Gamers Hall Continues to Expand Esports Opportunities at IUPUI

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Six high school esports teams battled each other in League of Legends for scholarships at IUPUI in mid-October.

The 2019 IUPUI High School Invitational hosted by Gamers Hall allowed students from all over the U.S. to compete for $30,000 in scholarships, with the winning team taking $15,000, second place taking $10,000 and third place going home with $5,000.

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Photo courtesy of Gamers Hall


The scholarship amounts are a big jump from the last year, having only offered $10,000 to the winning team. 

This year’s first place went to South Bend’s John Adams High School, second place going to Avon and last place going to Carmel.

Darius Beale, a mechanical engineering major at IUPUI, has been an officer for Gamers Hall for the past two years. Gamers Hall is a club that promotes gaming through their esports teams and weekly meetings where students can play a variety of games.

According to Beale, Gamers Hall approached the deans looking for scholarships to create a recruitment opportunity for IUPUI. 

“It’s a new thing, so people are kind of wary of it,” Beale said. “When you show them how this is going and how we have high school students who know about us and they aren’t even up yet, it’s a big advertisement for the school. They can say ‘this is here, you can earn scholarships this way.’”

Beale said along with how IUPUI is trying to support esports, Gamers Hall is talking about what games they would like to create scholarship opportunities for.

“Personally, I would like to see more Hearthstone scholarships,” Beale said. “We have also been talking about Overwatch because it is a really popular game and Overwatch 2 is coming out, so that’s something we want to jump on to.”

Along with focusing on Overwatch and Hearthstone scholarships, Gamers Hall will take part in the 2019 TESPA Overwatch Collegiate Championship and have been a top 10 national team for Heroes of The Storm, according to Beale.

Tyler Pendleton, a media arts and science major, said that current IUPUI students can still earn scholarships through competing in tournaments with a Gamers Hall team.

“HSI (High School Invitational) allows us to get scholarships for incoming freshmen that may come here, which is a good opportunity for them,” Pendleton said. “The other way [to receive scholarships] is through our esports teams, who compete with other college teams for money in those kinds of tournaments.”

According to Pendleton, Gamers Hall is a place where everyone can feel at home and that their interests are something they won’t be alone in.

“You find a community that you can connect with,” Pendleton said. “I can tell you from experience that college is hard and it can get very mentally stressful and sometimes you need somewhere you can go to take a load off. I would say Gamers Hall is a great place for that.”

Gamers Hall runs its Friday meetings from noon to midnight in Rooms 167 and 257 of the Informatics and Communications Technology Complex.

Room 167 features games such as Dungeons and Dragons, Super Smash Melee, card games such as Magic: The Gathering and board games. Room 257 allows students to play video games such as League of Legends, Overwatch, Hearthstone and more.

Along with their Friday meetings and High School Invitational event, they also put on a charity event each November.

Besides expanding scholarships, Gamers Hall is constantly open to anyone interested in making a new team for a game. They are also planning to create varsity and junior varsity teams for their popular games.

For more information, visit their website www.iupuigamershall.com

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