this year,” writes Blizzard president Mike Morhaime. “We were too,” he added stating that he had pulled the teams all together and unanimously came to the decision that releasing it by the end of 2011 could not be done while maintaining the quality of the game. And we have to agree, Blizzard has rarely, if ever, failed in the department of delivering quality games.

But all is not lost, Diablo fans. Mike has announced that the beta will be extended a little longer as well due to this so those of you who didn’t get in on the beta invite, make sure to check your e-mail vigilantly to see if you got one of those elusive invites that everyone’s looking for. Then you can strut around on campus and watch as about 90% of the student population not caring at all but for the other 10, you will be the object of hatred for 5 minutes or more.

No news about changes to the “always online” policy though.

Source: Battle.net

PUGG’s event, BoilerFrag3.0, will be taking place at Purdue’s Armory from the 22nd of October to the 23rd. There will be around a 100 PC slots and an extensive console area as well. Participants can either buy a console ticket for $10 or a PC ticket for $15. Participants with PC tickets will have access to the console area. PUGG has already announced a StarCraft II tournament and a LoL tournament. Participants will also be able to vote on the BoilerFrag3.0 website for other tournaments. Console tournaments have not been announced and neither have tournament prizes. The event will be sponsored by NOS Energy Drink so there will be free NOS.

Sources

• http://boilerfrag.pugg.net
• http://event.spartylanparty.com/

We are now on the eve of PS Vita’s release date and Sony has finally let us in on some technical specs and requirements. First, to battery life: in the press release Sony detailed that the battery would last somewhere from “3~5 hours” of game time, “5 hours of video” and “9 hours” of music in the device’s standby mode. This means all network capabilities off, screen set to minimal settings and headphones plugged in. Again, not really surprising given the device’s capabilities and one that matches the 3DS’ rated battery life but this means that you’ll be recharging this device often and each charge takes around “2 hours and 40 minutes” from zero to full battery. Nintendo offers a bundled up charging dock to simplify your charging process while Sony sells theirs for ~$36. It’s just a little more effort on your part to charge the PS Vita normally but it is a difference when you start comparing the prices of the devices.

The real crux of the problem however, is the fact that the PS Vita comes with almost no on board memory which means that you’ll have to spring for one of their PROPRIETARY (Sony y u no join industry standard?) memory cards. You will be able to save some games on the PS Vita’s on board memory Sony mentioned specifically that  other “PS Vita software titles may require the use of separately sold memory card.” These cards range from $29 (4GB) to $124 (32GB); something to really consider before you buy the PS Vita.

With more people switching to portable games on their smartphones, handhelds like the PS Vita and 3DS are facing stiff competition from the casual gaming market and on Sony’s part, these minor additions to the price will keep even more people away.

Source: Sony

During one of the ACM events, he managed to sit next to the future co-founder of PUGG, Mike Liska and the two shared an immediate bond over the desire to have more gaming events and have an organization on campus that was dedicated to that. Their main focus was to drag gamers out of the comfort of their own homes and have them in one location to game. “As much fun as we all had playing online, we found that the experience was much more memorable when in person.”

Their enthusiasm for gaming together in one room was not shared by many people who did not see having a “more memorable experience” worth dragging their heavy CRT monitors and desktops across campus. Even today students have to be incentivized to bring their generally lighter equipment to an event. However, this did not deter Tony and his team from hosting their events and they did so with alacrity, learning many things along the way such as setting up a proper infrastructure. “We had no funds, no real sponsorship, and a network no engineer would be proud of.” Everything they worked towards was completely worth it in Tony’s view as they did exactly what he set out for PUGG, “we were organizing tournaments, helping people setup, talking with new members or old friends. That was enough for me though. I loved the reality of the community that was coming together.”

First official LAN hosted by PUGG. (Fall 2000)

PUGG would go on to host 40 more events in its time and it would seem that nothing could stop its growth. They were soon the single largest gaming organization on campus with a steady income flow and sponsors such as Microsoft and Bawls. It looked like nothing could take down the Group but infighting between a new set of officers saw the steady decline and loss of direction for PUGG and by the end of 2009, the organization had gone on hiatus, its equipment and resources scattered across West Lafayette and was ultimately suspended by the Student Activities Office (SAO) and the Business Office for Student Organizations (BOSO).

It was then that myself and Nic Baumann, after going to one of the LANWars hosted by Gaming@Indiana University, felt that the Boilermakers deserved a gaming organization of that caliber and deserved to enjoy LANs at their own campus and be able to attend double the number of epic LANs in Indiana. It was definitely an uphill battle to restore PUGG to the good graces it once had and many negotiations had to be held with SAO and BOSO to prove to them that we were serious about reviving PUGG and providing an alcohol-free campus event, which Purdue actively promotes in all of its organizations. We decided to model the revived PUGG after Gaming@IU’s approach in the sense that we would have one single LAN event a semester instead of the original 3 per semester that was hosted by PUGG in the past. We decided to channel all of our resources into that single LAN and started the very first BoilerFrag giving it the number “1.0” to signify a fresh start for the organization. We reached out to sponsors to ask them to sponsor a brand new organization but one with a rich history and despite many rejections, we managed to secure 7 sponsors for BoilerFrag 1.0. It was during this time that NOS Energy Drink approached us about sponsoring PUGG and they could not have come at a better time. NOS’ commitment to PUGG was unparalleled as they outsponsored all of the other sponsors several times over but without their help, PUGG would not have reached the point that it is at today.

BoilerFrag 1.0 entrance!

After a successful yet hastily put together first event, PUGG gained recognition and once again the Group was looked at in the same light that it was before. Many gamers on campus started coming out to support the organization and the community was reformed. We put an emphasis on that aspect and beyond the single LAN events, we had Monthly Gaming Sessions which were strictly console and were thus easier to organize and have many people come by every month to game. PUGG went out to volunteer during Boiler Blast, which is a university wide volunteering service where university students gave back to the community by doing odd jobs here and there. Using the experience gained from the from BoilerFrag 1.0, we set out to create a second with a better venue, better prizes, more people and more equipment and BoilerFrag 2.0 was born and as they say, the rest is history.

PUGG volunteering during Boiler Blast and helping out a Lafayette resident do all her spring cleaning yardwork.

Console section in BoilerFrag 2.0.

Overhead shot of BoilerFrag 2.0.

PUGG certainly has had a very interesting history with many ups and downs but the community and the passion of a few gamers who decide to take the mantle of office has seen it through its tough times and so long as PUGG continues to cling on to that sense of identity, it will be hard pressed to be taken down again. Tony imparts a few words of wisdom to future Presidents, “Keep your members interested. Events are the key. Even if the event is ‘Pizza night at Bruno’s’, the more you bring members together, the more of a sense of community you’ll have. The better the community, the more help during the big events and the more worthwhile the experience.” I couldn’t agree more. The only reason we survived was because we had that community in the end. As officers, you won’t be there forever and you have to build a community to see your organization survive and that goes for any organization.

BoilerFrag 2.0.

What of the future of PUGG? It’s hard to say but Tony has the thought that e-Sports will start making more headway into college gaming and with the Collegiate e-Sports Series being hosted in Indianapolis by NOS Energy Drink, it is not a stretch to believe that. For me, I just want to see PUGG survive another 10 years and keep that community light burning.

]]> http://theugamer.com/2011/09/12/college-orientation-purdue-university/feed/ 0 http://theugamer.com/2011/09/10/company-spotlight-tt-esports/ http://theugamer.com/2011/09/10/company-spotlight-tt-esports/#comments Sat, 10 Sep 2011 09:03:32 +0000 Azlan Ismail http://theugamer.com/?p=298

 Tt eSPORTS was founded in early 2010 in response to the growing eSports environment. Thermaltake, the parent company, was already quite familiar with eSports having sponsored many events and teams in the past so it was only natural that they would enter the market. “The recent spike in eSports interest doesn’t surprise us at all. It was something we definitely saw coming, we just didn’t know when. There has always been interest but titles like League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, and more importantly StarCraft 2 really gave North America a huge push in the right direction again,” said Travis Hezel E-Sports and Community Manager for Thermaltake USA and Tt eSPORTS.

For a company that has never had any experience in developing products outside of cases, CPU coolers and power supplies, Thermaltake definitely had some challengers and obstacles to overcome when it came to winning over an audience that has had established companies like Razer and Steelseries vying for their hearts and their wallets. However, the company was not fazed by any of this and approached the challenges from a very practical point of view. “When we developed our line of products, we looked at creating the most versatile group of products possible. We looked at the trend of what gamers and eSports enthusiasts were using currently across all peripheral categories and we would cater to their needs to compete with the best equipment for the best value as well.”  Their investment and their push into the market have paid off with their ever growing line of products coming out of their factories.

One of their products that Travis is personally impressed with is their MEKA G1 Mechanical Keyboard. “We’ve ran this thing over with a BMW, poured Liquid Nitrogen on it and beat them up at the office with in-game rage. For some reason after all this, it still works fine! It amazes me every time.” If you’re looking for a more gamer-centric version of this keyboard, look to their newly released MEKA G-UNIT which claims a polling rate of 8x quicker than a regular gaming keyboard. (Check the post at the end for links to the epic videos)

MEKA G1 Mechanical Keyboard

StarCraft 2 has been a catalyst in helping to grow the burgeoning eSports scene and Travis agrees that it was a title that was “definitely looked at to becoming noteworthy and bring more people into the competitive scene.” StarCraft became a “way for us to get involved with more communities and bring exposure to some new alternative products.” This can definitely be seen in their massive support for the Collegiate Starleague choosing to become the main sponsor for the CSL and assisting in prizes and support. “The idea of schools competing as teams in competitive gaming is just an amazing idea” and Tt eSPORTS “immediately wanted to help support their cause.”

Outside of CSL, Tt eSPORTS also sponsors many events and professional gaming teams. Last weekend, Tt eSPORTS attended and sponsored Insomnia 43, which is UK’s biggest gaming festival that saw around 2,500 BYOC participants and close to 10,000 visitors for the event. Professional team Infused.Tt, of which they are the primary sponsors was on hand at the event. Tt eSPORTS sponsors teams across North America, Europe and Asia having recently included South America on that list after sponsoring team Ovo Frito. TteSPORTS has also started to get heavily involved with community initiatives in the area, more exclusively local LAN centers in the Los Angeles area, “We head out usually on Friday nights to hang out with the community and play some games while giving out some products and promoting our type of eSports lifestyle.”

Infused.Tt at Insomnia 43.

White-Ra signs with Tt eSPORTS joining Asian team Apollo.Tt.

Tt eSPORTS has always been a generous company when it comes to sponsoring LAN events and my work with them in the past has been quite pleasant. Colleges looking to add a little extra edge to their event can always look to Tt eSPORTS  for sponsorship and help but there is a certain way to approach things. As an event manager, Travis has had plenty of experience and it all comes down to selling the event. “Let us know what you’re planning to do in detail – If you have a cool contest you guys run every event, let me know! If there’s a quirky tradition at the LAN event, let me know!” All of this lends credence to the event and gives the impression that “you guys are serious about what you do and plan the event appropriately in depth as opposed to winging it.” Also, don’t be discouraged if you’re a first time event organizer hosting a first-time event, “we have plenty of people (including myself) who have the experience working gaming related tournaments and events. We would love to help you out with the planning to make it a successful event!” assured Travis.

Things are definitely on the lookup for the eSports company; they’ve managed to achieve a lot in their one year in the business and Travis is quite confident in the company’s prospects. “You never know what the future holds but I’m happy to say that Tt eSPORTS will be taking even more leaps into the professional gaming scene. There are amazing new products being developed, more community ideas coming to fruition, and as always some special tactics peppered into the mix. As far as sponsoring more teams/players that’s something you’ll see progress even more next year.”

BMW runs over MEKA G1.

Pouring Liquid Nitrogen onto MEKA G1.

VentureBeat recently did an interview with Dave Stohl who is Activision’s Executive Vice President for studios and the guy who decides how many developers Activision Blizzard work on the Call of Duty series.

With Call of Duty being the biggest franchise for the company and the one that generates billions of the dollars for Activision, it stands to reason that Activision pulls out all the stops for the game. Apparently it has with more than 500 developers working on Call of Duty at any given time. Activision has four to five studios working on the game, which is more than most other game companies. Activision has invested $2 billion in new games development and it would appear that Call of Duty has the largest slice of that pie.

Stohl admits that running all these studios and keeping everything coordinated is a take unto itself but has since assured us gamers that Modern Warfare 3 will definitely sate the thirst of gamers for something new and will keep gamers every happily killing each other online for another bijillion hours.

However, even with all those developers, many complain that the game hasn’t drastically changed for the better with some citing that it has progressively gotten worse since the release of Call of Duty 4. Could it be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen? Or has the game gotten better in your opinion? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: VentureBeat

Sony has unveiled a comprehensive list of 13 upcoming Vita games, which include the hotly anticipated Uncharted, Ridge Racer, and Disgaea 3 to name a few. Sony will also have 18 more unannounced games, which will be featured at the TGS. This will put the total number of games for the Vita out the gate at 31. All the have to do is make sure that they all come out at Vita’s release. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? *cough*Nintendo3DS*cough*

For the other entertainment systems, the PSP has 5 games of which one of them is a Yakuza sequel. The PS3 has something called “Happy Charlie and The Flying Carnival”, which sounds dubious but something that I would pay good money for just for the name alone. I hope that it’s a cross between Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Carnavale…how epic would that be? Time to pitch it to both studios.

PlayStation Vita

• BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend
• Dynasty Warriors Next
• Asphalt: Injection
• The King, Demon King, and the Seven Princesses: New King Story
• Mahjong Fight Club
• Shinobido 2
• Virtua Tennis 4
• Uncharted: Golden Abyss
• Gravity Daze
• Hot Shots Golf Next
• True Kamaitachi
• Disgaea 3 Return
• Ridge Racer

…and 18 more unannounced titles.

PSP

• Frontier Gate
• Final Fantasy Type-0
• Black Panther 2 Yakuza: Asura Chapter
• Hatsune Miku: Project Diva
• Over My Dead Body

PlayStation 3

• Battlefield 3
• Dragon’s Dogma
• Asura’s Wrath
• Street Fighter X Tekken
• Dynasty Warriors 7: Xtreme Legends
• Ninja Gaiden 3
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2012
• Metal Gear Solid HD Edition
• Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker HD Edition
• Final Fantasy XIII-2
• Binary Domain
• Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
• ICO
• Shadow of the Colossus
• Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One
• God of War Origins Collection
• Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds (PS3 the Best)
• Happy Charlie and the Flying Carnival
• Ni no Kuni: Queen of the Holy White Ash

We’re not here to discuss the effects of gaming on a student’s studies or social life, rather, the point of theUgamer is to report on college gaming from a competitive standpoint, from the standpoint of eSports and all that is associated with it such as LAN parties, sponsors, teams, tourneys, online communities etc.. The college environment has great potential for competitive gaming and it is quite surprising that no one has tried to do more with it until just very recently.

College is a great environment for anything related to eSports and there are many reasons for that. The primary reason is that it provides a large concentration of people in the ages of 18-22 in a small area which lends itself extremely well to establishing a gaming-oriented organization. Secondly, and nearly just as importantly; access to well-equipped facilities which are very often free to use. This allows organizations on campuses to host events in large spaces, use computer labs for practice and access to blazing fast internet. Furthermore, there is access to high-end equipment such as networking and AV equipment. Thirdly, there’s great access to people of different skill sets; you can probably find some student that knows a lot about networking, another one about marketing, another about accounting etc.. You’ll be hard-pressed to not find someone in a major that is not interested in gaming.

A further advantage would be the attractiveness to sponsors; if you’re an official college organization, you can bank on that when looking for sponsors as it gives an organization a lot of credibility. You can also attract a sponsor further by inviting them to come to campus to promote their products with your help. From the company’s perspective, you’re giving them access to a huge number of people in their target demographic and at almost no cost other than the travel expenditures of their representatives (though you could really just use the students from the organization that you’re sponsoring) and the products that they would be giving out. College organizations have the added advantage of having the campus completely open to them and spaces that a company would normally have to rent out from the university is now free for them to use through the college organization. The college organization gets the support to carry on as a group and the company gets free adspace to their target demographic. It is essentially a win-win for all.

From the points listed above, there are two types of organizations that stand to benefit from the college environment; organizations that actually play games and organizations that organize gaming events. If done properly, both can reap extraordinary benefits from their college environment.  Those are two very different types of organizations, but ultimately, they rely on very similar needs to be successful; a user base, access to facilities/equipment, access to skilled individuals and sponsors, all of which are made easier at a university. It is quite surprising that when one types “X University gaming” for some of the nation’s most popular colleges into Google, nothing comes up. Whether this is a problem of these organizations putting themselves out there or whether there is seriously a lack of organized gaming in the college scene, is hard to say and hopefully theUgamer will bring some of those organizations out of the woodwork.

There have been a few attempts by companies to enter this particular scene with the most prominent example and lesson being Dell with their now defunct College Gaming League. Possibly the most successful organization to put in place a league for college gaming is the Collegiate Starleague for StarCraft 2 sponsored by Tt eSPORTS and Justin.tv.  It is not until very recently that we have seen heavy involvement from companies on-campus, unlike Dell which tried to take the online route with a league. Sure, college events on-campus have always been sponsored, but that was limited to a case of Monster, maybe a case of Bawls or a few dozen demo CDs of Ages of Empires 3 from Microsoft , nothing of much value. But recently, companies have taken notice in the potential, especially NOS Energy Drink, sponsor of MLG. Before it even sponsored MLG, NOS made some major headway into college gaming as part of their broader support for gaming, starting in the Midwest which boasts a few well-established gaming organizations, probably some of the best in the nation such as: Gaming at Indiana University, Purdue University Gamers Group (PUGG) and Michigan State University’s SpartyLANParty. Not only has this support from NOS allowed those organizations to bring their events to the next level in terms of professionalism, other sponsors coming on board etc.. but NOS went further and hosted the Collegiate Esports Series last March in Indianapolis for 24 StarCraft 2 college teams from all over the country. With a prize pool of nearly $5000, hardware prizes, casting by itmeJP, Wolf and CatsPajamas, a high production value and around 150,000 stream views, this event really showed the potential there is in college eSports.

One might wonder how college gaming fits in with the more professional competitive gaming community. Do players move on to become progamers? Not really, if by 22 they are not progamers, they probably never will be. Do teams recruit from colleges? Not really. Do progamers that currently attend college benefit from this? That’s debatable, the competition is probably not good enough. What it really does is feed the community of competitive gaming and eSports as a whole, it gives college kids a chance to shine in a game and earn some cred when they otherwise couldn’t, it creates communities that attract others to the world of competitive gaming which in turn grows eSports, in the case of the CSL, it gives players a sense of comradery and something to practice and aim for, it gives them a chance to represent their school. It’s a great experience overall and a huge asset for the growth of the competitive gaming scene.