Esports Hub- The future of university esports

The eSports Hub:

The eSports Hub is our first major trial that showcases the untapped potential of University esports for our Student Union. It was an entire week that had been designed to look at the different aspects of esports, as well as focus on the unique advantages of having a permanent space for our students to train, stream online, watch the pros, and more.

This project was developed to accelerate the investment from our University into the University esports scene, by demonstrating it over the course of the week (28th Oct - 3rd Nov). The society currently has multiple competitive teams, looking to continue their successes from last year, such as when our Overwatch team became runners-up in a University eSports tournament that hosted more than 90 teams from across the UK.

Imperial eSports would like to thank HyperX, Gfinity and Shadow, our hardware sponsors, for making this possible.

Sports psychology in Esports- 30th Oct, Tuesday

We worked with Lena Kessler, a sport psychology consultant, to design and run a workshop tackling the mental attributes that are required in both sports and esports athletes. The 90-minute workshop focused on introducing sports psychology to our students, which included the relevance of the techniques used by athletes, and the importance of strong leadership skills in the captain. Imperial eSports is currently working with Sport Imperial to potentially turn these workshops into a regular training session for our first teams.

“I found the sport psychology session very interesting. We were encouraged to discuss some questions about e-sports from the point of view of a sports psychologist. We discussed things like performance, teamwork, and communication in groups and then discussed our ideas with the speaker. At the end of the session, we had been given some tools to help practice and improve on our team communication along with ideas of what affects our personal performance. Overall the session was engaging and educational.” - Enda

Dota 2 1st team practice- 31st Oct, Wednesday

A room was provided to our first team for their regular practice session. Rather than playing games in their own rooms and communicating through Discord, a popular VoIP application, the players were able to interact with each other directly as well as review their game more efficiently through the use of the projector in the room.

“Most members enjoyed gaming using better equipment than they have at home. The PC worked faster, and the graphics were great. It’s also nice to have when you have a spare hour or two between lectures. It allows teams to practice more regularly. Coaching the team was easier. “ - Hayato

League day fun day -1st Nov, Thursday

The fun day was added to the rather serious line-up of events in order to help us extend our reach to a broader audience. One of our goals as a society is to improve the public opinion towards esports and its players - and what better way to do this than letting them join us?

“League of Legends fun day started on a bit of a scare when we suddenly found out that the servers were down, but once we got into full gear there was no stopping! The favourite event of the night was by far the Lee Sin blind fight. People competed in pairs, where one player was blindfolded while on mouse and keyboard, and the other had to stand back and give instructions. No doubt it was the most hectic event of the evening, with the Kill of the Hill a close second, where players individually battled it out for the crown (which happened to be a Santa hat). The night smoothly ended with a prize giving - sponsored by NSE!” - Julie

Crash course to streaming- 2nd Nov, Friday

Streaming is one of the key contributors to the rapid growth and distribution of esports. If successful, it can achieve and exceed the viewership numbers associated with prime-time TV shows. It’s an opportunity for individuals to shape and develop their brand through gaming, which demands extensive entrepreneurship skills from the streamer. Imperial Enterprise Lab shared our view on the unique ways to encourage and nurture an entrepreneur mindset in our students, and had funded us to run the introductory course on streaming with the Couch Casters.

“On Friday 2nd November, we had an event at the eSports Hub which was about streaming and casting esports. Gary Malazarte-Smith, a member from the Couch Casters, and John Pritchard (JohnPee), a professional esports analyst and commentator, came to the hub. Gary gave us a talk about the basics of streaming as well as how to produce entertaining content. After that, we hosted a Q&A with Gary and John. Then, we streamed several games that were being played within the hub and had other people casting those games.” - Matt