The university esports scene is thriving, and at Durham University Esports and Gaming (DUEG), so are we!
A successful year
DUEG has seen its best year yet in terms of performance, placing 4th in the British University Esports Championship and seeing strong results across the board. From incredible team showings such as our Rocket League team coming 3rd in the winter season to amazing individuals like our head TO Matthew winning consecutive seasons of Street Fighter V, it’s clear we have a lot of talent on offer.
This year has been all about laying the groundwork for growth and the future of DUEG is only getting more exciting! We’ve begun partnerships with esports organisation LDN UTD, coaching platform Metafy, and launched a volunteering program to allow our members to be recognised by employers for the hard work they put in helping others. Our events keep getting bigger and better too, from jam-packed charity streams to chill bar crawls and quizzes. We’ve also worked with brands like Red Bull, HyperX and Devolver Digital.
There’s something for everyone
It’s not all about being the best at a certain game, although that is definitely welcomed! Our focus is all about creating opportunities and creating the best possible environment for our members to succeed whatever their goals may be.
If you want to compete with the best, we’ll help you find a team of like-minded people and give you professional coaching support. If you want to have fun playing a game you love, you can join one of our more casual teams, or make friends to play with. And if you want to explore careers in esports, you can help to run tournaments, try out commentating, or network with our industry contacts – whatever you’re interested in, we can help.
A welcoming place for anyone interested in gaming
Our future goals are primarily to continue to make DUEG a welcoming place for anyone interested in gaming, whether competitive or casual. You don’t even need to have a high-performance PC to join in as we offer a gaming laptop loaning scheme to remove barriers to participation. Currently, our main focus is securing a physical space to be the home of a fully-fledged gaming lab, which will enable us to host even better events, as well as provide a place of stable internet (and minimal packet loss) for those competing!
We also plan to collaborate more with other universities, especially in the North-East, to develop the esports scene as a whole and meet even more awesome people. With the upcoming launch of the National Esports Performance Centre in Sunderland, we hope this will create more opportunities within the region and would like to play a part in this with outreach initiatives of our own.
Overall, the future is looking bright and we’re really excited to further develop our community over the coming year. Our biggest event of the year, the Intercollegiate Tournament, will begin in June, with a wide range of games to get involved with, such as League of Legends, CS:GO, Valorant, Mario Kart and much more!
Discover more
If you’re interested in finding out more, be sure to check out our Discord server here, where most of the action happens.
Read about the origins of DUEG in Amy’s blog here
You can also follow us on Twitter or Twitch @DurhamEsports.
Download our prospectus and college guide here
Follow our students on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
