By Miguel Dominguez
The East Los Angeles College game club is a place where gamers go to unite and play different types of games.
“The game club is a welcoming and safe club to students who enjoy playing games” says Michael Nitzani. Nitzani is the advisor of the club and has been a member since 2017.
Nitzani likes to meet new members of the club and listen to their backgrounds of how they got into gaming.
He occasionally brings vintage consoles, like the Nintendo, to the club as most of them are use to playing modern video games. He likes to see how the members get frustrated while struggling to play with the rectangle controllers with less buttons on them.
Now modern gaming controllers have more buttons than the nintendo controller and a comfortable feel.
One of the games that he hooked up was “Street Fighter II.” He plugged in the game and played one of the members of the club as it was displayed on the projector so everyone else could see.
Members of the club usually give out their ideas to Nitzani, on what they plan to do.
Julissa Garcia is the President of the club and she is more interactive with members of the club.
Garcia has been a member of the club for about three years. She used to be the secretary of the club.
The previous President, Ivan, is a well-known gamer in the club. He transferred but often visits the club. Ivan was in charge of creating the brackets for the “Super Smash Bros.” tournament. “Super Smash Bros.” is the club’s main game, so they have tournaments for it.
The tournament is played within the club, but they have previously played against the Japanese club from ELAC.
Garcia lets the members decide whether or not they would want to continue with the tournament, as she is responsible for the equipment they use in the room.
She talks to Nitzani about what the club wants to do the next time they meet or to plan special events. She also has to make sure that she keeps the members calm and quite as it can get intense while gamers play.
She mentions that members can be seen in different areas of the room.
Garcia said “You see a group playing card games like ‘Yu-Gi-Oh’ or ‘Pokémon’ on one side of the room. Another group playing ‘Jenga.’ And two gaming consoles, one on each projector of the room.”
When new shy members join in, she gets to know them and find out what type of games they are interested in and introduces them to the former members of the club.
Joshua Dugan has been a member of the club for two semesters. His nickname in the club is “Phoenix Cranium.” He has been playing games since he could remember. His first video game console was the Gameboy Color.
Dugan says the club is fantastic. He wants to have an expansion of the club in terms of gaming consoles. He is a computer gamer and wants the club to have computers that they can use for gaming.
Dugan wants the club to grow with new members. He has a message for those gamers who may be interested in joining the club “To all game lovers, we need you.”
The ELAC game club meets up on Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. in F5-209.