There is one place you can find friends playing from Washington to Mexico in one place. That place is Xbox live.
The community clan of Xgc (Xbox gaming community) is headed by sophomore Eli Day, known online as Xgc divine. Day and his friends play often during the weekdays on mainstream games such as Call of Duty and most of the time on weekends. The clan consists of about 25 members from all over North America.
“We want to become competitive, but some of our players aren’t very good,” Day said.
Senior Brandon Rogers shares enthusiasm in playing video games.
“You can blow off a lot of steam on games,” he said.
There is more to just blowing off steam on games for Rogers.
“You can really develop valuable relationships. I play with the same group of kids, and I have never met most of them. You can also learn a lot from games, in a weird way. The stories can provide insight into a lot of different things,” Rogers said.
Day and his friends spend their time working together as a team, hanging out and trying to beat the competition. Add Day online to get more information about playing.
Teacher Scott Clapp has been playing video games since the 1980’s. He started off in the old arcades when graphics were better there than on gaming consoles. Since then times have changed, and so have games.
Clapp plays with a group of friends around and under his age in a clan known as “middle-aged mayhem.”
“I enjoy the social aspect. It is place where I can converse with my friends and talk about things happening around the world,” Clapp said.
Clapp is not the only teacher with a passion for gaming, geology teacher Chris Hibbert does not only play games, he builds his own gaming systems.
“I can build a PC that plays almost all of the Xbox games but is much faster,” Hibbert said.
“You can look it up and read how to do it in 15 minutes,” he said.
Hibbert said that some people spend close to $7,500 on building their own PC gaming systems. Hibbert’s own system is expensive, but not that expensive.
“I got the first Wii that was sold in Great Falls. I spent 36 hours in line waiting for it,” Hibbert said.
He has had every Nintendo system on its day of release and will continue to do so.
Why Nintendo?
“I have just always been a Nintendo fan but also the characters are all so unique and recognizable,” he said.
Both Clapp and Hibbert agree that games are going to revolutionize the world.
“We are going to merge the real world with the virtual world,” Hibbert said.
Hibbert explains how we are not far away from putting on glasses and playing war games out in the park or using virtual reality to improve surgery. According to him, it is not that far away considering how far we have come in the last 30 years.
But for now they will all just enjoy their games with their friends. Hibbert spends a lot of time playing with his brother who lives in Bozeman.
“Games make it seem like we’re together. It’s like were in the same room playing a game together like we used to.”