How eSports is changing game design colleges
Imagine brightly lit arenas, flashy technology, and athletes pumped up to show off all their talent. Only it isn’t on a basketball court or football field. It’s eSports tournaments played on PCs and consoles, with everything from Smash Bros. to League of Legends. Colleges of all sizes have realized just how valuable the world of eSports can be for students and academic programs, offering up ways for students to form community bonds and learn valuable business skills and artistic principles in the process.
We spoke with some of the folks leading the charge in competitive collegiate eSports to ask them how its changed campus culture, and what it offers students. As you can imagine for a multi-million (soon to be billion) dollar industry, it’s quite a lot.
From the PC to the degree
“Esports is the hardest, newest, and most exciting thing to hit campuses since the internet. From varsity and club teams to the business of esports management, the opportunity has been clearly shown,” says Dr. Alan Ritacco, Dean of Becker College’s School of Design and Technology.
Esports, like traditional sports, is an entire ecosystem of career paths beyond just being a star athlete. Students also have the opportunity to learn business and team management principles, marketing strategies, and event planning. Becker College’s program also includes classes on esports industry trends and community development, something that will help students ensure they can adapt to the constantly evolving gaming landscape.
“You know what sports management is. You’re taking care of Tom Brady,” Ritacco says. “
“But it’s also business, continuity, change management, economics, IT, executive leadership. Now you go to the esports side and it’s taking care of [former League of Legends pro-turned-commentator] Crumbz.”
There can’t be any sports community without a little bit of sports journalism, and colleges like Becker and USC offer classes focused on content creation that forms the backbone of vibrant fanbases.
“What esports means for us is to ensure we’re getting students connected with companies that are at the forefront of technology and where we think the industry is going, and making sure we get input from them and update our curriculum for these students’ futures,” USC Trojan Esports Union faculty advisor Jim Huntley.
In a year where “community” means something very different for colleges, esports has been one of the few bright spots to keep students feeling close.
“It’s ironic,” Huntley says. “Our medium, from a professional perspective as well as an academic perspective, has been the one thriving because you can develop games and compete and socialize in the medium of games. Aside from the personal drain, our work hasn’t suffered.”
“There’s still so much going on with esports that I think is under-discovered,” says Dylan McKenzie, program coordinator at NYU’s Game Center. “Our role as a university is to help our students and the public make sense of this either through making new types of games that fit in that or you want to go into casting, YouTube, other stuff. We help you understand how to break it down in a nuanced way.”
Whether it’s from the bleachers or from behind a PC monitor, esports is almost certainly the future of collegiate competitions. The only question is: Are you ready to play?
