Mario Kart, Overwatch, Valorant, League of Legends, Marvel Rivals: These are just some of the video games available to play at Brown Esports’ new gaming lounge, located on the second floor of the Brown bookstore. After over two years without a physical home, the club opened their new lounge on Jan. 24.
Olivia Fong ’27, co-president of Brown Esports, said that the lounge — which is open to all Brown and RISD community members — aims to cultivate community and connection, especially following the Dec. 13 mass shooting.
“After everything that happened in December, we wanted to provide a space for people to come together,” she said. She added that the club hopes to provide a physical space where people can “share common interests” and “just have a good time.”
Since gaming equipment, like PCs, are often expensive, the lounge also aims to increase “accessibility” for students that may be interested in playing video games but lack financial resources, according to Fong.
The lounge will be open until May and operates during the bookstore’s hours. Inside, visitors can find several personal computers and Nintendo switches.
Brown Esports previously had a lease with Brown Bookstore from 2022 to 2023. Prior to that, they operated a similar lounge at the Brown-RISD Hillel, according to Co-President Yoyo Ren ’27. For the past two years, though, all their equipment has been in storage, Fong added.
“In order to host events, we had to set everything up from scratch every time,” Ren said. “That would take like three hours by itself, taking that down,” which damaged a lot of equipment in the process, he added.
Because of this, Brown Esports has experienced a notable decline in club engagement, he said. Ren noted that finding a physical space was “almost necessary to the prospect of building an actual community.”
Around two weeks after the lounge opened, Fong and Ren said over 100 students had already used the space. Over 50 students came to the lounge’s grand opening, they added.
The club plans to host more events in the lounge this semester, including “Saturday Spotlight,” where students gather to play one featured game for a couple of hours, according to Fong. Ren said that the lounge is also open to clubs that are interested in using the space to host events, though none have requested it yet.
Jason Covey ’26, a member of the events committee for Brown Esports, said the club wants “the space to really open up gaming up to more people” and show them it’s “valuable.”
There are also social benefits to the in-person gaming experience the lounge provides, Ren said. “Playing games with other people in person is much healthier mentally than if you’re playing in your room by yourself,” according to Ren.
Kyujin Han, a first-year student at RISD, recently visited the lounge for the first time and said he appreciated the opportunity to play in-person.
“It’s more fun to play around friends,” Han said, adding that there are no technical difficulties involved with playing with others in-person rather than virtually.
Brown Esports allows visitors to request that the club download new games, which Han said he appreciates. He said he plans to return to the lounge with others in the future.
Fong and Ren said they’re hoping to find a more permanent space for an esports lounge after this semester. Demonstrating student engagement and demand for the lounge will hopefully support that goal, Fong said.
“Our goal is to show that this space is a really important thing to have in the community,” Covey said. “Not just for Brown Esports, but for the larger Brown community.”
Rachel Wicker is a senior staff writer covering affinity and identity. She is from Athens, Georgia and plans on concentrating in English on the nonfiction track and International and Public Affairs. Outside of writing, she enjoys reading books of any genre and doing yoga.
