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Esports and Game Design Collective

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The EGD Collective is a nonprofit dedicated to supporting games industry accessibility through affordable education. Whether you're a hardcore FPS player, an artist or musician looking to build a portfolio, or just like playing Candy Crush on your phone, there's a place for you here. Founded by myself in 2016, the EGD was originally a college club that hosted video game and board game events, game design workshops, Dungeons and Dragons 5e meetups, and game tournaments, and ran Hunter College's esports teams. The original club is now the flagship chapter of EGD, is one of the largest organizations on campus, and is an official College League of Legends Club, Tespa Chapter, and the first and only academic chapter of the International Game Developer's Association in NYC. 

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In the beginning, our regular meetings were held in various student-lounges around campus, where we used them as a co-working space for us to collaborate on our projects and academic endeavors. We then were denied by the Undergraduate Student Government to charter, but thanks to Hunter College's Theatre Department, we have been able to run. Originally, my club was purely about game design, but we merged with all of the various gaming groups on campus who also were denied to charter in hopes of appealing. We were finally approved to charter in 2018, and have done some pretty cool things along the way. 

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Over the past three years, we have grown to service over 2000 students, faculty, and local industry professionals, and have established ourselves as the ringleader of games throughout CUNY. However, we still currently lack sufficient funding and internal support on campus. We have also grown too large to continue our operations within the Theater Department's space. To ensure our organization, and other student gaming organizations within public colleges receive the support they need we are in the process of incorporating and filing for 501(c)(3) status as a public nonprofit arm dedicated to supporting all of us who know that affordable education, the games industry, and the communities these institutions create are important.

 

This organization is my life and soul. I have personally taught the game design classes, offered academic advising, created curricula, helped students search for jobs and scholarships, and have been on the ground at every single event we have ever run. Even though working around the various roadblocks with Hunter administration and student government has been hard (insanely understated), I still love Hunter and believe in the importance of our organization's continued presence within the college. We're out here changing lives, and by extension, the world. One day Hunter will be known as the CUNY for gaming, and I'm going to make it happen. It's not a matter of if, but only when they get on board. And it's a mission too important to let go - because the care of the future of the games industry is ours. (See: Hunter College motto).

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