Video games have come a long way since their humble beginnings as a headache-inducing diversion with simplistic graphics aimed at a demographic that was almost entirely made up of children. Gaming has since grown by leaps and bounds and has become a multi-billion dollar industry.
As the gaming industry has grown up, the people who play them have grown up too. The average gamer is now 25, and groups on college campuses across the country have been formed that are dedicated to the social activity of multiplayer gaming.
One such group is Ball State's XGL, which stands for Xtreme Gaming Lab. The group, which began meeting on Jan. 28, meets in the Robert Bell building from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m. every Friday and Saturday night and runs PC and Xbox matches during that six-hour period.
In addition to the PC facilities, 16 Xbox systems are available for nonstop Halo 2 matches. The most popular games played on PC at the Xtreme Gaming Lab are Unreal Tournament 2004, Battlefield 1942, Rise of Nations and Age of Empires. There are likely to be 25 players in the lab at any given time with several dozen coming in and out throughout the night.
The organization was created when a group of students who work at the computer lab decided to seek money donors and donations to set up a university program for gaming. The group got off the ground when they secured grants and received donations of Xbox game systems from Microsoft.
The group has become officially recognized by the University Program Board, and the officers in the program are currently looking to secure more advanced gaming machines and to expand their library of Xbox games beyond Halo 2. Interestingly, game developers have mentioned the possibility of using the Xtreme Gaming Lab as testers for upcoming games that have not yet hit the market.
Student group president Mike Oglesby and technical director Joe Pickering point out the social value of giving the members of the ever-growing gaming populace a place to meet on a regular basis.
"(We intend to) give anybody who is interested a chance to meet other people with common interests," group vice president Pete Mathias said.
One group member who plays under the alias Archangel said, "We get to play for hours and there are always a lot of people here."
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