New Mexico State University’s Esports club hosted its third annual invitational, which invited students from all New Mexico middle schools, high schools, and other universities to Corbett Center Student Union on April 6-7. The event offered free entry to all gamers who wanted to participate and play any of the large variety of games the club had to offer, bringing together the gaming community across the state for an in-person competition.
The Las Cruces Public School system has allocated more than a million dollars to fund and develop esports in public schools across the city. This commitment is what allowed so many different local schools to participate in the event with teams of their own, including Organ Mountain High School, Centennial High School, and the University of New Mexico.
A few of the different games played included Valorant, Rocket League, and Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. Over 500 people registered for the event, and they were spread out across the second and third floors of Corbett. The students were able to eat at Taos Dining Hall courtesy of the university, in addition to food trucks and other vendors.
NMSU Esports also had a variety of merchandise on sale, including t-shirts and an exclusive entire-desk mousepad. They sold different card games and tabletop game products for the people who game outside of a console.
Rocket League player and head photographer of the group, Aiden Bennett, discussed his role in the club and his experience at the event.
“The teams here play amazing matches,” Bennett said. “The players, the emotions, everything — it’s worth it.”
Throughout the invitational, there were many fire alarm drills on both Saturday and Sunday which required Corbett to be evacuated, disrupting the event. The operational team and club managers were able to get back on the rails each time, despite how many times the drills occurred.
Chief Financial Officer and Overwatch team manager, Amanda Rodriguez, talked about the environment of the event and some of the trials that arose in helping to run such a large competition.
“The atmosphere is pretty amazing right now,” Rodriguez said. “The fire alarms are quite unfortunate, but I think it’s quite meme-able.”
One student from Organ Mountain Esports who visited the university for the competition was excited for the opportunity to experience the one-of-a-kind event at NMSU.
“NMSU is super fun, I was able to meet a lot more people than usual and find some really cool matches,” the student said. “I feel like esports is this very good community … a very welcoming community.”
Rodriguez agreed that it was great to witness people being able to connect within a community who share similar interests as them.
NMSU esports wrapped up the invitational on Sunday with many different teams winning in the championships for different games. As a whole, the event was able to help bring together the gaming community across New Mexico.
