By Gil Pound

R iding the wave of the state’s booming billion-dollar gaming industry, Georgia College & State University gave the GCSU Esports team a boost recently.

Georgia College gamers now have access to 16 new complete gaming units – including CPUs, high refresh-rate monitors and furniture – thanks to $58,000 budgeted from Student Life. All that new equipment has been moved into GCSU Esports’ larger home inside the Maxwell Student Union.

“In 2021, our esports program consisted of one team and only six players,” said Dr. Dan Nadler, Georgia College vice president of student life and interim dean of students. “Last spring there were three teams of 20 players each, so this is a fast-growing area for student engagement.” 

Georgia On Gamers’ Minds

Competitive online multiplayer computer gaming, or esports, has seen massive growth in Georgia and around the world in just the last decade. According to the Georgia Game Developers Association, the gaming industry generates more than $550 million in annual gross revenue statewide and has an annual economic impact of over $1 billion in Georgia.

There’s real earning potential for streamers, those who livestream their gameplay and interact with the audience in real time on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube. Some larger professional tournaments offer winners cash prizes in the millions. There’s also the more conventional career route with Georgia being home to nearly 200 video game production companies with a collective 5,000 employees, per the GGDA.

Atlanta is home to DreamHack, a gaming festival recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest such event at 40,000 attendees. It’s held in the Georgia World Congress Center the first weekend in November.

From Club to Competition

Georgia College esports latched on to the growing popularity and made the leap from student club to varsity program during the 2020-21 academic year when the Peach Belt Conference sanctioned competitive gaming as an option for its member schools. The Bobcats won a 2023 league Overwatch championship when they went undefeated in conference play and added some momentum by posting a winning record throughout 2024-25.

“We competed the end of last season on the new PCs and it was a game changer because we could all be in the same space instead of on calls from different apartments around town,” said GCSU Esports president Kara Kahaian, a senior from Locust Grove, Georgia. “Our gameplay is way more seamless than it used to be.”

From the team’s new, updated base of operations downstairs in the student union, GCSU Esports competes across several different games popular in the gaming world. Overwatch is a futuristic shooter where teams of players try to take each other down and meet objectives. Valorant is a five-versus-five – or 5v5 in gamer speak – tactical shooter featuring characters with unique abilities. Marvel Rivals and League of Legends are other favorites in the competitive gaming realm.

The Georgia College Esports Lab is also open to students more interested in recreational play. And true to GCSU’s designation as the state’s public liberal arts university, gamers aren’t the only ones benefiting from the university’s esports buy-in. Esports president Kahaian shared that broadcast journalism students will sometimes sit in to work on their play-by-play and commentary skills while others compete.

Kahaian and her returning GCSU Esports teammates just hosted tryouts for this year’s team in preparation for the upcoming season. Competition begins soon with the Peach Belt Overwatch and championships scheduled for November.