Hundreds Gather at GameFest, Watch UCSD Overwatch Fall in National Semifinals

Several hundred students gathered at the Sixth College Tech Committee’s Winter GameFest to play a variety of video games and watch live esports on February 17 and 18 at Price Center.

Billed as the largest college Local Area Network (LAN) party in Southern California and the largest student-run event at UC San Diego, the two-day gaming extravaganza included competition in Counter-Strike, Overwatch, League of Legends, DotA, Super Smash Bros., and more. Gamers also participated in cosplay contests and virtual reality demonstrations.

This year’s event had more sponsors than previous years, with 21 sponsors compared to last year’s 17, and had over $8000 worth of prizes and gifts for attendees, according to co-director Karmah Eldesouky. Although this year’s event had a lower turnout than last year’s, which co-director Michael Chen says may have been caused by placing GameFest the same weekend as Lunar New Year, Chen believes smaller crowds provide a more meaningful experience.

“It’s not about a high turnout, but it’s about what you do with the people that actually come and engage with the sponsors,” he said. “It allows those people to get more interaction with the sponsors, to actually come out and test out the equipment, to come out and see the future of the esports businesses and to actually talk to people and engage with people.”

GameFest had a variety of video games for all people. Though most participants were UCSD students, a number of non-UCSD people and families also came out to the event, according to Michael Endow, one of the volunteers for the event. For example, Timothy Wang, a fourth year student, took GameFest as an opportunity to hang out with friends and play fighting games, which he says are uncommon compared to esports like Overwatch and League of Legends. Another attendee, UCSD alumnus and previous co-director Alex Hawker, was excited to participate in the event after being an organizer in previous years.

“There’s a lot of cool tournaments and I like how they brought back all the console games, because I think there were lots of people excited about that coming back,” Hawker said.

The marquee event for many attendees, however, was the live screening of the Fiesta Bowl Overwatch Collegiate National Championship. Fourth-seeded UC San Diego faced off against undefeated UC Irvine at Arizona State University in a battle of two esports giants. Irvine is one of the few schools offering scholarships for esports competitors, and has the nation’s first campus esports arena.

The Defenders of Geisel, a subteam of Triton Gaming, was considered one of the favorites for the national championship based on its players’ individual mechanical skill. It cruised through the tournament’s group stages with a 12–2 record; those two losses came from UCI Esports and UC Berkeley.

“The gaming life at UCSD is huge. There are a lot of gamers,” team manager Cody “KlutchDoc” Sargent told tournament organizer Tespa. “All of our competitive teams—Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, etc.—are very successful.”

Unfortunately, in Saturday’s national semifinal, UCSD looked outclassed by UCI in a 3–0 decimation. On the first map, Oasis, UCSD captain Andy “Schooled” Chen on Soldier:76 and Junkrat was unable to handle UCI DPS Chansoo “Lootre” Park’s dominating Pharah. In the off-tank matchup, UCSD could not catch a break as Jason “Murky” Bao’s Zarya ultimates were consistently swallowed by Aaron “Lionpoke” Boyer’s D.va.

The Defenders of Geisel fought back on King’s Row, with Bao recovering from two swallowed graviton surges to set up a decisive fight that let UCSD push the payload the full distance. However, Irvine’s time bank advantage proved too much to overcome, as Boyer sailed in a quadruple-kill self-destruct to stop UCSD at the first arch.

Unfortunately, the coordination on the second map gave way to disarray on Temple of Anubis. Flex player Ernie “Jinora” Lum, playing Sombra, stalled out UCI’s second-point push by coordinating a clutch six-man EMP with DPS Hong-yi “Maylibooya69” Pan’s death blossom. But UCSD’s attack run and title hopes were cut short by Park’s repeated picks as Widowmaker; the team failed to capture a single tick, giving Irvine the 3–0 victory.

UCI went on to fall 3–0 to reigning champion Cal in the grand final. The Cal players walked home with $7,000 each in scholarship prizes. UCSD’s players won $1,750 each for advancing to the live semifinals.

“UCSD didn’t make the finals, but it was a good experience,” Chen said. “People love watching games and cheering on people that they know are in the semifinals so it was just a really good and chill atmosphere.”

Cynthia Leung is a staff writer and Rohan Grover is an Assistant News Editor at The Triton.