In addition to a National Championship and being named the nation's top party school, UT now has one more title to add to its list of bragging rights: No. 1 gaming college in the country.
The University took first place Sept. 6 in a video gaming survey conducted by the Global Gaming League, an online organization that offers free membership for video game competitions. The league ranked universities based on student population, location, student organizations, tournaments and LAN parties, tech-friendliness, Internet connection and curriculum, according to the league Web site.
Grading UT with the highest score possible in six out of the seven categories, the league noted the Texas Gaming Association for promoting gaming on campus through 100-man LAN parties in which students link their computers for multiplayer games, according to the league Web site.
Accounting graduate student Garson Li said he co-founded the association in spring 2003 when he still considered himself a beginning gamer.
"It started out in the first floor of Jester, where we had about 13 guys who really liked to play games," Li said. "We realized there wasn't any sort of cohesive organization for gamers, so we decided to start one ourselves."
Knowing that fellow gamers existed elsewhere on campus, the group put up flyers advertising a new organization where video game fans could come together for large-scale gaming nights and tournaments, Li said. In less than three weeks, membership grew from 13 to more than 200, he said.
"It really snowballed late in the semester," Li said. "We didn't really have meetings at first, but we had play days once a week where we would get together. As the year progressed it became much more event-based. We would set up committees a couple of weeks prior to an event to advertise and organize it."
Four years later, the Texas Gaming Association continues to throw tournaments for various games, from Super Smash Bros. to Halo 2. Association president Blake Ellison, a Plan II senior, said he is currently working on a Guitar Hero tournament set for mid-October.
"Our biggest tournaments have drawn hundreds of competitors from all over the state and even the country," Ellison said. "Aside from that, we've historically put together smaller, more frequent events to try to unite the campus gaming community. Beginning with last year, we started an evolution from a massive tournament-organizing body into more of an umbrella organization for the various smaller game communities within UT."
In addition to Austin's two LAN centers, the Global Gaming League cites the presence of various game communities as one of the reasons UT landed the top spot on their list of gaming colleges, above second-place Penn State and third-place Rochester Institute of Technology.
"Every school has gamers, but I think what makes UT so special is that gaming is a real part of the college culture here," Ellison said. "UT's gamers aren't the stereotypical nerds who sit in their darkened dorm rooms all night, they're everywhere. If you meet someone on campus or at a party and tell them you're a gamer, you don't get laughed at or shrugged off."
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