 Welcome to Think Tech on Spectrum OC16, Hawaii's weekly newscast on things in Matter-to-Tech and Hawaii. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Cynthia Sinclair. In our show this time, we'll visit the eSports Arena and HPU's Aloha Tower campus. We'll check out the equipment, the games, and the players to see what the arena is all about. Under the leadership of its president, John Gotanda, Hawaii Pacific University, HPU, is organized an eSports arena in the student campus at Aloha Tower. The arena had a soft opening last year and a grand opening in February. Cody Down, Dominique Bouchang, and Reed Pasatiempo of HPU appeared on one of our Think Tech Talk shows a few weeks ago and gave us an introduction to the project and what HPU hoped to achieve by it. Me and my team, IT, worked pretty closely with Dominique's folks over in athletics and put a lot of effort into forming a team, getting them playing well, working with sponsors and other locals in the community to help build the arena out. And so, my guys especially spent so much extra time researching the right equipment to use, figuring out the best configurations for the arena, ordering the equipment, trying to get the best deals we could, and then being creative with our audio visual in the arena. I am the supervisor-advisor for our eSports team, which right now we have a team for League of Legends that plays in the Riot Games Campus series. And we just finished our first season towards the bottom, but we're offering scholarships for the upcoming semester and we're really excited to see who our team finishes next semester. So this is like real sports. I mean, you have games, leagues, you have winners and losers and all that. We do. We do much more like real sports or traditional sports than people may think. I think the easiest way to say it is eSports is competitive gaming. It usually deals with multiplayer video games. So you're competing against possibly one, possibly five, possibly even ten other competitors around at the same time. And then as far as the arena itself, the arena gives them a place to come together to be able to play. It also gives them a facility where a lot of gamers, they don't usually get out of their house, let's just say, all that often, but the arena gives them a place to come where they can communicate together, work out strategies, build friendships. A few days ago, we walked over to Aloha Tower to see the arena and find out what was going on. We met Cody and Dominique there and they gave us a tour of the facilities and equipment at the arena. We've got four console stations. We've got Xbox and PlayStation. We also have Mario Kart that you can play here. We've got our VR system, Virtual Reality in the corner. These are Oculus. We also have another VR station in the back corner over there. It's an HTC. And then we have 24 high gaming computers, which you saw some of our kids playing on earlier. So what does it mean to be captain of a team? What do you have to do? You've got to be a leader. I mean, it's like any other traditional sport. You have your captain and the team member that you look for and you look to kind of bring the team together and complete a match with a victory. So what do I have to do? I mean, is there a locker room involved? After all, this is an e-sports arena. Is there a locker room where I have to give pep talks and all that? Yeah, of course. Can you see our meeting rooms right here? Meeting room. Absolutely. So the team will meet in there. Yeah. And the leader will be talking to them. What will you say to them? He'll go over anything. I mean, it depends on what they know about the team. If they've seen them scream before, they'll go over their top players, who they're going to match up with, who they're going to compete against, and try to find those weaknesses and attack. Tell us about this huge big projection screen you've got in the back. I want to have one from my house, but how does that work? It looks like really high tech. It looks like so high resolution, you think it's a screen, but it's not a screen. It's just a wall. It's a projector, yeah. It's a really high-res projector with high lumens projecting on that wall. The projectors and all of our screens are all connected together with matrix switches so we can display any sort of content on these displays. We can show live gameplay. We can show what we're showing now is just some feeds off of Twitch, some pre-recorded or some live Twitch feeds. We can show console play. We can show all sorts of different things on them. So there's a guy named Ninja over there. Yeah. So he's one of the top shot casters. He has a channel here and he will talk about his gameplay and people subscribe and he'll end up making the wrong money off of this. Is he here or somewhere else? Oh, he's somewhere else, yeah. I'm not sure where he's based at. So is he controlling the console and controlling the game right now? So right now, yeah. He's playing the game and he's talking about what he's doing. So there's ways that you can team up in here with your friends and play with people across the world. Games like that that are wide open, people really like, you know, for those first person shooters that are still big, the games like League of Legends, which is a team game, which is another one of the top games is where it's more like a capture the flag type of a game where you're competing against another team of five people. And that's really a lot of teamwork involved, communication, you know, talking with each other to know which direction to go. And those are pretty popular too. So things that you can you can play with your friends, but also you can have friends sitting halfway across the world that you can get on the same game together and play together. How many people can get on this thing at the same time? Well, this one is 100 people per game. And there's many servers, thousands of servers. So I don't I don't have no idea actually how many are going on at the same time. But each game is 100. And you can have lots and lots of game sessions going on. Yeah, there's seven of them all over the world. And now the company is really trying to get behind the Eastport side of it, which they're kind of lagging in. So what what other people have done is they've created their own kind of scoring systems so that they can compete with each other like who has the most kills, you know, who survives the longest, and then you can compete against other players in the same game with that and find out who's winning, you know, who the better player is. But really, that's a hat ad hoc thing that's just come up. I think the maker of this game is now trying to bring it forward in the Eastports world and have more of a competitive competitive environment. Like League of Legends, Riot has a whole whole series of, you know, collegiate competitions, professional competitions, Blizzard with Overwatch, which is a first person shooter is a six on six game. And they do the same thing. They've got professional leagues around the country. They started selling franchises last year. A lot of the major cities have professional team franchises. These players get paid to play. People go and watch them in a stadium. So that's that's the way forward with a lot of these games. You say the stadium. Did you say that right? You can go see this in the stadium. Yeah, some games you can. League of Legends, Overwatch, they sell at the Staples Center. The Berserkness in China, 80,000 people sit and watch these. If you go online, you can watch videos of it. And it's, you know, all these people sitting in the stadium watching, you know, 10 players down the playing together for a huge screen, bigger, way, way, whole side of the barn. So how long does it take to play the game? I mean, is this is a time limited or is it terminated on on winning? Each game is different. The this game, Fortnite, is however it takes to get to the last person. I'm not exactly sure how long the game total play is. But really, you're waiting to get to that final person who's alive. And League of Legends, whoever captures the flag first, so that could be quickly. But on average, I think it's about 30 minutes to 45 minutes per game. And when they do these competitions, they'll do best, you know, three out of five type of games in the competitions. And so you could go sit and watch League of Legends, Matt, competition in the stadium and they'll play several games. So two or three hours, maybe something like like a like a long movie. So, you know, it strikes me, Cody, that this is free. The one this one you're showing us, what's the name again? This is Fortnite. Fortnite is free. But other games cost money. Right. And if I come in here and I want to play the other game, I go online, I guess, and I play the other game and I have to drop my card or paypal or something. Yeah, certain certain games you'd have to pay for like World of Warcraft, Overwatch, you have to pay for some of the ones. There's several VR games that you have to pay for. This one is free. League of Legends is free. They make their money on selling, you know, add-ons to the game. And so they make it open to everyone to get people interested in playing. So add-on give you a special like different skins, different looks to your character, you know, different extra accessories, things like that. But that's not something that helps you win, though, is it? No. Or is it? PCs, Windows PCs, Intel i7, liquid cooled so, you know, it keeps them cooler and it's quieter. So having the loud fans, you can you can barely hear these machines. These are 4K monitors from Dell. On the other side over there, we have some other computers a little bit higher quality. They have a G-sync capability, which syncs them in with the graphics card a little bit better so that there's there's a less delay in gameplay. So not a huge huge difference for your average gamer, but maybe through competitive gamer. The monitors on what we call the main stage, which is the one over there are slightly better. We've had symposiums down here, different eSports symposiums. We've had lectures on eSports, on the business of eSports, on game design, on evolution technology and gaming just in general. It was pretty fantastic. So we've had all sorts of faculty interest in using the facilities. They've taught their classes here. They've they've done class projects for their final projects. We've had students use the high end gaming systems for machine learning algorithms and things like that that they're creating. And so that is just kind of naturally just happened. I think in the future, we really would like to take closer to a class or a project, you know, university project. That is definitely in our plans. We want to be more. What would that class be? Maybe a game design class where they would they would design games and they would test them down here. There's money in designing games. There's money in coding games. That's a pun isn't it, on your name. And I get, you know, the question I would ask you tonight is expect to walk in here one day and see on the big screen back there. Actual code. Can I expect to see some kids coding games? Because that's that's the fundamental operation here. You have to design it, but then you have to implement it so it works really well. And that's coding. We've had like Minecraft camps where these kids who are I don't know, the youngest kids maybe seven, six or seven and kids to twelve are here programming in Java, learning how to program in Java and to create a virtual Oahu that they're using in the competition here. So that sort of thing is happening today. The place filled up while we were there and we saw students and kids and families from all around the community. There were lots of players playing and competing in the eSports games and lots of parents, too. We saw the 24 high tech gaming computers and consoles with big monitors and gaming chairs and huge big wall screens. And we saw them playing the games that are so popular these days. We walked the floor, as we always do, and spoke to some of the players, competitors, families and friends who were there so we could get a handle on what was happening at the arena and what they thought of it. They work for Cody and I'm the Mutimedia supervisor. So I install all the TV's, projectors, sound systems, lights. It's not easy, is it? No, it's not. There's a lot more buttons than I'm used to. So you take SimCity and you update it for current technology and ways of gaming, you know, approaches to gaming. And then, you know, you bring in all the candidates who are running for political office and you make them play together in teams, if they like. And then the guy who wins the game gets to be the mayor. In a lot of ways, that's exactly what we're doing with it, except with the one caveat that a lot of people get to be mayor out of the process. As far as how that is actually reflected in the real world processes, there's a lot of ways we can talk about that. I'm actually doing a PhD in political science. So I will be, a lot of writings will be coming out about this. And this is kind of in the realm of my PhD work at UH. They were also some senior administrators from HPU there that evening. We spoke to them, too, to learn about the role the arena plays and will play for the university and its students and curriculum. 65 percent of college students actually play video games right now, which is one of the reasons that HPU wanted to build this for our students because this is what they're doing. You know, other sports they're still interested in, but video games is where it's at these days. Yeah, it's also a feeder thing, isn't it? And I look around the room and I see a lot of people, a lot of potential HPU students right here. It is. A lot of the actual high school teams have their, or high schools have their own teams. And so we invite them to come down and play and train. And we actually held the first competition here between the high schools just a little while ago when we opened. So, yeah, it's a great way for us to recruit and bring local students into the school. So tell me, where does it fit with the curriculum? Where does it fit with educating them? So we have a couple of degrees that it actually fits with really nicely. One is an engineering program that looks at computer science and engineering. Another is game design, which is actually a minor here. So it links really well. You know, if somebody watching us would, you know, listen carefully, they would figure out that you're associated with HPU. But why don't you tell them straight up what your association is? I am the associate vice president of development for Hawaii Pacific University. What do you think of this place? It's really got a certain magic, doesn't it? No, it's got this really good vibe, you know, with the kids, the students here, they're just enjoying themselves. And, you know, it's it's like a different level, you know, they're at home probably playing on their iPads or something like that, like, you know, something like that. But here, I think they're in a different zone. We talked about that with Corey and Dominique, and namely that you can be at home and do this to a certain degree. But it's it's different when you're in a community of people, all of whom are addressed at playing. And boy, you can feel the community here. Yeah, somehow it motivates you differently. Somehow the gaming experience to play is more intense, more satisfying, more gratification somehow, you think? No, and you know what this provides is now you see other people instead of like online, you're with other people enjoying the same, you know, Fortnite, League of Legends, and you're with people who are like you and who are enjoying the same type of gaming. Exciting to meet a dean of students. I've been meaning to go back to college for a long time so maybe you could pave the way for me. Absolutely, right? I mean, who doesn't want to be a college student? That's true, that's true. Co-curricular activities like the Esports Arena to really enhance the student experience at HP. When we think about what our students can get when they come to the White House of the University, I think it's a multitude of things, you know, from both the academics to just overall health, entertainment, but again, you know, community comes in many different ways and we think this is one of those ways and we're really excited to have Esports. What are the other ways? What's the larger picture in which this fits? You know, I think it's just about the bigger university community and having opportunities to bring in the greater community here. It's very family oriented. It's also very, you know, the invitation to come here at Allatah Marketplace at the White Pacific University. It's just a welcoming environment. If you think about the academic component that comes with it, I mean, there's courses that will tie in the computer aspect, the technology aspect, and so it's just not gaming for the pure enjoyment of, you know, personal, but I think there's a mindset coming into it and there's a joining of both the academic and the curriculum that comes with Esports. I think that's a high value that you can get at other universities in the state of Hawaii, right? So when you think about that, we really are, you know, pioneers in terms of that in the city and I think for us, this is a huge benefit not only for our university, but for our community. So as the dean of students, how will you support and, you know, propel this going forward? Well, our aspect of it, in addition to what athletics is doing, the team is doing, I think for us, when we think about our student organizations, when we think about just individual students wanting to just do better and enhance and say, this is what I'm doing and all my other friends going out of their universities don't have this opportunity, I think that just is what is unique for everyone and with our other students. I think we can do competition that is healthy and good and brings our greater student body together. I think when you think about like the athletic, the fun competitiveness that comes with this type of environment, I think it's healthy and I think that's the other aspect that comes with it. We found that the eSports Arena is not only a place where students and kids can play and enjoy the most popular eSports games, it's also a place for relaxation and social interaction, for learning about leading edge game design and of course for global gaming competition. The eSports Arena is a great addition to the HPU student campus at Aloha Tower and to the gaming community in Hawaii. If you have any interest in computer gaming and competitions, it's certainly worth a visit. If you want to know more about the arena, check it out at hpu.edu slash esports slash arena. And now let's check out our ThinkTech schedule of events going forward. ThinkTech broadcasts its talk shows live on the internet from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. Then we broadcast our earlier shows all night long and on the weekends and some people listen to them all night long and on the weekends. If you missed a show or if you want to replay or share any of our shows, they're all archived on demand on thinktechawaii.com and YouTube. For our audio stream, go to thinktechawaii.com slash audio and we post all our shows as podcasts on iTunes. Visit thinktechawaii.com for our weekly calendar and live streaming YouTube links. 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And we've likewise added a new show called The Will of the People, hosted by Martha Randolph, which covers politics and public and political opinion in Hawaii. It plays bi-weekly at 1 p.m. on Thursdays. You can find the episodes on our Will of the People playlist. Go ahead, give us a thumbs up on YouTube or send us a tweet at thinktech.hi. We'd like to know how you feel about the issues and events that affect our lives in these islands and in the current complexity of this country. We want to stay in touch with you and we'd like you to stay in touch with us. Let's think together. And now, here's this week's Think Tech commentary. And I'm here today to talk about a recent failure on all of our parts. On June 14th, 2018, at 3.45 p.m., one big blackout, that blackout would last for over 24 hours. At my home, it lasted for almost exactly 30 hours. Yes, that is 30 hours in the United States on a well-populated island with no electricity. That meant everything in refrigerators had to be thrown out. That meant getting up and getting ready in the dark. That meant sitting in your car with the gas running, with the engine running, in order to get air conditioning and in order to charge your phone. Some residents had medical issues that meant they needed to have electricity. And so those residents were forced to check into hotels or in some cases, even to go to the hospital. Everyone is saying, I wasn't responsible for this, but let's be honest, there's plenty of blame to go around. Big outages like this don't just happen. We trust our companies to plan ahead, to look for possibilities of things that go wrong and to fix them. It's reasonable to expect that repairs happen in a timely and well-planned for manner. I hope this has inspired you to speak up more and take more action when you see something wrong. Thank you for watching, thank you for listening, and thank you for speaking up. Mahalo. We'll be right back to wrap up this week's edition of Think Tech, but first, we wanna thank our underwriters. The Atherton Family Foundation. The Center for Microbial Oceanography Research and Education. Collateral Analytics. The Cook Foundation. The Hawaii Council of Associations of Apartment Owners. Hawaii Energy. The Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. The Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology. Hawaiian Electric Companies. The High Tech Development Corporation. Galen Ho of BAE Systems. Integrated Security Technologies. Kameha Meha Schools. Dwayne Kurisu. Calamon Lee and the Friends of Think Tech. MW Group Limited. The Scheidler Family Foundation. The Sydney Stern Memorial Trust. The Volo Foundation. Eureko J. Sugimura. Okay, Cynthia, that wraps up this week's edition of Think Tech. Remember, you can watch Think Tech on Spectrum OC 16 several times every week. Can't get enough of it, just like Cynthia does. For additional times, check out oc16.tv. For lots more Think Tech videos and for underwriting and sponsorship opportunities on Think Tech, visit thinktechhawaii.com. Be a guest, you're a host, a producer or an intern and help us reach and have an impact on Hawaii. Thanks so much for being part of our Think Tech family and for supporting our open discussion of tech, energy, diversification and global awareness in Hawaii. And of course, the ongoing search for innovation wherever we can find it. You can watch this show throughout the week and tune in next Sunday evening for our next important weekly episode. I'm Jay Fidel. And I'm Cynthia Sinclair. Aloha, everyone.