Tension grew in the dark, crowded room as the fight continued. It was a close fight, and both contenders were growing weary. Amid the noise, a clear chant rose from the crowd.
“Jigglypuff! Jigglypuff! Jigglypuff!”
It wasn’t the fight of the year, but a round of Super Smash Bros. Melee in a tournament held by the Boston University Video Game Society.
Over 100 people packed a College of Arts and Sciences classroom where Nintendo Gamecubes were hooked up to three televisions and an overhead projector.
Video Game Society Vice President Nils Brasz said he predicted the tournament would attract about 30 players. But once the games began, there were 88 players and over 20 spectators.
Brasz, whose group chose Super Smash Bros. Melee for the tournament because it was the most popular game at weekly meetings, said the unexpected turnout reflects the growing social trend in gaming tournaments.
In the game, players can fight with an assortment of characters, including Mario, Pikachu and Zelda. This tournament featured two-player matches, but Super Smash Bros. Melee can be played with four players. Multiplayer games, especially those benefiting from online and network gameplay, have grown in popularity lately.
“Single-player games are having a falling out,” Brasz said.
Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Mario Party and Mario Kart are just a few of the more popular multiplayer games for BU video game aficionados.
GAMERS BREAK BOUNDARIES
CAS Freshman Kent Lee said just as many students sporting Abercrombie and Fitch and BU hockey T-shirts are playing alongside bespectacled engineering and math majors.
“Everyone has gamed at least once,” Lee said. “Even if they won’t admit it,”
CAS freshman Varnit Kothari said video game tournaments are allowing a usually counter-cultural lifestyle to penetrate the mainstream. The added layer of competition brings a new understanding to a hobby that was once considered suitable for nerdy, unsociable kids.
“People think that you don’t go out, or you don’t have friends,” said College of Engineering sophomore Joseph Lipani. “You have more actually, because you find people who have the same interests as you.”
“People think we’re geeks and nerds,” said College of Engineering sophomore Wesley Reitzfeld. “There are stereotypes that we’re not social. I don’t think that’s true.”
The competitive gaming trend isn’t anything new. The internet has become a hub for gaming activity, with numerous websites offering gaming tips, rumors and reviews. And several magazines cater to the gaming community, including many, like Nintendo Power Magazine, that are specific to one system.
Gaming references can also be found on T-shirts, hats and patches.
Video games have even broken into the comic and cartoon arena. Penny Arcade and Ctrl+Alt+Del are two webcomics that revolve around gaming, with websites that include the creators’ opinions on games and gamers’ forums.
The creators of Penny Arcade also founded a charity called Child’s Play.
The proceeds from the Smash Bros. Melee tournament will go to Child’s Play, which buys video games and consoles for children’s hospitals in North America and England.
According to Penny Arcade’s mission statement, the organization is trying to rid the world of the misconception that video games are ruining the world’s youth.
“We set it up because we were angry the media decided to blame all the world’s problems on games and gamers,” the statement said.
GAMING BECOMES BIG BUSINESS
One aspect that makes the tournaments so popular is the ability to network, through either the internet or a Local Area Network.
In World of Warcraft, gamers create characters similar to those of traditional role-playing games. Players can choose from races such as elves, trolls and wizards; classes such as druids, mages or warriors; and professions such as alchemy, mining or engineering.
Players can get together and create guilds, trade and work their way up in the online “world.” It’s quite addictive: Gaining levels takes a lot of effort and time, and some gamers play so obsessively that the game has earned the nickname “World of WarCrack.”
Lipani said the video game obsession is exaggerated.
“I’ll play every day, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for more. It depends on if I have work to do,” he said.
People who either don’t have time or don’t want to play lower levels in the game can pay services to advance characters. Phoenix-based Power-leveling.com offers to advance players from level one to 40 for $125.
Conversely, players who are no longer interested in playing often sell their characters that have already earned gold and have advanced in levels.
On eBay, characters are on sale from $100 to $900.
Lipani said players are missing out on some of the fun of playing when they pay to level-up or buy pre-played characters.
“It’s your account, you can do whatever you want,” Lipani said. “I have fun leveling up. If you want to pay $200 instead of playing, that’s your money”
In Local Area Network parties, called LAN parties, players connect to multiple computers and play a video game together in the same room.
“We’re trying to organize people to get involved with a LAN party because we know a lot of other people who play console games play computer games,” he said.
According to Video Game Society Treasurer Richard Pakpreo, LAN parties are relatively easy to set up at BU, since many places like the GSU have wireless internet access or several internet ports.
“We’re currently trying to get a StarCraft LAN together,” the CAS senior said.
Richard Stone, director of consulting services for the Office of Information Technology, said there have been no adverse effects on the network.
“There is no way to track who is playing computer games,” he said. “But there has not been an increase in network traffic recently.”
WOMEN ARE JOINING THE PARTY
Women made up 20 percent of the participants at the Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament, with several of them active members of the Video Game Society. Today, more video games are attracting women.
CAS senior Alex Diskin said that game design plays a big role in attracting women to gaming.
“My freshman year somebody brought a Gamecube from home, and most of the time it ended up being girls who were playing it,” she said.
Newer games feature more colorful backgrounds and several female and animal-based characters intended to appeal to women.
“These [games] are definitely geared toward anybody playing,” Diskin said.
Males are even beginning to play with female characters. Brasz won the tournament playing with Sheik, the alter ego of Zelda from The Legend of Zelda series.
DEVELOPING A GAMING CULTURE
Though tournament competition is intense, the Video Game Society opens its doors as a personable group at its meetings.
Pakpreo said about 12 students come together to cheer, laugh, tease and play Mario Kart each week.
“Gamers in general are very casual,” he said. “We’re all relaxed, we all bash each other.”
While video game culture may be growing due to more intense competition, better graphics and deeper storylines, Pakpreo said the hobby is still genuinely “about building up camaraderie.” According to Brasz, playing games as a group allows gamers to gather in a comfortable atmosphere, an alternative to some other college social scenes.
“It’s better than sitting around drinking on a Friday night,” Brasz said.