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Student gamers desiring a social outlet are using social gaming on and off-campus as a way to combat stress while simultaneously gaining skills in ways they never had imagined.

Although the campus provides many open spaces intended for study, such as the student center and the library, students often gather at the Piazza cafeteria or across the street at Game Empire to play card and board games in an openly social atmosphere as a respite from their often heavy course loads.

PCC music major Rafael Gomez plays Strat-O-Matic, a classic fantasy baseball statistic board game that began in 1961. Originally a game he played at home with his family, Gomez now brings it to school to share in between class times with friends in the PCC Piazza cafeteria.

“It is based on real life baseball player stats,” said Gomez. “It’s based on the probability with the dice. How good [the players] were in real life, that’s how good there are in the game. My dad introduced me to it, and I’ve played it for a long time.”

Like other social gaming students at PCC, Gomez goes to Game Empire directly across from PCC, but not just to play.

“I’ve traded in games and old video games at Game Empire,” he said. “But we just don’t play the game there. They don’t sell Strat-O-Matic.”

Game Empire store owner Chuck Robbins opened the 6,000 square foot space in 2011 specifically to allot a large portion of its space towards the student-rich popular tournaments of the various games sold in the store, turning 3,500 square feet of it into a highly social hub that is electric with energy and passionate play.

Robbins called his social gaming customers “the motor of the store.”

“Because that’s what this generation is all about, is social networking and community,” he said. “So they like coming here because they want to be part of a group. They like being connected. All the games that we play here are very social.”

With its interior paint replica “stone castle” walls and stained glass painted by a Disney Imagineer and theme park designer, the store is a featured landmark visit on an official metropolitan AAA map of Los Angeles. The store attracts social gaming PCC students–about 20 percent of the stores regular customers–who come between class times and after school in order to play a myriad of both classic, new and intensive strategy games with their friends and competing players from all over LA County.

“Pretty much everyone is a gamer,” Robbins said. “You watch football, you play poker, you watch game shows, you play video games. There’s a zillion ways to game.”

Robbins described one person who observed the social gaming community at the store in order to pull himself out of his shyness to play. An associate professor and researcher at Cal Tech came for a long while to observe and prepared each time with his own game pieces, After months of watching others play, talk, and share strategies, he finally opened up and sat down to play.

PCC students and other players who are socially withdrawn often frequent the store.

 “They like to come and play here because they don’t always have to get into chit chat,” said Robbins. “They can sit down and the game becomes the medium of communication. And because they often play with post-collage age people, they get more opportunities to see how an adult reacts to situations.”

The store employs several PCC students and student gamers as well, such as 21-year-old retail manager Jess Harvey, business, who is also a social gamer and tournament organizer.  She plays Euro-style games like Tokaido, which she describes as a non-direct conflict game involving “a traveler [character] going along a set specific path looking to create the richest experience by collecting meals, views, experiences and souvenirs.”

Working at the store enables her to balance school and work and provides her a social outlet where she said that social gaming has taught her skills such as patience and tolerance.

“I am a lot more patient,” said Harvey. “And I understand more now that everybody has their own perspective and their own point of view. Gaming is great hobby. And it actually teaches you a lot of social skills. And I am much better at math now actually, because of gaming.”

PCC freshman Jerry Wu, 18, business and accounting, spends sun-up to sun-down at the college. In lieu of long commutes back home, he does social gaming with his friends during the several one and half-hour breaks between classes.

“I feel kind of tense when I am doing homework for six hours,” Wu said, emphasizing the need to reduce the stress he feels in his 18-unit course load. “I would go insane just being at school, doing homework, being in the library. This is where I reclaim my sanity.”

His primary game of choice is Magic: The Gathering, a popular, artistically intricate trading card game where Wu keeps each card sleeved for care and preservation.  The process of learning gaming strategies has taught Wu skill sets he may not have otherwise gained in his spare time between classes, he said.

“Reading into people,” said Wu. “You need to analyze what they do, what they are looking at, where are they looking, and how much time they are taking to think.

Even with the plethora of exciting online games available in virtually every household and hand-held gaming platform, the social gaming community is clearly here for the long haul and the good company, as well as good gaming, enables and arms student gamers with hard-earned skills for the ultimate game of life.

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