College students can now play video games to pay for their college tuition.
You read right, your parents were wrong when they said that video games will not get you anywhere. Popular game developers like Riot Games and Blizzard Entertainment are doing collegiate tournaments so college students around the United States can earn scholarships and tuition money.
Weber State alumni and gamer Jordon Roberts wished they had come up with this idea sooner. “As a gamer and someone who is still going through the process of getting loans and scholarships for law school, one for video games would be amazing at any level of learning, collegiate or after,” Roberts said.
Riot Games is hosting a collegiate tournament for their game “League of Legends.” The final qualifiers ended March 5, which will lead to semi-finals and finals. Riot Games said they aren’t ready to announce the semi-finals and finals, but expect them to be around April/May 2015.
So what is the prize for winning Riot Games’ collegiate tournament? For the first place team, each player will walk away with $30,000 in scholarship money. Each player on the fourth place team would walk away with a $7,500 scholarship.
Riot Games said they will also cover travel, hotel and meal expenses for the final four teams.
While the Riot Games tournament opportunity may have passed for Weber State University students to get involved in, another tournament is about to happen.
Blizzard Entertainment announced their own collegiate tournament called Heroes of the Dorm for their “Heroes of the Storm” multiplayer online battle arena (moba) game that is still in the closed beta stage.
However, teams of five players with valid university email addresses who sign up for the collegiate tournament will get a beta key and be allowed to practice as a team before qualifiers that happen on March 28-29.
The finals in the Heroes of the Dorm will be broadcasted live on ESPN.
Blizzard is offering more than $450,000 in tuition money and other prizes. However, if playing video games isn’t exactly your cup of tea, Blizzard is offering more opportunities for people to win cash prizes for just watching the tournament.
Blizzard has set up a fantasy bracket to create and share picks for winners. Blizzard is offering a prize of $10,000 for anyone who picks the final bracket most accurately. The runners up will receive top-of-the-line gaming PCs and gaming peripherals.
This option will open on April 3 once Blizzard announces the top 64 teams.
Weber State junior, Sarah Zvonkovic, said she’d be willing to try to play for any tuition money. “I would probably lose, but yeah, I would try,” she said.
Heroes of the Dorm is open for registration until March 26. For official rules and registration for a collegiate teams visit heroesofthedorm.com.
