By: Jeremy Blye

 

From the last blog, we obviously know that the next year is right around the corner (2 WEEKS WOOO!). I luckily have been given the opportunity to start working within the Esports Center and get a feel of what the community is when it is in person. Walking into the center made me excited. Even though there has not been a huge flow of traffic within the center, it has made me happy to see the community that is coming together before the school year has even started. There is a level of respect I have not seen between people in awhile. It was nice to see the community function in person when I have only been able to participate virtually.

 

Seeing this within the first few shifts at the Gaming Center gives me hope with this upcoming year. As things slowly start returning to normal, it puts a smile to my face to see everyone just having a good time. It’s awesome that DePaul has the space to facilitate such an environment for our students. At points, I understand gaming can become extremely toxic, and it is great that no one I have seen cares for the drama that stems from such actions.

 

Overall, this blog is more on the short and sweet side. I felt the reopening of the Gaming Center deserved some more recognition. It deserves this type of recognition especially for those who are new to DePaul and are trying to find their way around as they move on to the next chapter of their lives. Not only this, I feel those who have been a part of the Esports community deserve the same amount of recognition. They have helped keep the community running throughout such a crazy year and a half. Like I said in the beginning, I look forward to what this year has in store for us, and I am ready for the ride that comes.

 

Updates for Esports:

• Tonight at 6pm, there will be an Esports event (SMASH BROS!!!!!!!!!!) in the Lincoln Park Student Center. Be sure to check it out, I am trying to make time for it.
• Tomorrow 8/28, the Rocket League and Smash team will be competing against NIU in a LAN over in Hoffman Estates starting at 4PM. Wish them all luck!
• We have a VALORANT and R6 collab coming soon, be on the lookout!

By: Jeremy Blye

 

Now that we are slowly winding down with the end of summer, I thought it would be neat to do a little reflection of what has gone on here at DePaul Esports and how far we have come. I honestly cannot believe that we are almost done with summer. It feels quite odd that the school year is virtually a few weeks away. Luckily, we do not (hopefully) any virtual school. I’m sure everyone including myself is excited to be back for in-person classes. All of this is just a side-note, but let’s take a look into what exactly has gone on.

 

Summer Showdown:

 

This whole series was by far the most enjoyable part of this summer. I never thought that I would be in a position of producing, casting, and putting together events. Yet, look where Kevin and I ended up going. We were able to have an event for COD, Rocket League, and VALORANT. Unfortunately, we were unable to host the event for Rainbow Six Siege, but hopefully we will be able to host more for the future. There was a lot of learning to be had by holding these events, but it honestly showed the potential we have for any type of physical or virtual event for our program. It was crazy to see that we would have consistently at least 20-30 viewers and VODs with over 400 views. Just about half of our whole community is tagging along for these events. This makes me so excited to see how hyper people are to get back to somewhat of a normal life. Now imagine what we could do if we ever do something like this in person. I guess time will have to tell. All I know is that Kevin and I will use everything we experienced over the past few months to bring with us for the future of the program.

 

DePaul Gaming League:

 

Unfortunately for me, I was unable to participate in any of our DGL series. I was honestly working when these occurred, but I still found time to look over the VODs. It was crazy to think that we were able to expand to games such as Skribbl.io and even Animal Crossing. Even though not as many people participated within these events, it was great to see how our casual side of the community was able to appreciate the smaller things we may offer. I know we were thinking of trying to host more pick up games throughout our different titles, but that unfortunately was unable to work out.

 

This Blog:

 

Now, I think we all know about this blog. The one and only Jeremy Blye is able to write this blog and find people to interview at the same time. I hope everyone who has had the chance to read some of my words and phrases even though they can be a bit much at points. I look forward to continue this into our upcoming school year.

 

I think this wraps up virtually everything I have to say for this blog. Like we have mentioned in the past, make sure you check out our Gaming Center in our Loop Campus. Starting Monday, August 23rd, it will be open from 11:30AM-9PM M-Th and 11:30AM-7:30PM on Fridays. Also if you are on campus, I may quite possibly be your RA if you are on the fourth floor of University Hall! Be on the lookout for what we have in the future!

By: Jeremy Blye

 

https://bmjopensem.bmj.com/content/7/3/e001118#article-bottom

 

In the past week or so I have been given the opportunity to take a look at an academic paper that was written on the effects of sedentary sessions that come with gaming. This research paper was written by Joanne DiFrancisco-Donoghue, Seth E Jenny, Peter C Douris, Sophia Ahmad, Kyle Yuen, Tamzid Hassan, Hillary Gan, Kenney Abraham, and Amber Sousa. They all were looking at “the effect of prolonged sitting on executive function and performance in competitive esports players” due to this being unknown (Donoghue & co.) Wow, that was a mouthful. Basically what this paper goes over is how bad sitting for long periods of time can be.

 

I know a lot of you will not go out of your way to read this, but I find the information that was provided to be extremely valuable considering the fact that I am sitting around all day if I am on my computer. I even have a hip injury that is partly related to how I had been sitting at my computer. I never realized how important it is to work on posture and have some form of mobility while gaming, but now I do. Let’s get into the knitty gritty of the information provided.

 

In this study, there were 12 men and 9 women with an average of 20.76 years of age. These are demographics that fit within the people that fill our community. It honestly is a fantastic sample group to choose from. Obviously because of COVID this could not be done in-person so it was completed remotely. Let’s take a quick look into what exactly the researchers were looking at and what they were testing:

 

• Ultimate goal of seeing how adding some form of mobility would affect gamer’s performance and health
• One group played roughly 2 hours of an FPS title and had 0 breaks during gameplay
• One group played roughly 2 hours of the same FPS title and had a 6 minute walking break
• One group played roughly 2 hours of the same FPS title and had a 6 minute resting break (flat on the ground with their eyes open)

 

As far as the specific information for each participant, I do not find there is the need to highlight it. If you are interested into knowing the ethnicities, weight, and other facts such as this please refer to the link at the top of the blog. Refer to Table 1 for this information.

 

Figure 2 which uses a diagram to explain the situation above:

 

After the read of all of this, I felt it to be so important since the results pertain to myself. It applies to virtually all gamers and all competitive Esports players. We are all sitting around for sometimes hours on end and without many breaks. By actually becoming injured, I was able to further this realization with the data that was provided before my eyes. This is a moment where this is something my mother would tell me to work on and I would not listen to her because she’s my mother.

 

Let’s take a look into a “normal” gaming session. Let’s say that the title that is being played is CSGO. In a regular competitive game, it could take anywhere around 45ish minutes. If you were to play a whole series in competition this could last up to 3 games in many rounds. This could be up to 2 hours and 15 minutes (give or take). This study represents exactly how that “normal” gaming session would go. I know from experience that not a lot of people take breaks during gaming. Once you’re in that zone, you will not leave it. Even if you are in that zone, a question that is posed is how healthy is it to just sit for over 2 hours? Well, the simple answer is no. Here’s why:

 

• Performance Wise:
  • Gamers who took no breaks at all ended up performing the worst out of all of the comparison groups. This is because one is running themselves to exhaustion by playing competitively for hours on end.
  • Gamers who had a break played better, but the group who walked played the best. This is because during the walk it allows the body and mind to stay mobile. Not only this, the walking is the most healthy for a mental break for the game.
  • Again, I could go into further detail about the study, but I would like the researchers to have a little bit of spotlight with their findings since it is quite interesting.
• Health Wise:
  • The gamers who had no breaks at all tended to be exhausted in all areas of life. Based on the scale of exercise intensity, the researchers were able to see that the gamers with no break were more exhausted.
  • The reader (YOU) can probably figure out this one. The ones with the breaks felt that both types of breaks helped with their gaming performance. The walking group said that the “active walking break positively helped their gaming performance” (Donoghue & co.).

 

Why should you, the reader, care?

 

Honestly, you do not have to. I will sound like a broken record player at one point, but self-care in gaming is so important. If you do not upkeep yourself, you will deteriorate. Even though this is not a traditional sport, gaming still can affect one physically and mentally. This study shows within a relative small amount of gaming how much one can be affected. Just by taking breaks within a gaming session, it can impact how you play and how you feel. Again, the researchers go into much more detail in how this works, but I felt it needed to be highlighted. I also do not want to make this blog 2000 words and into my own little research paper. If there is anything you can get from this read is that you should take care of yourself and sometimes prioritize yourself…even if you do not want to.

 

Be sure to stay tuned for what we have in the future here at DePaul Esports! Tryouts are right around the corner…dates to be coming within the next 4-5 days at the latest. Not only this, we have the Esports Center reopening on August 23rd!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! That will be an exciting time! As you all know, we have more working in the background, but until then, I will see you all in the next one!

 

 

By: Maggie Vallone

 

Times have been particularly trying recently in the eSports scene for women, POC, and minorities. It came out on July 22nd that California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a civil lawsuit against Activision-Blizzard, one of the largest video game developers in the United States (Good, Owen S. 2021.). The lawsuit alleges that women were subjected to constant sexual harassment which included groping, inappropriate comments and unwelcome advances. These women were passed over for promotions, despite taking on the responsibilities of their male counterparts who played games on the company’s dime. It also alleges that executives and human resources personnel not only knew about the harassment and failed to take action, but instead retaliated against those who chose to report the abuse. This lawsuit and the corporate culture it describes have people questioning the future of gaming. The practices of the developers they support. And the price of playing the games they love.

 

However, this shouldn’t be new news to anyone involved with video games. The gaming community has historically been less than welcoming towards women and minorities. During the 2014 Gamergate controversy, an online harassment campaign was centered around sexism and anti-progressivism in video game culture. Ubisoft, another gaming company, has been accused of similar conduct towards female harassment and job fairness. Riot, Electronic Arts, Naughty Dog, and other gaming companies all have been plagued by gender issues. This locker room culture isn’t unique to the corporate realm either; similar sentiments have become commonplace in the community. Racial slurs, rape jokes, misgendering, and death threats are part of the gaming experience for any player. Those who speak up are drowned out by anonymous mobs; harassment, cyberstalking, threats of doxxing, swatting, and bodily harm are only a few of the methods employed to silence them. 

 

As part of the eSports community we need to take steps to ensure that anyone is welcome; to let people know that they aren’t alone. One of the many ways we can promote an inclusive space is through Discord. Providing bots in DePaul servers that allow members to assign their own pronouns as visible roles is one step we can take towards normalizing different gender identities and presentations. A need that has become increasingly clear within the gaming sphere. By taking steps to create an inclusive community in DePaul’s eSports servers we can support our members and strengthen the movement towards equality in the industry and gaming as a whole. 

By: Jeremy Blye

 

Note: This series will again cover more of personal experiences and reflections within the Esports community. J is for Jeremy. M is for Max.

 

This week, I was able to speak with one of our Rainbow Six Siege players about Esports as a whole and within DePaul. This interview was extremely enjoyable and I have been loving gaining so much insight about our players and community!

 

J: Who are you?

M: Max Henley

 

Look at this guy above…what a good guy :).

 

J: What is your involvement within Esports?

M: I play on the Rainbow Six Siege Varsity Team

J: When did you start Esports in general?

M: I transferred to DePaul in January 2020, and it was right before COVID hit. I’ve been playing R6 for a few years now. I saw DePaul had an Esports program and the Discord server. Luckily for me they had tryouts about a week later so I got on the team.

J: I remember when I was joining an Esports team, I wasn’t really sure where to go. I knew I wanted to be involved within Esports, but I didn’t know where my talent could be used. I play all types of video games, and I was quite surprised how open the community was to a relatively novice competitive gamer like myself. Honestly, I was quite glad that I was able to find a spot within the community and I’m sure you are too. As far as tryouts go, how is Rainbow Six Siege handled?

M: With Siege, because its a smaller community, it required a lot of alumni to help out. We didn’t have enough people to make a lobby where it was the DPU squad versus the people trying out. We play it like a standard ranked match. In the past year with tryouts, we had it much more organized. This allowed us to have a general idea of how to get the players rolling into the flow of the team, and it also helped us realize how to help the org grow.

 

J: With COVID, Esports and gaming has had a lot of room to grow. A lot of people are recognizing the growth. How is DePaul allowing you guys to grow as a team and an org?

M: AdmiralSnackbar on the FPS board has been integral in getting the team recognized as an official team. We are now finally getting jerseys and a place on the Esports website. Not only has Snackbar helped out, DePaul has been and is the support system for the team’s growth. By having these attributes, real team structure has been established. There is growth with discipline. There are strats within the game being established. There is steady growth for the R6 team.

J: Basically there’s actual team structure.

M: When I joined, there weren’t any scheduled practices. There would just be a match day. We would have some notes over the VOD, but we did not have anyone to go into a detailed review. Now, this is how the team is structured: We have a match one every Friday night. Monday’s, we go over the VOD. Wednesday’s, we have just plain practice. We have improved so much as a team in the past 9-10 months due to the structure we have established.

 

J: Was it hard getting to this point when it seemed like there wasn’t much settled in the team’s infrastructure?

M: It was. With college kids, it is hard to have that discipline since some people don’t really want to have to listen to someone. You want to have autonomy in the way you play. You want to take charge of yourself. Yet, you have to listen to your game leads and go from there. I think once you figure out roles on the team and you write down certain things to make it concrete, it creates that sense of accountability. You know what you’re supposed to do in the game in all aspects. It is affected by how much time and effort you put into the game. You also have to factor in everything else you do outside of the game. 

 

J: One thing I know other Esports teams at DePaul have struggled to get past is creating that team discipline in a virtual landscape. How was Rainbow able to accomplish it so well?

M: Your age, experience, and time management skills are a big factor in getting the discipline down. If you look at the average age on the Rainbow team, you can see that it is about 20 years old. Because we have a little bit of extra experience in life, we can put together our practices and team structure much easier. The time management aspect of college is just another aspect of life you just learn and deal with. 

 

J: I agree that dealing with time management can be tricky and sometimes the best way to learn is to make a mistake. Do you feel that these mistakes are crucial to the learning process?

M: Some people in the moment may know they are making the mistakes they do, but then in a week they won’t know. A good example is that I went to Illinois State University, and then I went to Oakton Community College because I was slacking off. My parents would even question me how I changed so much to stay on top of everything. I just learned from my mistakes. It sucked in the moment, but I just learned from everything I failed from. 

J: I love hearing that you’re the type of person that tries to look at mistakes as positively as possible. You can always mess something up, but you never truly “fail” until you do not learn anything new. One aspect in gaming that could be represented within this idea of failure are the stereotypes that surround this activity.

 

J: Do you feel that the stereotypes that surround Esports sort of held you back when you were first interested?

J: I bring this up because everyone is a critic. I am. You are. It is impossible to say that you do not criticize some aspect of life. This is prevalent especially in gaming since everyone feels that they can blame gaming for a wide variety of reasons.

M: The percentage of people who have actually done something bad from gaming is minute. For example, when crimes happen, a very small percentage is driven by gaming. If anything, these Esport titles promote teamwork, communication, and accountability. These are the positives of Esports. The negatives are the trash talk and the violence that are “included” within the titles. Yet, these negatives are highlighted much more often than anything else.

 

J: Another negative aspect of Esports comes with the mindsets players have. A lot of Esports players say their games suck, why do you think it is? Why do you think it is from a R6 perspective?

M: People hate the game because the developers don’t listen to the community’s feedback. For so long we have asked for certain aspects to be added for a competitive community, yet it doesn’t happen. 

On top of this, some people get extremely toxic because they think the game is for money . By winning in a normal game, no one actually wins or loses something. It’s just a game. People need to take a deep breath and relax. In my own gameplay, I try not to rage in any way. In gaming, literally anything good or bad can happen in an instant. I just try to keep people calm and level headed.

In the R6 community, toxicity is a huge thing people have always dealt with. The developers have done a bunch of little things to help out find the people that are the problem. From the start of the game though, you can figure out who is toxic or not and it is something you cannot escape. 

 

J: What is your way to control tilt/rage for yourself and the team when people do things you can’t control?

M: The worst thing for us is when we have a map we are very good at and our strategy is blown up. Panic then settles in. We end up questioning everything that we are doing. One of us may die a minute in the round and then we think we are screwed. When it comes to that tilt, we can’t put it onto one person. Like I said earlier, I try to keep everyone calm. 

J: So you are the person who tries to keep everyone on the same page.

M: Basically as close as possible. 

 

J: How do you deal with the tilt when you have to scrutinize yourself?

J: When you look at high level players, you can come to the realization that to be able to improve, you must look at every little detail under a microscope. It must be so mentally taxing. I understand this from experience. So how do you get through this?

M: With these situations in mind, I learn from my mistakes, and I look at how to change myself for the future. I could always pose the 20 questions to myself as to what I could do better. This is not beneficial in any way. I have to learn from the moment and keep it in the back of my mind so I can avoid it in the future. If I make the same mistake, it gets to me since I’m like, “How did I let that happen?”. It’s not tilting, but it’s more aggravating than anything. I don’t think I’ve ever slammed my desk from raging.

 

J: How do you keep yourself so composed in gaming? I have struggled in the past with holding in rage due to the fact that I sometimes can’t handle losing complete control of the game.

J: I think one thing Esports players tend to struggle with is the control aspect of gaming. In any game, you have complete control of what you do under your fingertips. I understand from anyone’s perspective that this is frustrating since you think you can do whatever you want. Unlike traditional sports, gaming has very few external factors that may affect what is going on. Lag is one significant factor. This is not a huge problem most of the time though.

M: It gets to me at times, but it affects me in little ways. Lag may come in the worst possible times, but I don’t think it’s a huge issue with games. Being able to know what you’re supposed to do is all that matters. You can blame the game as much as possible, but it does nothing for anyone.

 

J: Why do you feel people deny other’s happiness when it comes to certain aspects of gaming? 

J: Joking about this is one thing, but why do you think people actually care?

M: I don’t know, but it may be the stigma behind certain communities. With communities like R6, people just put labels on the game just because they can. People don’t understand the time commitment required to get good at the game. For example, teaching new people can be extremely frustrating since they don’t know anything at all. The learning curve can affect the communities as well. Look at Mario Kart for example. It is super easy to just pick up and no one truly cares about the results of the game. Then people can look at Overwatch or R6 and then realize the competitive level of it. 

J: So they just amplify the main issues to make the game how it “should” be.

M: It amplifies the stigmas that go around gaming.

J: One thing I think that holds newer players from any game is the amount of events that can go on within a game. Within R6, there is so much one must learn to be able to succeed in any way. There are operators, their abilities, their guns, map callouts, map knowledge, strategy knowledge, and opponents to study. I feel this has pushed me away from certain games in the past.

M: I agree, the steep learning curves in games can be discouraging.

 

J: Before we end today’s interview, what do you think the potential you see out of a program like this at DePaul?

M: I think Esports as a whole has a lot of room for improvement. Since I’ve joined, there has been an increasing amount of interest in it. There are a lot of big titles for it as well. 

As a team, in the past few months we have made a designated schedule. We have improved a whole lot. It is important for teams to have the tryouts to be like a real sport. It helps bring out the idea that this is a tangible thing and that it is more than just a club. It is a team to help represent the school. 

 

J: You may have all of these ideas and data to help prove your points, but what is a feasible goal you can see the esports center accomplish?

M: I want to have everyone play in the gaming center. We would be able to see one another, and we would have that personal and physical connection between humans. 

Not only this, I would like to see more support for one another in the program as a whole. If we had some type of way to bring the community together more that would be fantastic. People know about the other games and teams, but there is not much more than that. A lot of people are segmented into the different groups, but no one really crosses over the different games that often. I wish we had a large Esports community instead of the segmented community it seems we have.

 

Just wanted to say thank you to Max for taking some time out of his day to sit down with me and let me interview him. I find it quite fascinating the different views of some of these general topics. Obviously, a lot of these players share similar values, but it is great to see how they can vary as well. Like I have said in the past, I would like to represent this community as much as possible and also help educate those who are and aren’t involved whatsoever.

Stay tuned for our upcoming events in DePaul Esports! Our Animal Crossing event is occurring tomorrow at 6:30 PM CST at the DePaul Esports Discord Server! Come swing by and check out the islands or enter for yourself. The winner will receive a pretty neat trophy!

Not only is our Animal Crossing event going on, we have our DePaul Summer Showdown going on August 19th starting at 7:30 PM CST. This will be streamed on twitch.tv/depaulesports.

 

 

By: Ricky Soto

 

 

We are all fans of someone or some team, whether it is football or soccer, CSGO, or LOL. We all have teams we support. While there’s a multitude of Esports organizations, not one is more recognizable than TSM.

 

TSM (TeamSoloMid) is one of the largest Esports organizations in NA, and they have been competing in the highest level of Esports since early 2011. With teams all over the gaming scene like Fortnite, R6, LoL, and Valorant, to name a few, they have decided to expand into the collegiate scene. TSMU started in April of 2021, is a collegiate-focused initiative built specifically for university students that have a passion for gaming and Esports.

 

By partnering with TSMU, DePaul students will have the opportunity to access events like career panels, Q&A’s with top Esports industry professionals, tournament watch parties, casual tournaments, and more. While DePaul has already been offering amazing events like these ones, TSM and its connections to the highly profitable industry surrounding it will also provide internship programs and coveted career opportunities within the TSM organization. DePaul students will have the chance to learn about, and connect with the multi-billion dollar Esports industry to develop the skills and network needed to pave the way for future care in the space.

 

Not only does TSMU offer many opportunities for growth and development, but it also aligns with DePaul’s Vincentian values through beliefs in progressive causes. TSM believes in inclusion and diversity in the Esports scene, hosting “Pride Visibility” streams, and pushing for a more welcoming community, similar to DePaul’s partnership with The GamerHER’s collegiate division a few months ago.

 

We can’t wait to see what our Blue Demons do with our TSMU colleagues and we’re sure all students will enjoy the partnership, even if they are C9 fans. Whether you’re at the top of your game and are looking to get involved, TSMU will have a place for everyone.

 

We can’t wait to get started! In the meantime, drop us a follow on social media at: @DePaulEsports and @TSMUniversity & @TSM respectively.

 

The les desso una buena semana,

 

Ricky Soto, DePaul Esports

 

By: Jeremy Blye

 

As many of you know, we had our 3rd DePaul Summer Showdown last night. It was a crazy match between our squad and the St. Clair Saints. Luckily, this event did not keep us until 1AM. I enjoyed every aspect of it, and I thought I would take a deeper dive into both the actual event and behind the scenes.

 

 

Game 1: DPU vs. Saints (0-0)

This game was played on the map Haven, and it was hard to tell exactly what was going to happen. Both teams were extremely aggressive and they kept passing control of the map between one another. I think this posed as a big issue for both teams since it made it difficult for the other to know what to do. Even though both teams were aggressive, they also fed their opponents teammates and weapons. By playing extremely risky, it allowed for a lot of good to happen, but it also gave room for many mistakes. This meant that throughout the whole game, the score was basically tied. Eventually, we were taken to 3 overtimes until DePaul came out victorious.

 

Game 2: DPU vs. Saints (1-0)

We now were on the map Bind, and at this point I have to say I quite binded into the series at hand. Get it, see what I did there. Both teams were definitely all warmed up here, and had some sort of understanding of how to play against one another. Even with this information at hand, this is the point where I saw DePaul started to struggle a little bit. They may have been confident throughout every single game, but the Saints’ playstyles and rotations outplayed DePaul many times. This did not mean DePaul did not play very well. Yet again, we had another close game with a score of 13-9 with the Saints winning. I think within this game, we were able to witness some of the best clutches and plays by both teams. Players like kaz and Blitzbolt on DePaul and vCan and BlossoM on the Saints really proved what it means to have mechanical and mental skill.

 

Game 3: DPU vs. Saints (1-1)

With our final match of the night, we ended up going into Ascent. From the extremely small amount of Valorant that I have played, I have to say that this is one of my favorite maps within the game. So many of these maps you have to check 300 different angles to make a move anywhere, yet this map is a little less vertical than others, and it is also a little bit more linear. The Saints seemed to have been able to completely read DePaul and understand how to play around them. Although they may have not had the firepower to compete with DePaul in many of the early rounds, they were able to break through and take a huge lead within the first half of this game. Even with something like this happening, DePaul was playing very strong and attempting to stay in the game. Their confidence was still very high. This led to some crazy plays by almost all of the players. This was not enough to bring home the win.

 

Congrats to the St. Clair Saints for winning this match-up we hosted! It was a blast being able to commentate and watch what was going on!

 

 

So as far as behind the scenes, what exactly happened?

Well, I did do the production of the event, and I thought it was going to be pretty easy since I have it down to a science after COD. I unexpectedly had to step in as a caster with Kevin. Let me say that casting and doing production was extremely difficult. I do not know much about Valorant so I had to apply any game knowledge I had from CSGO to figure out what was even going on. It was still enjoyable, but it definitely was a little bit messy. I think being able to track everything I needed to do while still entertaining everyone who was watching was probably the most difficult part though. My mind already runs at 1000MPH. With last night’s event, I had to act even faster so I was definitely a little bit tricky. I am always glad to get more experience though, so there were a lot more positives than negatives. Even though DePaul did not win, every player took home my heart :).

 

Stay tuned for our next Summer Showdown which will feature Rainbow Six Siege on August 19th at 7:30PM CST! Hope to see you there!

By Jeremy Blye:

 

Note: This is a going to be a little bit of a new series where I interview one of our members within the Esports community. I also ask them about their experience within Esports and how this program has affected their personal life. P is Peyton. J is Jeremy.

 

Yesterday, I created the opportunity to speak to Peyton “Tangerine” Gatza for about two hours. It was honestly a great conversation and there was a lot that I was happy to be able to hear from him. I think allowing the community to voice their opinions and their overall feelings towards what goes on is extremely important to keeping a community strong and healthy. Let’s take a look into our little interview.

 

J: Who are you?

P: My name is Peyton Gatza and I am a senior at DePaul who is studying music.

 

(Look at this stunning lad, I definitely didn’t find this pic from his Instagram)

 

J: What is your involvement within Esports?

P: I am a part of Overwatch Varsity, I am a commentator, and I am a part of the Overwatch Board. I also do some solo-production for some events. I enjoy it, but it’s like a double-edged sword.

 

J: When did you start Esports?

P: I started my freshman year. I tried out for Overwatch when the team was extremely good. There were 30 people who tried out and I didn’t make a single team. It took 2 people dropping out to be able to make a team. It was super discouraging since they had 3 teams at the time. There was Varsity, JV 1, and JV 2. After a little bit of time, I got moved to the main tank of JV 2.

 

J: What is the team structure at DePaul?

P: There are 2 coaches. Both are from the organization Kaiju Corp. Cybele is a coach who focuses on the macro play with everything the team does. Cybele will go through VODs and to see what the team needs to do to play against the opponents. InsaneWaya is the other coach who helps micro-manage the team. During scrims and VOD reviews, he takes detailed notes of a single player to give them information about what they are doing. This helps the players improve individually while also improving as a team.

J: I find it quite interesting how the teams function so similarly, yet games like Rocket League and Overwatch are so different. I’ll bring it up later when we talk about discipline within Esports, but I’m not surprised this is how part of the team functions internally. This is a little bit off topic, but with Overwatch competitive, do they enforce certain roles within the game. I remember when I used to play Overwatch, I hated the update where they added the role queue. (Then we start “reminsicing” on previous metas within the game haha).

P: Nowadays, all Overwatch competition forces the 2 Tank, 2 Support, and 2 DPS meta. Since we were talking about the structure of the teams, this is how the roles function together. Tanks are the most important followed by the support players. 1 Tank is in charge of making the calls in the middle of the fight while everyone else echos it and follows around. The other Tank plans the upcoming fight and how they are going to take the fight. The Support player is the ultimate tracker. It is basically how it sounds. Ults are the most important abilities that can swing the tide of the fight in a moment’s notice.

 

J: It seems that you are passionate about Overwatch. You obviously are knowledgeable about the Esport you compete in. One sentence I hear all of the time in Esports is this: “I hate (insert game)”. Why do you think it is?

P: People say this because of these 2 reasons:

One of them affects lower leveled players. This comes down to their mindset. Many people do not approach the game with a growth mindset. When they hit a skill cap from not pointing out their own mistakes, they just rage and get upset. A lot of times people get mad when they get rolled over and over and nothing gets better. These players struggle to move past this skill plateau.

The other side of this affects higher leveled players. Overwatch has not been historically great with the updates they have made. These updates can cause complete changes within the game. This dev team has a solid understanding of how to cater to both the competitive and casual scene, yet they go towards the casual players. Skill plateauing for these higher leveled players is even more frustrating. The players tend to dissect their gameplay at every single point of a game. It is so taxing mentally since they know the instant they make a mistake. Being a perfectionist is what makes you the best.

J: It’s funny that you bring up the raging thing for the lower-leveled players since it is something that I have experienced. My coach and teammates have helped me slowly change that mindset. This is the one thing that I think makes many of these players be unable to change their mindset. When you are gaming, you have complete control of what you are doing. It’s not like a sport where there are external factors that may change what is going on. Yeah, there is lag. That is the least of someone’s worries for competition. Yet, when you think you have control of whatever you are doing, it hurts so much to see everything get stripped away from you. Many of us put hundreds-thousands of hours into the games we love. At different points, I have definitely said, “I hate Rocket League”. For me though, it is much more than just the game itself.

I have definitely contributed to the problem Rocket League has, but the community is the most toxic out of any game I have played. I never thought I would say that this game is more toxic than CSGO, but it is. I think the little rage-inducing comments or the way people can BM you pushes me to a whole different level. I’m primarily talking about when I am playing outside of competition.

P: You know one thing that has helped me get past all of the negativity within a game is realizing I need to focus on me and not everyone else. That is the best advice I have been given when talking about this subject. I have definitely had to deal with this throughout my experience within Overwatch and gaming as whole. I just try to move away from those toxic individuals to make myself the best player possible.

 

J: While we are on the topic of negativity within gaming, do you feel that the stereotypes that surround Esports held you back when you were joining?

J: The reason I’m bringing all of this up is that I feel it is important for every part of Esports to have some light. I’m sure you know, but I think the pros and cons of anything are important to go over. As far as the question I just asked, I feel that these stereotypes have affected me. My mom hasn’t been extremely accepting of gaming until she has been able to see what I have done with it at school. You can even look at this whole issue in a general sense. Ever since gaming became somewhat mainstream, there have been games like DOOM that have only brought out negativity from the world. The media thought this game was promoting the devil due to where it was taking place in. It seems as if gaming was blamed for many different events throughout our lives.

P: To answer the first part of what you brought up, these stereotypes have affected me at some points. There are definitely times where I have felt that I could be doing something different with my life. I don’t want to. It makes me happy. I have fun. Over time, I have learned that I will do anything that brings me happiness. I will do it even if people are not necessarily fans of it. There are still plenty of people I know and care about that will game with me. In life, you can’t appease everyone. This is a skill that has taken years to develop.

People who try to deny people from feeling happy is wrong. I will never judge someone for liking something because it is unconventional. It is societally wrong and disgusting.

J: As far as unconventional, what makes watching TV or reading any different from gaming. They are different activities, but in the end they are just hobbies.

P: It seems at points people are just using gaming as a scapegoat for the world’s problems.

 

J: Since Esports and gaming is attacked so often, how do you feel it is affected by this?

P: This hinders the community that Esports is trying to branch out to. For example, look at Overwatch League. It is streamed on ESPN 3, which is one of the main ESPN channels. Everyone watches it, and the people who do not like gaming will be up in pitchforks about it being played. People who are not even interested in Esports will see this on social media and will be discouraged to be a part of the community. Hopefully in the future, this mindset will diminish. Everyone feels that they are a critic.

(This next part is my favorite thing Peyton said in our whole call)

As a musician who is going into my fourth year of studying music, it makes me very upset when I hear people try to say a tangible remark about a piece of art. 9.9 times out of 10, they are most likely not qualified to make objective statements about art. I don’t think I am incredibly inclined to say anything objective of any art piece or music. I don’t think it’s right even though I have studied it for 4 years.

This is a mindset that has held Esports from growing even bigger.

J: I have always found it interesting how people can be dead serious in hating on someone for their opinions. Music is a bigger problem for this idea. If you look at an artist like Tyler, the Creator, you will see people bashing one another for liking certain parts of his discography. I joke with people about why they like a certain artist or album, but I would never be so serious about it. I also have never understood people not liking something when they have never participated within whatever activity it is. This is prevalent within gaming during COVID. Gaming has been given a lot of good and bad spotlight because there is not much going on in the world.

P: Communities within gaming have been shown within the light much more. Look at Animal Crossing. During a pandemic, floods of people were trying to buy a Switch and people (gamers and non-gamers) were coming together to play some random game. It was crazy how many people were interested into what gaming posed for people.

J: Hopefully by the time we are back in person, more people will be able to bridge the gap that holds Esports and gaming from the potential it holds and carries every day.

 

J: Before we end off today, I have one more question for you. What is the potential you see out a program like this at DePaul?

P: Looking at what we have now, we are given a tasted of what could happen if we had more. You can take a look at the ranks of our players. You can look at the scoreboards on how teams compete. There are incredible numbers that these teams have without much sustainable coaching. They rely on the communities that they have built off of to get to where they are today. If there were more resources invested into Esports, some of our teams could be some of the best in the world.

 

Thank you so much to Peyton for taking quite a bit of time out of his day to talk to me about these topics. I honestly really enjoyed this conversation we had. It was more of a conversation than an interview to be honest. We were able to go back and forth with ease. I look forward to doing my next interview soon.

Make sure you stay in tune at DePaul Esports to see what we have planned. At 6PM CST today, we will have a DePaul Gaming League event. It is Skribbl.io. On top of that, we have the next DePaul Summer Showdown next Thursday at 7:30PM CST with Valorant!

 

By: Jeremy Blye

 

As you all know, we had our second DePaul Summer Showdown last night from 7:30PM all the way to 1:30AM. What a night is one way to describe this event. Even though it was much longer than anticipated, I was extremely happy with how this event went. We were able to include a variety of teams, include a decent amount of casters, and work through any technological bugs that decided to pop up out of nowhere. Let’s take a deeper dive into each of the series I watched and my perspective as running the production and some of the casting throughout last nig

 

 

Round 1: Butler vs. Oklahoma State (0-3)

Within this series, you could tell who was hungry to compete. This team was Oklahoma State. They played so aggressively it posed some difficulty for Butler to keep up with them. Going into this game, I heard about how strong Butler was and how they outplay their opponents with ease. It seemed the Oklahoma State was the one who came out with the victory no problem. They took out Butler within the first 3 games and they did not let them win a single one. Two players that really stuck out to me within this series was Royal on OKST and Plasma on Butler. They definitely led their teams on each game with kills and set the pace. Even though Butler was unable to come out victorious in this series, they were able to prove how strong they were by their attitude within the game.

 

Semifinals: DePaul vs. Oklahoma State (3-0)

After watching Oklahoma State play spectacularly, I was a little nervous to see how our DePaul squad would play against them. This should not have been a worry for myself since DePaul came out hot and absolutely showed Oklahoma what it means to be a part of our program. The synergy between players such as Krizzy and Vennitt helped prove why this squad works together so well. I do have to say that Oklahoma State ran DePaul for their money. Just within the first game of Hardpoint, the end score was 250-228. Each game put me on the edge of my seat, but I was glad to see my squad continue on to the finals.

 

Losers Finals: Oklahoma State vs. Kennesaw State University (3-2)

Throughout the whole night, this series was my favorite to watch. If the last series had me on my toes, I have no clue what to even consider this one. It was like a game of cat and mouse between these two teams. It was amazing to watch the events of this series happen. Oklahoma and Kennesaw were the perfect match for one another. Each had their own strengths and weaknesses, and I think Oklahoma’s aggression is what helped them take the win over Kennesaw.

 

Grand Finals: DePaul vs. Oklahoma State (3-0)

NO WAY THERE WAS A REMATCH!!!!?!?!??!?!? So it looked like there was going to be a rematch from the semifinals between these two teams. It was very similar to the previous series except you could tell that fatigue was settling into all of the players. At this point, the event was going on for about 5 hours, and I knew that these players were just ready to end it all. Obviously, DePaul wanted to win and end it so we were able to see some spectacular performances from the whole squad. Even though there was a little bit of some back and forth between round wins, DePaul was able to figure out how to get around Oklahoma State to take home the victory.

 

 

My Perspective:

As the main producer for this event, I was quite nervous. I was nervous since I had never done this before. There is a lot that goes into making sure the event and the transitions go and look smoothly. Luckily, I got it all figured out relatively quickly, and I was happy with the result. Even though things did go smoothly (for the most part), I was surprised how well I handled the mishaps. Of course there were issues with lag and connection so there had to be different hosts of the game internally. I kept having issues where my mic would be muted and the casters did not hear when I was going to transition. That was a lot of fun to deal with. There was even a point when Kevin’s PC stopped functioning, and I had to step in as a caster. I have no clue how to play COD. I have no clue how I was able to cast a whole game. Did I do a good job with it? I have no clue. Yet, I was able to get the production complete on top of casting for about 20 minutes. Overall, I felt this event went extremely well even though it went on much longer than I intended. I for sure am looking forward to what we have in store next for DePaul Esports.

 

I hope you all enjoyed this read and have a great weekend!

By: Jeremy Blye

 

Throughout my time at DePaul, I haven’t seen anyone share a deep perspective into their involvement with a specific team, and I thought I would make some room to share my own thoughts. To give a little bit more insight, I would like to take a deeper dive into how one of our Esports Teams functions. More specifically, this team is our Rocket League team and the progress it has made since September of last year.

 

As an incoming freshman, I had no clue of what I wanted to do with college. We were in the middle of the pandemic. We were stuck in our homes virtually every single day. We were stuck with a stagnant life. I decided to make a change to that. When I joined this program, I was not too sure as to what game I would like to be a part of. I knew I wanted to join an Esports team because I have a passion and love for video games. I also tend to find myself to be okay at gaming and wanted to elevate my skill. I also missed being a part of a serious team/organization and luckily this program has helped fulfill some of my own wishes. I ran cross country and track within high school, so this program helped fill a spot in my heart. By the first week or so of being a part of this organization, I decided to join the Rocket League team.

 

As being a new person within the team, I knew I had to earn my respect and prove that I deserved to have some sort of a spot within the team. These are some values of discipline that had been engrained into my head by participating in other sports. It was interesting to see how many of these values I lived by translated nearly perfectly within a video game. While I was growing up, I was always surrounded by negative pictures of video games and what “negative” consequences came from putting in time into gaming. By taking a hobby much more seriously, I was able to see the how participating within an Esports team had many more pros than there were cons. Although I was sitting on a computer and just looking at a screen, I was able to take a passion of mine and improve it to the best of my own ability. There was now this opportunity for me to figure out how I could elevate my skills as a gamer and person overall. This team has allowed for my own personal growth as a player and as a person overall.

 

So far with this post, I have been relatively general with how I have put together my thoughts. I think it is extremely important in a field such as Esports and gaming to give as much background information as possible before going into specific events and providing exact details. It allows me to demonstrate a year worth of events without taking away too much from your day (Even though I know you all love reading what I have to say, I understand it could be a lot). Without going on too many more tangents, let’s take a deeper dive into this Esport.

 

Rocket League as an Esport at DePaul

 

I was quite surprised when I found out how similar Esports is to what many consider traditional sports. Each has its own unique attributes, but they function relatively similar. Rocket League in its own is in a somewhat similar boat. This game even follows suit of what makes one activity a part of a club and one a part of a team. I am referring to how seriously the players take what they are doing. With any activity, anyone can just participate. What matters is how far one may take it and what they may do to reach whatever goals they may lay out in front of themselves.

 

The reason our Rocket League Esports team is considered a sport/team is because of the mindsets that help bring this team into fruition. Too often, there are those negative mindsets that gamers are lazy and do not do anything productive. I was again surprised to see how many of the traits that made me love being a part of a team be translated seamlessly into the program. The way the coaches work with the players is virtually the same as a normal sport. Same with how players interact with one another and how one goes about improving within the game. One may be good with solely a mechanical aspect of one of these games, but that does not mean that they have a firm understanding with how to become good mentally. The mental side of the game covers more than just understanding the game. This is learning how to become a smart player and how to control emotions.

 

The level of “intelligence” that comes from playing Rocket League comes from how one approaches the game itself. One can simply just play the game. This does not mean that they are necessarily a smart player. They have to be able to make split-second decisions that may make or break the game. They also have to know when they can take risks. If a risk is made and the game starts falling apart because of that, then this means the play was not necessarily a good or smart one. Not only do players need to understand what they are doing in game, they must understand how to react to those around them (both on the same and opposite teams). This means players need to have good synergy to be successful and be able to read their opponents to further that success.

 

In gaming, it is hard to become emotional especially when one becomes attached. I know this from experience. I find it extremely easy to become frustrated or angry with a video game since it is something that I have complete control with. Every I do is up to the inputs I have in my controller/keyboard. This is unlike running where I had other factors that I could not control. In gaming, it is so important to be able to control my own emotions and feelings to be able to bring out some form of success. It just poses difficulty sometime when I know I cannot control something I believed could be.

 

Not only is the mental-side of the game important, the physical side must be addressed as well. Just like in normal sports, there is some form of a training regiment to be able to have some form of improvement over a certain period of time. Even though this is done completely virtually, one player must train specific aspects of their mechanics within the game to be able to improve. This is something that should be obvious to any observer, but I never noticed the level of seriousness one must take to improve with a video game until I actually did it.

 

Conclusion

 

First of all, I hope you made it in one piece. I understand that this was quite a bit to read. I think in future posts, I would like to dive into more specific aspects of each of the teams and express with other people or more of my own work. I think it is interesting to see how similar gaming is to what we consider traditional hobbies, and I would like to do my best at informing others on what I know and how I feel. I think it is good to start with a relatively general piece before going into crazy specific aspects on how these teams function. It allows anyone to get a start into understanding how these Esports teams work. Thanks again for reading and I’ll see you in the next post!