While UNC gamers and esports enthusiasts often make friends within their community online, this fall, Carolina Housing is giving them a physical space to meet on campus.
The Carolina Gaming Arena will open in Craige Residence Hall in the fall 2019 semester, giving any registered students, faculty or staff access to a state-of-the-art esports arena including virtual reality equipment, three game consoles, televisions and custom gaming chairs, 26 entry-level gaming PC stations and 12 high-end gaming PC stations.
“Those stations will be state-of-the-art, in terms of the kinds of technology because the people who are good at those kinds of games don’t play on just your normal keyboard and mouse,” said Carolina Housing Director Allan Blattner. “It’s all very highly sophisticated, it’s faster than most computers, it’s really designed for that gaming world.”
Blattner said Carolina Housing may start some minimal construction this semester, but most of the construction will be over the summer.
He said the arena is the latest of Carolina Housing’s push to improve on-campus amenities, following the painting studio in Morrison Residence Hall and the MakerSpace in Carmichael Residence Hall. Craige was chosen for the arena because it has existing underutilized space with a bathroom and a door directly to the outside and because Carolina Housing wanted to add a new amenity to South Campus.
“One of the things we’re excited about the initiative is that we can make that kind of technology available to everybody as opposed to just people that could have otherwise before afforded it,” Blattner said. “We really see it as an opportunity to expose students to a quickly-growing world of esports and this whole gaming world.”
UNC-Chapel Hill Esports co-President Shane Steele-Pardue said the University’s opening the arena legitimizes esports, a more intense, competitive subset of gaming in general.
“Esports is like, ‘I’m playing for legit money, and a title and fame,’” Steele-Pardue said. “We have a couple alumni and current members that have gone into the professional scene for games like Heroes of the Storm, Call of Duty, Rocket League.”
While the club meets both online and in person, some members think a physical meeting space will help attract new gamers and help current gamers get to know each other better.
