The Campus Gaming Club gets digitally lost in a night of fun

A local area network (LAN) party is a gathering of people with computers or compatible game consoles, where a connection is established between the devices using a router or switch, primarily for the purpose of playing multiplayer video games together.

On Friday, March 29, the Campus Gaming Club gathered in the Wathen Business building for their once a month LAN party that was set to last from 6 p.m. until 2 a.m.

“This activity only happens once a month, and it runs for so long so they can get lost in the game play for a while and not have to worry about getting kicked out or anything,” Kris Locklin, assistant professor of the IT department, said with a little laugh.

The club’s purpose is to help gather people of the same interests and of course to play games. But while the most of the game play is on screens, eventually a small group of the club will go off into another room and play some board games and other such things and let the others continue with their video games.

The club has a decent amount of members, which has remained pretty steady through the semesters. The amount of members mostly depends on how much advertising is put out and on the different tournaments going on.

Friday night, there were about 20 or more students lounging around in computer chairs and playing their games. Some were talking to others or even just watching others play games. Everybody in the room seemed to be enjoying what they were doing, no matter what it was, and were all intent and focused in on their activities.

While the club isn’t huge, it seems to have one major focus, which is not only playing games, but getting everyone together to do something both fun and distracting. Sometimes, especially for stressed college students, a little distraction is a good idea.