Updated on Nov. 10
Since shelter-in-place orders were enacted in spring, people have seen sports competitions postponed and canceled. But for three Spartan Esports club members, their virtual reality gaming sessions continue.
The Virtual Reality team, which is a part of Spartan Esports, is composed of journalism junior
Rainier de Fort-Menares, computer science sophomore Ethan Soo and business finance freshman Dunncha Howard. The team has been competing in VR games since Spring semester.
Many campus organizations haven’t been able to hold meetings because of the coronavirus pandemic, so being on the VR team makes SJSU gamers feel like they are still a part of the SJSU community.
“As a freshman, I haven’t been able to meet anyone because of [shelter-in-place], but I feel like I found a home for myself on the VR team,” Howard said. “I’m really thankful for that.”
Although there are only three members on the team, any SJSU student with VR equipment who is interested in playing can join.
“We’re pretty lax in terms of who we let [on the team],” de Fort-Menares said. “All I care about is that you have a VR headset and that you’re interested in playing.”
According to the technology company Lenovo, virtual reality gaming requires players to wear VR headsets, gloves and hand controllers in order to interact and play video games.
De Fort-Menares said that unlike video games such as League of Legends and Valorant, where players sit in front of a monitor, VR players need to move around in order to play a game.
“[When playing VR games] you’re still standing, turning around or throwing [things] like how you would throw any ball in real life,” de Fort-Menares said. “You don’t see other [Esports members] sweating their ass off [like that] while playing.”
The VR team represents the Spartan Esports team in Collegiate Virtual Reality Esports, a virtual reality gaming community where college students compete with one another in Beat Saber and Echo Arena.
Beat Saber, a VR game released in 2018, involves slashing block-shaped music beats with a lightsaber. According to the Beat Saber webpage, gamers either pair up or play individually to quickly and accurately hit the beats in rhythm with a song.
Unlike Beat Saber, Echo Arena was released in 2017 and requires three to four players to form a team. According to Echo Arena’s webpage, teams compete against one another in a zero-gravity environment to throw a virtual discus into an opposing goal.
De Fort-Menares, Soo and Howard compete as a team in Echo Arena, while de Fort-Menares and Soo compete individually in Beat Saber.
Andrew Miller, an SJSU alumnus and avid Echo Arena player, volunteers as a coach for the VR team and helps them practice their passing skills and game strategies.
Although the VR team only started playing Echo Arena in September, they said they are ready to play at a highly competitive level.
“I’m pretty proud of the guys,” Miller said. “They only picked up [Echo Arena] a few months ago . . . now they’re getting to the point where they are all at my level, if not better.”
If it wasn’t for the pandemic, the team would be holding in-person practices together in a VR room at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library in addition to their virtual ones. The King Library Experiential Virtual Reality Lab is a room in the library where SJSU students and faculty can schedule appointments to use the VR gaming computers.
However, the team is still able to maintain a sense of teamwork and bonding while playing from their respective homes.
“It’s pretty cool that [in VR] we can practice at home and give each other tips virtually,” Soo said. “[It shows that] VR gaming can persist through the pandemic.”
