Celebrating 4 Years of EGD
Written by Mary Joaquin
Edited by Huimin Zhuo
The care of the future of games is ours.
Esports and Game Design Collective celebrates its 4-year anniversary this month, continuing to help both the students of CUNY and beyond find their footing in the games industry.
First founded on November 9, 2016 by Kyra Wills-Umdenstock at Hunter College, EGD has grown to a community of over two thousand individuals. Though operations have moved virtually to Discord due to COVID-19, the spirit of gaming remains ever alive.
An Origin Story
Originally named the Game Design Collective, dedicated to the central goal of game design, a group of five learned Unity and intermittently played Dungeons & Dragons in a basement.
And when the group applied to be a club, there came the first of its many rejections. But when one door closes, another one opens.
Rejected for the same reasons were the groups dedicated to League of Legends and D&D. The then-GDC joined forces with these groups, taking in the E-Sports aspect of LoL to create its new name, the Esports and Game Design Collective!
From that came the rebirth of the group as the EGD, hoping for approval against all odds…!
And got rejected. Again.
Hope was not lost however. All heroes have their own mentor-type, ever ready to stretch out a helping hand. EGD found its own in Hunter College’s theater department through the Baker Theater Building, taking the wandering group under its roof.
The Expansion
Superheroes can have their own fairytale story too, and EGD saw its own; one very similar to Jack and the Beanstalk.
Equipped with a strong Facebook campaign, and armed with the power of promotion (and unauthorized tabling, shhh!), the group burst through the doors with around a hundred members in a year and nearly 500 by the next!
In the first two formative years of EGD, operations turned into a drop-in center. People were free to hang out at meetings and stick around to score different freebies from the budding e-board of the club.
Free League merch? You got it! Cans of Game Fuel? Take one and pass another! And how did the club show others its passion for video games? A GIANT TV…showing only the coolest game trailers, and the funniest club exclusive videos. What better way to attract video gamers than showcasing fun?
At the heart of this were the people. From those who simply popped by to have a look (which proved the big screen TV worked its magic) to those who came in to talk with its members, EGD was rapidly becoming a part of the student body.
In 2018, EGD finally got the long-awaited approval as a club.
The Evolution
The club skyrocketed from the hundreds to thousands in a span of a year. And with growth came necessary changes.
Nov 9, 2016: FIVE
2017: ~100
2018: ~500; approved as a club!
2019: ~1,700; applied to be a non-profit org!
2020: ~2,500
“Each year was vastly different than the year prior,” said Kyra, CEO of EGD. “We [had to overhaul] our leadership system at least twice a year to keep up with it.”
From club officers to staff to leaders, the ever-changing college scene in Hunter meant people came and went. This did not only mean that the club was developing through the people that joined. It meant that the people who have been there from the start had to adapt to new developments.
It sprung a Renaissance of sorts for both the club and these handful of leaders. The club was evolving into something new, with them at the helm. And a thousand people looking to someone for guidance is a daunting image by itself.
So came the trials and errors where leaders all learned about what had to go and what needed to stay. They slowly figured out what had to be done.
But the sacrifices were not for naught. With it came the guarantee that there were constants student members could count on; resources available at every turn, freedom to follow what path they desired through EGD, and that both are as reliable as the leaders strove to be.