A watermelon, an avocado and a piece of toast get into a boomerang fight.
No, it’s not the set-up line for a joke. It’s the centerpiece of a Monday morning lesson in instructor Chris Williams’ esports and gaming classroom at Vertus High School, a charter school on the northeast edge of the city.
On this day the game is Boomerang Fu, a party game from the Australian studio Cranky Watermelon in which players battle as food-related characters in an arena using boomerangs imbued with various powers. A half dozen students encircle a monitor at the front of the computer lab, smashing buttons as the game moves through several rounds.
But this is not so much about the competition as it is about seeing all the aspects of how a game like this comes together.
Williams has been teaching the subject at Vertus for about a year. The course aims to keep students coming to school. And once there, to expose them to career options in the gaming industry.
The class starts with a business lesson, of sorts, including the wages they stand to make as designers, programmers, or voice actors.
Now the city is calling on Williams to do the same in its R-Centers, hoping to attract more youth with a gaming program dosed with a mix of youth engagement in career-ed. In September, the Rochester City Council approved a $50,000 contract with Williams. The program will launch at the Trenton and Pamela R. Jackson R-Center on North Clinton Avenue.
“The truth is, it’s overdue,” Williams said of the city delving into esports in its youth programming. “We see everyone else flourishing in it, why aren’t we? … What are we doing, and what aren’t we doing?”
On this day, Williams’ ice cream character emerges as the ultimate victor. With that, the students fan out, each taking station behind a computer screen tethered to a PlayStation 5 or Nintendo Switch. Some challenge each other in games like EA Sports College Football 25, others head off on their own digital adventures.
A new era at the R-centers
Williams has organized video game tournaments for over a decade through his company, A Gamers Nostalgia. Those tournaments include one of the largest esports events in the area, Upstate Uproar, which brings together hundreds of gamers for battles across genres— from street fighting games like Tekken to the basketball game NBA 2K.
He also is the organizer of the city government’s first official esports tournament, the Mayor’s Madden Esports Invitational. This was the second year of the tournament, which took place Sept 14, at the Jackson R-Center.
The esports program was Mayor Malik Evans' idea. He is a gamer himself, and he regularly reflects fondly on the '80s football game Tecmo Bowl. For him, bringing gaming into the city’s recreation offerings has been a long-standing goal.
“If I’m looking at this a year from now, my dream is that every rec center would have a team, and eventually you’ll have teams playing each other across the rec centers,” Evans said. “And hopefully that will expand to other places around the county, and then maybe even around the country.”
Evans said the esports program will serve multiple goals in the rec centers. It provides a chance to introduce children to possible careers in the video game industry, brings new children into the R-centers, and makes gaming accessible to children who might not have access to technology at home.
“So, really the egaming is the carrot, and then you’re talking to them about summer jobs,” Evans said. “And when you have these universities and colleges embracing esports as sanctioned leagues, that’s huge, and we want to be a part of that.”
Gaming’s presence in Rochester can be seen across academia — from the high-profile design program at the Rochester Institute of Technology to a video game scoring program at the Eastman School of Music. The National Esports Association, based in Pittsford, is one of the preeminent organizations focused on increasing the use of gaming in education. That organization partners with RIT on youth enrichment programs and training.
Messages left with the association were not immediately returned.
Evans did not give a timeframe of when the program would launch, but said he wanted it to “as soon as possible.” Williams and A Gamer’s Nostalgia will be providing the gaming equipment for the project.
Evans has tried other means to get gaming to city youth.
In July 2023, the city secured a $145,000 grant to buy and outfit a trailer to serve as a mobile gaming unit, headed up by the community affairs division of the Rochester Police Department. The idea was to take the trailer equipped with TVs, consoles, and sound equipment directly into city neighborhoods.
The trailer has yet to materialize.
Evans said the unit still is being worked on, but did not give an estimated time for its launch.
“I don’t think we’ve gotten the actual equipment,” Evans said. “These things take time.”
Gaming opportunity
The global esports industry is big business -- worth about $2.3 billion in 2023, according to the industry analytics website market.us. The industry is expected to hit $16.7 billion by 2033.
The presence of RIT, Evans said, also is a prime motivator for the city to embrace esports. RIT’s undergraduate gaming program was ranked sixth in the nation by The Princeton Review earlier this year. The average first-year pay for a graduating student was about $84,000, with 82% of students finding work upon graduation, according to RIT. New York University ranked first in The Princeton Review report.
“There’s no reason Rochester cannot be the video game capital in the United States,” Evans said. “It can happen.”
Rochester boasts several small gaming studios, including Workinman Interactive and RIT’s own MAGIC Spell Studios. It also plays a key role in the preservation of gaming history.
The Strong National Museum of Play is home to both the World Video Game Hall of Fame and the International Center for the History of Electronic Games.
Andrew Borman is the director of digital preservation at The Strong. He said the esports industry today fosters a sense of community rooted in competition, entertainment, and "perhaps most importantly, fun." It can also have a financial payoff.
"Casual players often connect with friends to play together, facing off against different teams from around the globe,” Borman said in a written statement. “At the top, professional gamers, coaches, and team managers make a living through lucrative sponsorships, tournament winnings, and media opportunities, much like in more traditional sports, while also bringing some of the same challenges that traditional sports athletes and teams face.”
For Williams, leading the programs in the R-Centers offers a unique, and simple, opportunity: to give city youth a chance to play games they may never have had access to.
“What we’re trying to do is expose, specifically Black and brown youth, who don’t normally have a chance to play Overwatch, who don’t have a PC at home, who don’t have a PlayStation 5,” Williams said.
