The Oasis English Press sat down with Pranav Gandotra, the Coordinator of Gaming Club, to gauge the club’s preparations for the fest.
Pranav began by explaining that this year, the club would be hosting its signature gaming stall along with eight other events, including Minecraft Bedwars on Day One, BGMI on Day One and Two, Pokémon on Day Two and Three, Smash Karts on Day Three and a Gaming Quiz on Day Four. The Pokémon tournament will incorporate the fest theme by allowing desert-based Pokémons, which Pranav expects would lead to ‘interesting’ matchups.
The club’s preparations for the fest began after the mid-semester examinations. The work included planning the events, contacting potential moderators and sponsors, and advertising the events and stalls. Though the club did not have dedicated verticals for this, Pranav remarked that he hoped to introduce them soon.
As for the club’s BOSM outing, Pranav described their organised tournaments as ‘very good’ but admitted that things had not gone as smoothly at its flagship gaming stall. A lack of proper scheduling and an inexperienced workforce had led to congestion. According to Pranav, the club had learned from its mistakes and implemented better scheduling for Oasis.
Another challenge the club faced was low participation in ticketed gaming competitions despite low entry fees. This impeded the club’s ability to keep a prize pool for the winners. However, Pranav noted that the StuCCA had helped by footing the prize money, which allowed them to conduct the event even if they barely broke even. Though one of the stalls generated around 22 to 25 thousand rupees of profit at last year’s Oasis, the club aimed to be even more profitable this time around.
Pranav, a self-proclaimed Pokémon nerd, wanted to build a community of gamers on campus. When given the opportunity in his second year, he and two of his friends ‘rebuilt’ the Gaming Club. On his experience of being the Coordinator, he remarked that it was ‘stress-inducing’. He added that the work fluctuated between being overwhelming sometimes to ‘nothing for a while’. He believed that the club had potential and required support from the gaming community on campus. According to him, an established Gaming Club on campus could be leveraged to find more sponsors for esports events, which the club hoped to organise with the extra funds.