The University of New Mexico Esports club hasn’t been deterred by the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. With nine gaming teams, the club continues to play and compete in collegiate-level tournaments.
UNM Esports, which focuses on competitive video gaming, plays a variety of games competitively: League of Legends, Overwatch, Call of Duty: Vanguard, Magic the Gathering, Valorant, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege and Team Fortress 2. Halo Infinite is the newest game UNM Esports is partaking in with its seven-player squad decided after tryouts last month. Occasionally, the club also puts on production and miscellaneous community games.
UNM Esports currently has approximately 110 active members and another 900 in Discord. Each game has a different team, who all have unique practice and competition schedules.
“At the end of the day, it does all come down to playing these games in a competitive setting against other competitive players,” Smash Bros. team coordinator Paige Zamora said.
The club streams games live on their Twitch page as much as possible, with League and CoD being their most streamed, according to UNM Esports President Mark Bailon.
Scheduling streams can be one of the more difficult parts of esports, however, because teams must adhere to specific rules and regulations set by different production companies at tournaments, according to Valorant coordinator Angel Villa.
“Some organizations just limit it to only they can stream themselves or you can just only have the single-player perspective being streamed … Balancing those kinds of things out is also a bit of a challenge,” Villa said.
The organization as a whole operates largely online through its Discord server, but the club does have a physical space to meet on campus. Bailon said while this space has helped increase the sense of community, only the official gaming teams often get to use the gaming systems because they are competition machines.
“Looking forward, we really want to have a larger base of machines and a fully developed community space that way any student who’s even just passably interested in esports or just playing some games can stop by and chill out between classes,” Bailon said.
While UNM Esports had been planning to go somewhat back in person, Bailon said the surge of the omicron variant postponed that. Discord allows individuals to maintain contact, however.
“I feel like I'm at my happiest right now because I found not only the whole (esports) community in itself — a lot of really nice people — but also within the Valorant team itself, (there are) really nice people, great to work with,” Valorant varsity team member Hersh Panda said.
The pandemic has provided challenges for some of the teams, as some games are difficult to play only virtually, like Smash Bros, according to Zamora. Playing physically together with the team also allows for better synergy and a higher emotional stake, especially in competitions, according to Panda. Many of the teams have had a mix of in-person and online practices.
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“We’ve had to really adjust and learn a really different feeling, style of play than what we’ve been used to … There is still a pandemic and we do still have to make sure we’re being safe,” Zamora said.
Some local tournaments have been getting postponed or canceled due to the pandemic.
“It's really disheartening for a lot of the players but it's important to just keep remembering that there’s new stuff that’s going to come up in the future, hopefully, to make up for it,” Zamora said.
UNM Esports is currently trying to elevate the club’s status to something more official at UNM and even has a bill of support from the Associated Students of UNM. Given the size of the club, Bailon said UNM Esports should be considered as something more along the lines of a funded program.
“One of our big goals is to move out of our club status and move into a more integrated part or program of the University,” Bailon said.
Funding has been an issue for some of the teams, specifically among the Smash Bros. sect. Other college Smash teams have higher funding or scholarships that incentivize skilled players to join that UNM doesn’t have, according to Zamora.
“From a coordinator and Smash-specific perspective, not having (enough) money coming into the program from the University is a huge, huge detriment to our development as a team … We just don't have enough to provide to the players in terms of resources that can go towards both improving their play and allowing them to play more,” Zamora said.
Upcoming competitions include the Overwatch Mountain West Esports Series on Tuesday, Feb. 8 and Friday, Feb. 11. In addition, the League team will play in the Mountain West Conference competition on Saturday, Feb. 12.
UNM Esports and ASUNM will be having an open house game night on Friday, Feb. 11 at the Engineering and Science Computer Pod. The club’s next streamed collaborative event will be playing Rocket League with the Engineering Student Success Center on Wednesday, March 9.
Megan Gleason is the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at editorinchief@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @fabflutist2716
