Duke troops are ready for battle-one that could pit students against their ACC rivals.
But these troops are virtual and provide the basis for an online game similar to Risk, a board game of territorial conquest, among the sports rivalries of the Atlantic Coast Conference via GoCrossCampus.
GXC resembles an intramural sport more than a typical video game, as groups and individuals compete against each other from across the country. Depending on which game a participant chooses to play, gameplay can vary from dormitory takeovers to presidential campaigns. Most games consist of struggles to control territory on a board.
The ACC tournament began Monday at midnight and is only the second GXC tournament to date. The game will continue for about two months or until a winner is determined, and will be covered by ACCnation.com alongside its sports coverage.
"We've been gamers our whole lives and we love games," said GoCrossCampus co-founder Brad Hargreaves, a recent Yale University graduate. "We thought this kind of game was a way to democratize sports and let schools and people compete without them having made, say, the varsity football team."
The rules are fairly simple-each ACC college starts with territories to defend and participants log in each day to place their troops on the east-coast gameboard, coordinating strategy and attack with teammates at their college. The strength of each players' troops is relative to how often that participant logs in to play. Armies can be moved once a day, and the game software determines a battle's winner with an algorithm that slightly favors the defender.
The site-now a company based in New Haven, Conn.-was created by Hargreaves and other Yale students last year. The first tournament pitted Ivies against each other and attracted about 11,000 participants.
"We think of this as a campus-wide event and don't think of it as something specific to gamers at all," Hargreaves said. "The people most interested in it aren't the people who play World of Warcraft every weekend, rather the people who show up to football games and support their school."
There are currently less than 20 Duke students registered to participate in the tournament, but Duke Student Government is working to promote the game.
"This is not what we usually do, but we have the manpower to do it," said Vice President for Campus and Athletic Services Mike Lefevre, a sophomore. "Now we're talking about the ACC and representing our university-it's more exciting and shows that Duke can be a dominant force in not just sports but other things."
GXC may also bring students closer together, Lefevre said, adding that he anticipates faculty and administrators may join the game as well.
Sophomore Michael Zhang said he started playing the game last year and will continue to do so because each move only takes a few minutes. Although there is currently no prize for winning, Zhang said he will play simply for bragging rights.
Whether a prize will be awarded has not been decided and depends on whether a sponsor will step forward to offer one, Hargreaves said, adding that a student from the winning Ivy League team won $2,000 worth of electronics for his room.
"We're actually losing money right now," he said. "Hopefully it will break-even at some point, but now we're getting a lot of people on the site and interest in what we're doing, so I'm fine with that right now."
Although GXC is not a Duke development, Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said he appreciates student ingenuity and may join the game if he can navigate the site.
"I imagine that there will be a cohort who will jump all over this, though I suspect that it won't be a huge number," he wrote in an e-mail. "But a devoted cadre of a few dozen could have quite an interesting time and, of course, will dominate the ACC tournament."
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