All Posts Tagged With: "gaming"
Never mind the haters. Gaming is a sport.
StarCraft II tournament packs student pub
StarCraft II spectators at Dino's in Saskatoon
Let’s say I’m a basketball junkie who is absolutely in love with the game. Not only am I an avid spectator, but I also practice the game religiously to master the craft. Some of my training days consist of six hours of drills, workouts and exercises so that I can kick butt in my next match. This scenario probably doesn’t faze you at all, because this is what an athlete does, right?
But replace the orange ball with a video game controller, and suddenly I’ve gone from a dedicated athlete to a gamer with a problem.
On March 17, Dino’s pub near the University of Saskatchewan held an event called Barcraft for people who wanted to watch the Major League Gaming winter tournament for StarCraft II.
I don’t find myself gaming very much beyond the occasional Super Smash Bros and the newest Wii releases, so walking into Dino’s that day was a complete shock. The place was packed with fans watching a live stream from Dallas of head-to-head combat between two professional StarCraft players.
What students are talking about today (November 6th edition)
Obama’s odds, no-money-down tuition, Halo 4 & a drug bust
The student pick is Obama (feelsgoodlost/Flickr)
1. It’s election day in America and things are looking good for President Barack Obama. Statistician Nate Silver, one of the most trusted seers of election results in America, Tweeted Monday that the latest polling suggests a very close election, but that Obama has a 91 per cent chance of winning the electoral college, which would give him another four years in office.
2. If it were up to student newspaper editors, Obama would win. The Daily Campus at Southern Methodist University is the only high-profile student paper to give Romney its endorsement.
3. More details are out from Ontario Liberal leadership candidate Glen Murray on his no-money-down post-secondary plan. Here it is. In partnership with private lenders, university students would be allowed to borrow up to $7,000 per year, roughly the cost of tuition and fees. Repayment and interest would start after graduation based on income. Loans would be interest free in the first 12 months after grad. The Canadian Federation of Students is opposed, naturally, saying it would “saddle youth with a lifetime of debt.”
Continue reading What students are talking about today (November 6th edition)
What students are talking about today (Sept. 6 edition)
Skateboarding, Shell, eSports, Indian booze and 1812
UBC Skatepark Rendering (UBC Transportation)
1. The University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus may be the first big campus in Canada with a skateboard and BMX bike park. The final park designs are here.
2. Citing printing difficulties and a monthly schedule that turned it stale, The Cadre, one of Canada’s funniest student newspapers, has gone online-only. Arshy Mann of the Canadian University Press worries that ink-and-paper expertise will dry up, that the paper will lose most advertising revenue and that students read it less since they can’t take it on the bus.
3. A Conservative MP says Canada’s largest union of federal public servants, which represents people who work for the Canadian government in Canada shouldn’t have endorsed the separatist Parti Quebecois that wants to leave Canada. Pierre Poilievre is calling for new rules to allow members to opt out of paying union dues.
Continue reading What students are talking about today (Sept. 6 edition)
The final frontier of boorishness
Female gamers face harassment and contempt online
Photo by Brian Howell
Republished from Macleans.ca.
When Lianne Papp started playing shooter games like Counter-Strike online 12 years ago with complete strangers, she noticed something immediately: not only were the majority of those strangers men, but they really didn’t like playing with women. The 27-year-old game developer from Edmonton lists “Show me your t–s,” “I’ve got something for you to sit on” and the more traditional “Make me a sandwich” among the sexist remarks and obscenities she’s received as she played on the web. “Online gaming is plagued with juvenile gamers who sling insults at everyone they can,” she says, “but the harassment women have to deal with is seemingly worse.”
A look inside gamers’ clubs on campus
Why study when you can kill goblins?
Pathfinder capture by Olivia Hotshot on Flickr
A few months ago, I was having dinner with a group of colleagues from a hiring committee, including the student representative. This student happened to be one I know fairly well. At one point during the meal she looked at me a little bashfully and said, “You know there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while.” It made me nervous. I could tell something personal was coming.
“What kind of character do you play in D&D?” she asked. It turned out she had just started playing and had learned that I played in a game with other faculty members, so she became curious (answer at the time: Gnomish Paladin; answer now: Half-Orc Monk; oh, and, strictly speaking, its Pathfinder, not D&D).
Gaming of various sorts—board, video, role-playing—seems to have always been popular on campus. I remember hearing about gaming groups at the University of Waterloo when I was still in high school. It’s not surprising, given the number of nerds (I use the term affectionately) who tend to end up in higher education—including advanced nerds like me who end up in the faculty. Indeed, a quick survey of university websites finds gaming groups across the country. At the University of Victoria it’s merged with “tech.” Clubs are active at the University of Guelph and Trent too. Not surprisingly, given the imaginations of game enthusiasts, some clubs play games with their names. The Club at the University Regina—the Gaming Fellowship—gives a nod to Tolkien. Others revel in playful acronyms like the Association of Ryerson Role-Players and Gamers (ARRG!).
