Taylor Bolanos
LV Life Editor
Playing video games may be a solo activity for some, but according to the members of the La Verne Gamers Guild, competing with each other creates community.
Several televisions and monitors were crammed across table tops Tuesday in the Leo’s Den, while Gamers Guild club members met for Fight Night, a tournament featuring several melée-style fighting games. Members played Super Mario Bros Melee, Mortal Kombat X and Street Fighter.
With 125 students on the club’s roster in the club’s second year at La Verne, the members have made a family for themselves. Tournaments and club meetings bring them closer together.
“(We) foster the community and just have fun,” said Jack Bowman, president of the club and sophomore history major. “That’s what we have here; we have a community.”
According to the founders, the club has a down-to-earth dynamic. Club members have a say in how the club operates and which games they want to play.
“It’s as much their club as it is ours,” said Sean Gribbin, vice president and cofounder of the club and sophomore computer science major.
Bowman and Gribbin encourage the club’s easy-going attitude and believe that the club should be a friendly, welcoming environment where members can relax and play video games.
When the members are not challenging each other in a game, they enjoy going to see movies or passing the time together. They consider themselves to be a family outside of meetings.
“Our motto has always been, ‘We’re the fun club on campus,’” Bowman said. “You come here with some friends or by yourself and make some friends.”
Tournaments like Fight Night inspire the club’s friendly spirit yet competitive nature. They provide new challenges for serious gamers to play against their friends.
“We’re an enigma here at Gamers Guild,” head of social media and sophomore kinesiology major Taylor Lesage said.
“We can get in each other’s faces, but it’s all in good fun.”
While Lesage did not compete in this particular tournament, he came to support his fellow club members.
The night concluded after several rounds of fighting which were scored in an online bracket system. Each player played the best two out of three games.
The winner of Tuesday’s tournament, computer science major Charles Morrison, won a copy of the game Diablo 3.
Fight Night also featured a raffle giveaway.
Junior art major Dynasty Nakatani won a Steelseries gaming head set, and La Verne alumnus Salinger Morales won a Steelseries keyboard.
The Gamers Guild plans to meet at 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. every other Monday in the Campus Center Ballroom.
With the first tournament of the semester complete, the club hopes to hold more tournaments over the course of the next few months and represent La Verne in outside competitions.
Taylor Bolanos can be reached at taylor.bolanos@laverne.edu.
