We’ve been working on a campaign called Gamer Rebellion where we showcase high end gaming PC’s in premier colleges across Delhi and Jaipur. I took this opportunity to meet with the students that reside in the hostels of these colleges and get an insight into what the gaming scene is like in these hostels. We’ve all had great memories from our college days and I just wanted these guys to be able to share their stories on our platform.
I was able to meet some of the students in the JECRC college hostel after our event at their college. I got to interact with boys from BH1 and BH3, which I assume means boys hostel. I met two sorts of hostelers there, a set of guys who had been there only for three months and another set who were in their third year. It was interesting to see how the views differed within the same hostel.
P.S – The answers have been reworded to essentially convey the same message the gamers intended to. This is all done with their consent.
“For me, it started with games like Mario and Contra” said Naman Jain, a first year B.Tech student in JECRC hostel while his roommates Saurabh, Jagrat Goswami, Akshay and Vaibhav nodded in agreement. He probably mentioned the two games that most gamers across the world could relate to. Even guys from third year, Madhav, Samarth, Mahesh, Keshav and Arpit who sat in on the interview, shared the same opinion. Gaming is more than a passion for them as they spend several hours a day gaming. They’ve grown up playing games like Counter Strike, Call of Duty, FIFA and Grand Theft Auto.
Currently games like FIFA, COD Black Ops III, Dirt 3, Blur, Need For Speed and Asphalt are the ones most of them are playing. Android games seem to be the trend though here.”If three or four students are together looking into their phone screens for about 3-4 minutes, then they’re playing mini militia for sure” said Vaibhav.
A majority of them started gaming of PC’s but now have moved on to consoles. “Though laptops are what we game on here, we usually prefer gaming on a console back home.” said Arpit who is an ardent FIFA fan. I think this is because up to four people can play on a console while a computer can do probably two at a time.
I wanted a little more insight into what the gaming scene was inside the hostel, so when I asked the guys what issues they had I was rather amused by the first response they gave. “Bhaiya hamare yaha tho firewall ki badi problem hoti hai.” I thought it was hilarious that these guys who have been gaming for ages, can’t get past a firewall. But they also went on to tell me about the hardware issue they face due to low end gaming laptops. Most parents buy them these laptops to study, so the processors and graphic cards are not tailored to run anything more than Word and PowerPoint. Jokes aside, these laptops can barely run games and even if they do they have to be played in the lowest possible setting.
Another interesting issue I found is that they have a hard time gathering guys to play games on LAN. I attribute this to the fact that they are all in their first year and are a little conscious of what they spend their time on. Give it a year and they’ll only be bothered with passing and nothing else. But everything said and done, CS all nighters are a common occurrence here.
“There is a place near the hostel that we go to to play Witcher 3” was Akshay’s response to which game they were currently into. While talking to them I was amazed to find out that they were not referring to a cafe but to a random set up where there is just a single Xbox 360 for everybody to come and take turns on. I thought that spoke volumes of their desire to game.
I wanted to know what they felt was the best part about gaming within the confines of a dorm. The third years had more to share on this saying that they get to be themselves while playing and do not have to worry about the language they use. I did ask them if they felt if gaming got in the way of their studies but they honestly didn’t think so. “Studying is still as much of an obstacle, with or without gaming” said Samarth while, six of them went as far as to say that no matter what happens they would keep gaming in some capacity or the other. They also told me of other activities that interested them which included listening to music, surfing the net, smoking up, wrestling and American football. I don’t know why or how the answers started becoming more and more American towards the end.
