Mine Craft is one of the world’s most popular games, and it has garnered the attention of Super League Gaming, a business that takes movie theatres and turns them into places kids can play e-sports together.
In fact, the Cinemark Playa Vista movie theatre in Los Angeles hosted more than 100 children and their parents as the children played against each other on their laptops in a Minecraft competition. The competitors were mostly between 7 and 14 years of age, according to a Yahoo! Tech article on the event posted in September 2015.
At the end of each round, kids’ names and accomplishments during the rounds were posted on the movie screen, which also offered message of welcome to parents who came to watch.
Los Angeles is not the only city to host such an event. Super League Gaming put on preview events like the one in Los Angeles, but its first fall season starts October 5. Events will be held in over 30 cities, some of which include Philadelphia, Chicago, Anchorage, and Miami.
For parents, the best part of the whole competition is that the winner of the season is awarded a $5,000 scholarship. Earning college money by playing a game that kids love anyway is a no-brainer for both kids and their parents.
Super League Gaming was created with the idea of combining the friendship and teamwork of little league sports and game arcades from decades past where kids would go to arcades and compete against one another. The idea is to promote social interaction in a world where computer gaming virtually eliminates the social element from gaming today….getting them ready for a world of future web development programs.
Minecraft is a massively popular game that promotes teamwork and creativity. Users build entire worlds with virtual bricks that they customize to create their own online environments. Super League Gaming sees itself as an organization coordinating a recreational league that is lower than the competitive world of e-sports. Kids can go to the theatre and actually play — not just watch– what’s going on, as occurs in e-sports.