On the night of April 12, the student branch of the Institute for Electric and Electronic Engineers hosted a video game tournament inside the Engineering East building’s “Cube.” The Cube is a large study area with adjacent study rooms.

Like some others on campus, this tournament was set up with an enjoyable time being the primary goal, rather than just competition.

“[It’s a] social event, just get people together, and do things as a group. Incorporate people who aren’t just in IEEE to hang out with people who are in IEEE,” said Eric Morales, a sophomore electrical engineering major, and the event’s organizer.

The flier for the event also played up this relaxed, social atmosphere by saying, “We want to give students the chance to put down the pencils, books and calculators to have a great time with fellow students!”

The tournament did boast a unique feature in its structure — players were not tested on a single game, but rather several.

At the beginning of the tournament, with roughly 30 people having paid the $5 entry fee, contestants chose one game to participate in. Then, they played in a mini-tournament bracket for just that game alone.

After these mini-brackets were played out, the winners went to the next round, playing a game that neither had played up to that point in the tournament.

“We have those people [the winners] against each other in games that they don’t choose. We’re going to choose for them so that it’s fair for both of them,” said Morales.

This required players to be proficient at several games, not just excel at one specific one. At one level of the competition, a player might find himself or herself in a frantic one-on-one fighting bout in a game like Super Smash Bros.

But in the next, they might find themselves playing a virtual football match in FIFA, and in another, they might find themselves in tense free-for-all gunfights in Halo or Call of Duty.

In the end, sophomore graphic design major Aaron Shelton won the entire tournament after a blowout match in the popular fighting game Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

“I feel happy, because I’ve never been here, and I don’t even know how to play Marvel, but it was fun playing here,” said Shelton, after having played not only MvC3, but also matches in Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart.

His competitor, junior finance major Marcos Ponce, who fought through Halo and Call of Duty matches to get to the final, had similar opinions of the tournament as a whole.

“I thought it was a pretty engaging and stimulating activity, I had fun … I thought it was fun, nice people,” Ponce said.