San Jose State’s esports club team has demonstrated potential during its first official year and has proven to be a strong competitor in the Mountain West Conference.
Despite only being established in 2019, the team was awarded Club Sport of the Year and has won several tournament titles throughout this past summer.
The esports club has transformed from a small gaming club into a respectable, well-known competitive club with approximately 30 members.
The club is subdivided into 12 teams named after the 12 video games in which players compete.
“Our program is still relatively young and we’ve hit the ground running since our establishment a few years ago,” said Edward Ham, esports club vice president, through Discord, a messaging app.
As this new semester takes off, members of the club, along with approximately 100 million esports players, mentally prepare for the intense aspects of competitive gaming and the large scholarship awards at stake. Gaming tournaments, such as AllMid, create a fierce environment for taking home titles and awards.
League of Legends, Overwatch, Valorant, Rocket League and Counter-Strike are among the most popular collegiate esports games at the moment.
Valorant is the newly formed team made up of some of the esports club members, and already made history by winning first place in the first North American Collegiate League (NACL) and North American Collegiate Counter-Strike (NACCSgg) tournament.
The Spartans defeated Gamers of Oklahoma State University and 63 other college teams on Aug. 30 in their first tournament of the school year.
Esports members say the game mechanics range depending on the game and require a high level of mental concentration and exercise.
Daniel Warda, a team captain for the Rocket League team, who plays under the name “DD,” described how esports teams, like other teams, have its own coaches and team captains, and players even review matches to improve for the next competition.
“We do things like replay reviews of matches that we’ve played, like how a football team watches film,” Warda said. “We regularly play practice matches against other schools.”
Esports has transformed from an underground gaming world to an almost billion dollar industry. According to Statista, “In 2020, the global esports market was valued at just under one billion U.S. dollars.”
The popularity of online gaming and additional factors such as quarantine and nationwide shelter-in-place orders make it probable that this number will continue growing.
“Our recruitment run for this semester has seen a larger number of applicants than past years,” Ham said.
The vitality and streamable content of online gaming has been prominent far before the limitations of the pandemic.
According to RoundHill Investments, it is estimated that the viewership for esports will rise to 644 million by 2022, with 347 million occasional viewers and 297 million
esports enthusiasts.
“Just like any sport, our players compete for not only large prize pools but the glory and right to say that they are the best,” Ham said. “With millions of players around the world, being able to compete at the highest level of a game is quite an accomplishment in itself.”
Despite their promising team rosters and having won thousands of dollars in awards, such as the Mountain West Conference for League of Legends, which took place in Las Vegas for a $5,000 scholarship, the teams maintain their original passion and dedication for competitive gaming.
“We don’t like to take things too seriously, playing games should always be fun,” Warda said.
