The Camosun Video Games Club creates opportunities for students to unwind, meet, and greet over the great equalizer: video games. The club’s activities, which include getting together to play on consoles like the Nintendo 64 and Game Boy, are low-key and relaxing—not to mention entertaining.
“Lots of people might want to play soccer, or they might want to play football or something, but you need a lot of stuff to do that,” says Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) clubs and events coordinator Tagg Kelt, one of the club’s founders. “You need to be outside, you need people who understand the rules… whereas, video games, all that stuff is built into it.”
The club is one of five student clubs promoted by the CCSS. Kelt says the student society picked some areas they thought people would be interested in and started clubs, in conjuction with Camosun International, that would have a guaranteed number of events or meetings. Those clubs are the Activities Club, the Karaoke Club, the Board Games Club, the Adventure Club, and the Video Games Club.
“We were going for something with a broader appeal than macrame or sewing, for example,” says Kelt. “They were ones we thought people would be interested in, and we paid people to run them.”
Kelt says that students come and go and get busy and forgetful, so club administration and activity tends to ebb and flow, which is why the CCSS decided to start up a handful of clubs that will be run by someone who will keep the club active. The plan is working so far, as evidenced by the Video Games Club numbers.
“There are about 100 people signed up, and then on any general event day, depending on what we’re doing, we expect anywhere from 20 to 50 people, and that’s not just all at once,” he says. “Some people come for a little bit, then they leave. Some people just stand around and watch others play.”
Second-year Biology student Adam Caflisch says that the club is a “fun little community”; he regularly attends the club’s events.
“I think it’s cool that someone has taken the step forward to allow students to just come together and form those memories right then and there,” he says.
The club aims for multiplayer games that will interest a group of people. Kelt says that during the CCSS’ Clubs Day, they had Mario Kart out with inflatable chairs for people to sit on (“It was awesome,” he says). The club mainly plays party-style games.
“Anything where you could have a group of people playing together, competitively, co-operatively… having the group dynamic was important,” says Kelt. “It was sort of low-barrier.”
Kelt says that the CCSS saw video games as an activity that people could jump into and out of freely, without a large commitment of time or mental resources.
“As far as I know, people like video games,” says Kelt. “I certainly do. It seemed like a fit.”
The CCSS has two students organizing the Video Games Club events; they schedule everything and pick what they’re going to do and where it’s going to happen, says Kelt. The club currently runs at both campuses and gets together on Monday afternoons at Interurban and Friday afternoons at Lansdowne. (Locations vary and are posted on the CCSS website.)
“It’s been pretty tough to find space,” says CCSS student services coordinator Michael Glover, who was the one who originally came up with the idea for this club. “That’s been the biggest challenge, but doing it out in the open means that students have been able to drop in.”
Glover says that the club is part of the CCSS’ efforts to create social activities on campus for students.
“It’s something that people can do that gives them a little bit of a study break,” he says.
A previous version of this story identified CCSS student services coordinator Michael Glover as CCSS website manager and secretary Michael Subasic. We apologize for the mistake.