New Esports Lounge Promotes Campus Gaming Culture

The Esports Lounge opened in November and joins table tennis, billiards and bowling at the UW-Milwaukee Student Union Rec Center located in the basement of the Union.

“It’s a really social environment; we love this place,” said freshman Adrian Mendoza. “I’m becoming a regular now.”

The lounge features 45 PCs along with three Nintendo switches, two Xbox’s and two PlayStations. There are 51 games available on the PCs, 27 of them being free to play.

The Esports programs on campus are mostly student-run, a contrast to other colleges’ approach.

Zack Zingler, a rec program supervisor, said there is a desire among students in the Esports program to have more recognition and be considered a campus organization. For the meantime, the school would like them to continue being run by students.

Many other colleges pay people to manage an entire program or coach different teams.

“The student-run nature of it is really beneficial,” said Peter Mathu, an Esports program manager and UWM student since 2020. “People care about this Esports stuff, and it’s not just a paycheck.”

Mathu believes the student-run aspect of the scene will remain, at least for a few more years.

The Esports lounge is not only a haven for casual gamers, but also provides space for competitive teams.

“UWM has taken a different approach to the Esports culture,” said Zingler. “We are going to foster a community in the casual gaming and the competitive side of things with this lounge.”

There is a dedicated row of five computers for competitive teams which are available to casual gamers when not in use.

There are around 15 Esports teams on campus ranging from board games like chess to first-person shooters like Valorant. The UWM club Esports Milwaukee assists the competitive teams with their funding, competitions and marketing.

The “big four” games under the Esports Milwaukee umbrella include League of Legends, Rocket League, Valorant and Overwatch. These games have multiple teams featuring Varsity and JV squads.

UWM junior Aidan Niemi competes on the JV Valorant team and commits around four hours a week to his team. This includes scrimmages, games against other schools and prepping strategies for upcoming matches. Niemi had to try out to make the team and has been competing since his freshman year.

Most of Niemi’s Valorant competitions in the fall took place online against other Wisconsin schools like UW-Whitewater, UW-Eau Claire and UW-Madison.

This past fall marked the first competition in the Wisconsin Esports Conference. The conference is a new league that strictly focuses on Wisconsin schools. The fall edition featured 26 universities or colleges with 60 teams reaching a total of over 600 student-athlete participants.

Before the WEC, UWM teams would sometimes play online against teams outside of Wisconsin and even outside the Midwest.

“Obviously when you’re playing against other people randomly, someone’s going to be better than you or you are going to have bad internet,” said Niemi. “It’s gotten better being just in Wisconsin, and it’s definitely gotten bigger.”

Zingler said that the lounge took around $250,000-$500,000 to create and will have a budget close to $70,000-$90,000 yearly for tech replacement.

“It certainly does seem a little bit irresponsible, even though the space is fun,” said freshman Miles Studinski.

The lounge is open throughout the week, closing at 9:45 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 7:45 p.m. on Sundays. Managers are looking to extend the hours later into the night due to popular demand.

The lounge sees its highest usage during the later hours of the day, according to Mathu.

The Esports Lounge hosted its first event on November 22 featuring guest speaker Taylore Woodhouse, who talked about racial diversity in Esports. Woodhouse is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who believes access is an obstacle to racial diversity in gaming.

“This room and Esports lounge is part of the solution,” said Woodhouse. “As more schools and places that people can access give people computers that they can play for hours… then we’ll be able to bridge that gap in access.”

The lounge has plans for more casual and competitive events next semester.

“We’re all here just to have fun,” said Mendoza. “There’s competitive teams, but it’s all in the name of fun.”