Battle For Glasgow brought to GCU

Two students recently combined their talents to host an Esports event at GCU, attracting sponsorship from global brands Red Bull, Intel and GT Omega.

Around 130 students from Glasgow University and Strathclyde University joined GCU Student’s Association’s Esports Society in the Carnegie Lecture Theatre for an action-packed two days of gaming in the Battle For Glasgow.

We caught up with Will Vogt, who used his experience from the International Tourism and Events Management programme to organise the event, and Diego Hoya, who helped everything go to plan with the production side through a range of skills developed on the Audio Technology course at GCU:

For those of us who don’t know much about it, what is Esports?

Will: "Very simply, It’s usually two teams competing over a video game, looking to win. It’s basically referred to as competitive level gaming."

Where does your interest in gaming come from?

Will: "I started off gaming casually. My dad bought me old video games - my first was Rollercoaster Tycoon 2. My first competitive video game was League of Legends and I really got hooked on the competitive aspect of it - it’s quite like football in that you get that serotonin boost whenever you score a goal. That definitely provides motivation for you to keep playing but it’s also fun to join in with friends.

I then got into Esports with the World Championships for League of Legends – the organisers always put on a massive show. I’ve always loved doing events and it really interested me what they did with it - so it made sense to combine my passion for events with my love of gaming."

Diego: "For me, gaming all really starts as a social activity. I’m not a big fan of gaming solo, I always like gaming with friends. In terms of Esports, I became involved in Twitch and streaming and it really all went from there.

I remember witnessing a production that wasn’t the highest quality and I felt I could improve it. I then got into the field of producing Esport events – usually remotely. Myself and Will wanted to take things a step further, so we teamed up. While studying at GCU, I’ve had quite a lot of learning around lighting and video equipment. The event gave me the chance to use this and develop it further."

What was the idea behind the Battle For Glasgow (BFG), how did this all come about?

Will: "BFG has been a tradition for our Esports Society, it’s a long-lasting battle between the three Glasgow universities to figure out the best society and who has the best team. After it being online with covid, everyone was wanting to get back to competing in-person again. The event was supposed to go ahead at The Summoner’s - Scotland’s first Esports bar – but it ended up not being suitable, so we decided to re-do the event after the exam period and really go all out with the production for it.

I messaged a lot of companies to see if they were interested in supporting the event and I ended up getting Red Bull, GT Omega and Intel all involved – that basically led to the scale of the event. Intel provided the PCs and the setups and GT Omega provided us with gaming chairs for everyone, along with four extra to give to the best players – that was really cool because they’re like £200 each!”

What sort of games were played at the event and who was crowned the winner?

Will: "We focused on four games over the two days: League of Legends, Valoran, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Rocket League. We picked them because they’re really popular but also the three universities had a team set up for each."

Diego: "Glasgow Uni were the overall winners but we don’t need to talk about that too much! GCU got joint second with Strathclyde."

Tell us a bit about the feedback you received for the event?

Will: "After the tournament was over, we wanted to do a session with the players to hear their thoughts, just to see what their experience was like and what we can improve on for future events. There was a lot of feedback that was good for us – even simple things like tables. We only had single tables but most people needed more space for their mouse pad, so they ended up having it on the gap between the tables – which obviously isn’t ideal when playing competitively.

We also had a section where people were able to put their final thoughts and we got some great feedback:

“This was insane and way better than expected. Truly a well-run event. Well done.”

“Production quality was through the roof, all the overlays, the hype videos were top tier.”

“It exceeded my expectations – splendid job.”

“I thought it was going to be low quality but the production level was outstanding.”

It must have been a rewarding experience for you to be involved in the delivery of such a big event?

Diego: "100%. It was very rewarding because I managed to help other people develop their production skills. Students from GCU volunteered alongside me and I showed them what to do on the first day, which meant everything went really smoothly on day two. We had two camera operators, a vision mixer, a student responsible for the audio and another one adding graphics and stats to a screen. I helped them out but it was really good working with them – they were all really nice."

So, what next? Are the two of you looking to team up in future for more events?

Will: "We definitely want to do Battle For Glasgow again next year and we’re really keen to ramp up the production for it to make it even better. We’ll also be looking to get more companies involved in sponsorship, hopefully with a bit more investment.

Before all that, we have a tournament coming up in winter that will see us (Scotland) compete against Wales, Ireland and France. We’re going to be producing that with a university in France and the Irish Esports league for universities – planning is already is process!"

By Ross Clark           
Got an SHLS or GSBS story? Email Ross.Clark@gcu.ac.uk or connect with me on Twitter