CRANBERRY TWP — Playing video games is a way for many people to pass the time or relieve stress. But for 2015 Seneca Valley High School graduate Becca Danik, it's a means to building a community.

Danik of Cranberry Township is the president of Ohio State University's eSports Initiative and has been working with administrators and other students to grow the eSports presence on her campus.

“It's a really fun way to bring the campus together and make friends,” she said.

Danik said she's been involved in online gaming communities since about 2013, but she didn't have an avenue to pursue that interest until she went to college.

When she first developed an interest in games such as “Overwatch” and “League of Legends,” Danik said she brought her interest to people she spent time with in high school.

“For me, it was really just playing with kids in the band program,” she said. “There wasn't really a club or anything. We would bring in a TV and play 'Smash Bros.' It was mostly self-facilitated for making friends.”

Danik said when she saw OSU's eSports Initiative, she “immediately knew” she wanted to get involved after her positive experiences playing with friends in high school.

Initially, Danik said, she wanted to go into the gaming industry but later changed her career path. Still, participating in the eSports has given her a new appreciation for professional gaming competition and the work that goes into game design.

“There's a lot of back work that goes into it,” she said. “It's a lot of work. It's incredible to think about the coding that goes into it and how finely detailed everything is.”

Danik, who has been president of the OSU club for two years, said the group itself has been important to the development of the eSports Initiative at the university. She and others on the board of eSports Initiative are working with the university as their “advice team.”

“We gave a crash course on eSports,” Danik said. “They look toward us because we've been doing it on campus for the longest.”

One of the things Danik said could change on the campus is the way the events are hosted.

“A lot of games just get played here in people's homes,” she said. “As an event coordinator, I would like to hold a big tournament here,”

Danik also hopes people from OSU can travel to other places to compete.

Mostly, Danik said, the goal is to bring the OSU community together.

“I know my big excitement is just being able to bring everybody together,” she said, “and not everybody has their own computers so bringing this equipment will be so great.”

Deborah Grzybowski, co-director of the game studies and eSports curriculum development and associate professor in the OSU College of Engineering Education, said Danik has “been one of the key players” throughout this process.

“The university has been really interested in what do the students need and want,” she said.

Grzybowski said among the plans is to turn a large space in one of the dorms into an arena for students to use the space and state-of-the-art equipment, including consoles, VR and PC-based games, to play.

Grzybowski, who is also the adviser for eSports Initiative, said the current problem with hosting competitive events on campus is that students “have to haul their computers to the union, and it's pretty inconvenient.”

About a year ago, Grzybowski said, the athletics department took notice of eSports in general and its growth.

“They found out that there are a lot of different grass-roots efforts around campus,” Grzybowski said, “and so they began kind of bringing everything together.

“There will also be a broadcast studio so students can do streaming in there for an event, and the space can be used for classes,” she said.

Though the space modifications in the dorm most likely will not be completed before Danik graduates from OSU in May 2019, she is still working to leave her mark on the university's eSports Initiative and improve the campus community.

“She's been a key piece of getting the student side of this together,” Grzybowski said. “She's also put an awful lot into making eSports Initiative a successful student organization.”