Spring Break
OP-ED: Event was a game over due to a lack of cooperative game play
by Matt Fealy and Johnathan Grover
Op-Ed | 4/8/08
Posted online at 2:53 AM EST on 4/8/08
What can the average gamer get with $3,000? Seven Xbox 360s, each with a hard drive and four controllers. fifty games for those Xbox 360s. Five 60-gigabyte PlayStation 3s. Seventeen copies of Rock Band.
Or one event in the Shapiro Campus Center, sparsely attended, poorly set-up and run by an outside company that specializes in providing attractions for trade shows. This event, involving the for-hire, off-campus collective Interactive Gaming Experience was part of Bronstein Week 2008: Virtual Bronstein and was run and financed by Student Events. The SE budget, in turn, comes from the Student Activities Fee, which is paid by all members of the Brandeis community.
The similarly named Console Gamers X organization here at Brandeis is a club with one purpose: to enable members of the Brandeis community to play video games. Sure, it's a goal more modest than stopping genocide or eradicating poverty, but unlike those undoubtedly worthwhile missions, ours is readily accomplished. This semester, CGX managed to cajole $600 for equipment and an upcoming tournament from the finance board. With that money and equipment loans from a very involved group of members, we've hosted two three-hour meetings each week in Shapiro and in the Usdan gameroom.
Clearly, we are, among other less complimentary qualities, dedicated and good at stretching our budget; why, then, wasn't CGX tasked with entertaining the chronically bored students of Brandeis University? Although SE did make an attempt to contact CGX leadership via e-mail at the start of the semester, when CGX made an effort to respond to SE, it seems our reply went unanswered and was quickly buried in the flood of other e-mails advertising campus events, new games and business opportunities in Nigeria.
For the benefit of those fortunate enough to miss the event last Friday, we offer our impressions. Much of the display setup consisted of 1990s-era vintage TVs set at odd angles in plywood cabinets. Many of the game systems offered were not of the current generation. For example, the PlayStation 3 gaming console has been available for purchase since November 2006, while IGX offered only the now-obsolete first- and second-generation PlayStation consoles to students in attendance. Three modern consoles, including a Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360, were available but were equipped with no functional controllers or game discs and, presumably, remained inoperative for the duration of the event.
Or one event in the Shapiro Campus Center, sparsely attended, poorly set-up and run by an outside company that specializes in providing attractions for trade shows. This event, involving the for-hire, off-campus collective Interactive Gaming Experience was part of Bronstein Week 2008: Virtual Bronstein and was run and financed by Student Events. The SE budget, in turn, comes from the Student Activities Fee, which is paid by all members of the Brandeis community.
The similarly named Console Gamers X organization here at Brandeis is a club with one purpose: to enable members of the Brandeis community to play video games. Sure, it's a goal more modest than stopping genocide or eradicating poverty, but unlike those undoubtedly worthwhile missions, ours is readily accomplished. This semester, CGX managed to cajole $600 for equipment and an upcoming tournament from the finance board. With that money and equipment loans from a very involved group of members, we've hosted two three-hour meetings each week in Shapiro and in the Usdan gameroom.
Clearly, we are, among other less complimentary qualities, dedicated and good at stretching our budget; why, then, wasn't CGX tasked with entertaining the chronically bored students of Brandeis University? Although SE did make an attempt to contact CGX leadership via e-mail at the start of the semester, when CGX made an effort to respond to SE, it seems our reply went unanswered and was quickly buried in the flood of other e-mails advertising campus events, new games and business opportunities in Nigeria.
For the benefit of those fortunate enough to miss the event last Friday, we offer our impressions. Much of the display setup consisted of 1990s-era vintage TVs set at odd angles in plywood cabinets. Many of the game systems offered were not of the current generation. For example, the PlayStation 3 gaming console has been available for purchase since November 2006, while IGX offered only the now-obsolete first- and second-generation PlayStation consoles to students in attendance. Three modern consoles, including a Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360, were available but were equipped with no functional controllers or game discs and, presumably, remained inoperative for the duration of the event.
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