It’s not unusual to see several of the booths occupied by students on their laptops in Big Al’s. While some people are eating, others chatting, doing homework or perhaps working on a group project, a group of students consistently frequents Big Al’s to play video games together.
These “gamers” have become a quintessential aspect of Houghton. They spend hours down at Big Al’s, sitting side-by-side their friends, their teammates. “It’s fun to play as a group. Playing by yourself just promotes isolationism. We like playing as a team, otherwise, it’s not as fun,” said, sophomore, Ryan Campbell. “I wish I could play, but my laptop broke” said Justin Livergood, first year, who despite his broken laptops, looks on while his fellow gamers play.
The appeal to sitting in front of a computer for hours playing games is the team aspect. They often play “League of Legends,” an online game involving two powerful champions that battle head-to-head across multiple battlefields and game modes. Campbell described playing the game as: “A team game, you have to have five people. We constitute four and then we have another friend playing in the dorm…We are all playing the same game.”
Aside from “League of Legends,” this group of friends also plays “Magic: The Gathering,” collectible cards with a strategy game. In this game, you play the role of a “plansewalker”, a powerful wizard who fights other wizards for glory, knowledge, and conquest.
For Ronald “Bub” Duttweiler, a sophomore and avid gamer, gaming has become one of his main hobbies. “I started playing once I came to college last year,” he said. It’s been an opportunity for him to make friends and spend time with them. Duttweiler said that “having a friend group to play with” is one the benefits of gaming. Campbell shared his similar experience: “I originally got involved with [gaming] because I couldn’t participate in sports when I was a freshman. I’d never heard of it before that, but it had the competitive edge that I liked. So I got involved with and enjoyed it more than I thought.”
Naturally, “winning,” is a common goal shared by the group as well, according to Duttweiler. Along with spending time with friends, Duttweiler and Campbell enjoy the competition gaming entails. Duttweiler remained so intensely focused while playing “League of Legends,” that he didn’t pause to look away from his computer screen while being interviewed.
“When do they get their homework done?” wondered, junior, Mike Knapp. That seems to be the question most Houghton students contemplate about the gamers in Big Al’s. Yet, the amount of time they spend playing games “depends on how much work [they] have,” said Campbell. While gaming is a fun activity they partake in together, ultimately, they have to manage their time like any other student to get schoolwork done. “When homework gets boring I’d rather play games,” said Duttweiler. Gaming is a way to forget about the demands and pressures of school for a little while.
Some students have differing opinions on the students gaming together in Big Al’s. Senior Danielle Lyndsley observed, “It’s better than being a loner and just plugging yourself in for four hours and not interacting with other people.” No matter what hobbies each student participates in, the difficulty of finding a location impinges on the ease of which friends can spend time together. When and where did the tradition of playing video games in Big Al’s come from? No one really knows, but what Duttweiler does know is that “there’s food, comfy chairs, and not really another place to do it.”