Digital Schoolhouse National Esports Tournament in full swing with thanks to our industry partners
The Digital Schoolhouse powered by PlayStation National Esports Tournament is in full play and whilst teams battle through their in-house heats to become reigning school champion, we’d like to take a moment to thank our tournament supporters including XMA-Viglen, Blizzard Entertainment, SEGA Europe and GAME for making this competition possible, and already inspiring hundreds of students across the UK.
PlayStation, we'd like to thank our lead partners for their continued support and expertise with all aspects of Digital Schoolhouse. Especially their contribution towards shaping the industry-relevant student career roles within the tournament.
XMA, IT manufacturer and solutions provider, is the most recent to join supporters of Digital Schoolhouse in its second year running the National Esports Tournament; providing British built Viglen desktop computers for schools to use throughout the tournament.
Craig Connell, Commercial Manager at XMA-Viglen states “It’s a fantastic opportunity to be involved with the Digital Schoolhouse, with our long standing experience within education and our Viglen range, it’s a great partnership. With the recent launch of our New Gaming PC’s; the Incepta range, it made perfect sense to work in conjunction with DSH and Ukie.”
SEGA Europe continue to provide ongoing support as a sponsor of the Digital Schoolhouse programme, and have donated hardware to participating schools for use in the tournament and computer science labs thereafter.
It’s important to note that not all participating schools have the minimum spec of hardware required to run the tournament, and so without the help of XMA-Viglen & SEGA Europe, wouldn’t have been able to participate in the competition at all. Here at Digital Schoolhouse, we believe it’s really important to stick to our values and this is a perfect example of how we (and our supporters) strive to enable all students to thrive in a 21st century digital economy - without exclusion.
Blizzard Entertainment has provided their team-based first person action game, Overwatch, as the main title for the competition. We believe this game is a great stimulus for encouraging both male and female students to participate in the tournament, as well as being a clear favourite amongst our schools.
GAME has provided three of their Belong arenas to host our Regional Qualifiers in Bristol, Manchester and Kingston. Each Digital Schoolhouse will be represented by their winning team (determined by their school-based heats) and will play off three other schools throughout the day, to decide who will represent their region at the semi-final.
Staffordshire University is hosting our fourth Regional Qualifier in the Midlands, as well as providing their academic expertise in tournament research & evaluation. This will be led by Dr Bobbie Fletcher, Associate Professor in Games Education and Head of Department, who has undertaken extensive research in Games & AR.
Gfinity is hosting the Grand Final at their esports arena, adding professionalism and prestige, and counting towards a totally immersive atmosphere for our finalists and spectators.
Creative Assembly has injected their creativity into the competition: designing and hand-building the bespoke, one-of-a-kind tournament trophy, which will be presented to the winning Digital Schoolhouse at the Grand Final.
Last but not least, we’d also like to say a huge thanks to our DSH esports coaches who have committed time out of their day-to-day to support, coach and advise their school partner… to win!