On December 9th, Carnegie Mellon’s Esports club held their Winter Semester LAN party. The event theme was simple - a cozy place for members to come together to play games, meet new people, and win prizes.

CMU Esports has gone through a pretty major restructuring this year with much of their previous leaders graduating in the 2017 class. The organization is looking to redefine their identity on campus and kickstart many new initiatives focused on community building moving forward.

“CMU Esports has been competing at a high level in the collegiate esports scene in past years, but this year we are also focusing on building our campus community more than ever by serving as an avenue for gamers of all types, ranging from casual to highly competitive, to come together and connect with each other. One of the ways we achieve this is by holding social gaming events such as LAN parties on campus throughout the semester!”  -Sandra Chen, CMU Esports Director

With regards to the LAN party, the event was quite timely as students would begin to take their final exams the following Monday. The Winter LAN provided one last opportunity for students to destress and have fun before the start of the finals week study grind. Students could be seen engaging in many collaborative activities throughout the event. Examples included players deck-building and playing Hearthstone together, or League of Legends players queueing as a 5-stack with some new, friendly faces.

Thanks to the event sponsors Inven Global and ThinkGeek and the clubs’ fundraising, participants were also provided with refreshments and a chance to win items from a stacked prize table filled with game related swag.