Video gaming is often associated with a lack of productivity, but the world of competitive gaming is something very different.  

The Diamond Bar High School eSports club provides a community for student gamers to play competitively against other schools as well as design their own games.

The games eSports participates in usually consists of  mainstream PC games, such as League of Legends, Overwatch and CS:GO. The members also participate in Smash, hosting occasional tournaments in school. Their first inter-district Smash tournament will be held over Thanksgiving break.

“We want to establish the new Branding Iron under competitive gaming, so we are looking for the best at competitive gaming to play for our school teams,” president Aaron Su said.

According to senior Su, their goal is to establish a gaming community sponsored by the school, “where people can attend gaming related events on a regular basis.”

Su has met with representatives from other schools to work on establishing the first high school league for eSports, in which teams from numerous schools will compete against one another.

He said his aim is for  the DBHS team to achieve the rank of No. 1 the nation if he is successful in forming the league. The club was created at DBHS due to the immense popularity of gaming among students.

According to participants, eSports provides an opportunity for students to develop skills such as teamwork and leadership, which is a primary motive for its officers who hope to expand its reach.

Participating in eSports may also be a gateway to professional college teams, such as the ones offered in UC Irvine’s competitive gaming program.

“The best entrepreneurs are the ones who hustle,” Su said. “Everywhere in your community and school are random opportunities in which one must take full measures to seize. So I ask that all aspiring entrepreneurs to stay hustling, and you will not regret a minute of doing so wherever you go.”

The Video Game Design branch of the club is currently working on a First-Person Shooter RPG Open-World game. The game-creating process is split up among programmers, modelers and other members, while the work is done individually at home or through collaboration over Skype.

“This year, we’re planning on expanding our range of genres by opening up side projects for club members to submit their own game ideas for development,” VGD president Lucas Lin said.

The game designers have completed three projects since the club began in 2015, consisting of a variety of games: one endless wave shooter, one plat-former and one endless runner.

The club attended a League of Legends event hosted by UCI on Oct. 12 and is planning to compete in a CS:GO event on Nov. 12