Park University Esports, in collaboration with Student Life, have moved open house games to a virtual environment for the rest of the semester.

Since the beginning of the fall 2019 semester, the event has been held in the Parkade Battlegrounds every Monday night. Not it has been moved virtually to keep students engaged. The first online event was held on April 6 and the second event was held on April 20.

“Esports host open house gaming nights every semester. Because of social distancing requirements they were not able to host it in their space,” said Mya Lawrence, director of student engagement. “We partnered with them to have a larger student reach in hopes more students would participate.”

Students who are interested in playing or watching the games can log in from their homes using their computers. According to Lawrence, students can log into the Discord Servers with either a PC, PlayStation or Xbox.  She also said that the students can choose from playing four different platforms and a ton of different games.

“This is a way for students to socialize and have fun in the comfort of their rooms,” she said.

For Esports coach Ashley Jones, moving the event virtually gives an advantage to the Park Esports team in comparison to other groups on campus.

“Our in-person Open Houses we used to host in the Parkade Battlegrounds had a format that could easily be converted to an online setting,” she said.

She also said it is a way they are looking to connect students and the Park community with each other during these times.

According to Jones, Park Esports decided to collaborate with Student Life for their first virtual event to widen their ability to reach students.

“We wanted to make sure all Park University students could be informed and invited to our event,” she said.

Students could play any game they like during the event and could join voice channels to communicate with other students in what games they would like to play together.

.