For many students, Norris University Center’s lowest level is the ground floor.
Norris’ staff knows this. While the Underground’s ARTica Studios and Norris Outdoors attract consistent niche markets, the Game Room stands nearly frozen in time, said Debra Blade, assistant director for building services at Norris.
“It is your granddaddy’s game room,” she said. “We need things that today’s student would want to see in a game room.”
Changes could be in place by next fall. Norris Executive Director Rick Thomas said NU plans to make the first major addition to the Game Room – an interactive gaming center – since the game room first opened in 1972.
The current plan is to have eight to 10 Xbox 360s, each with individual screens linked together to allow for closed network play. Two larger televisions might also be added for students to play the Nintendo Wii.
Other possible improvements include modest changes to the appearance of the Game Room, including new furniture for the gaming lounge, improved lighting and new carpeting. Blade said the original carpeting of the building, more than 30 years old, is still in place today.
Administrators have observed the Game Room’s shrinking popularity for years, Thomas said. In the ’80s, the Game Room would often be filled with students playing pool and smoking cigarettes on the weekends. Arcade games were still a lucrative business.
Now, home video game consoles have overtaken arcade games, and table tennis and billiards tables are available in many residence halls.
The Game Room draws most of its business from tournaments and renting out space to student organizations for their own programming.
With the new gaming center, Blade said Norris staff hope the Game Room will offer students more reasons to make the trip downstairs to the Underground.
“Certainly if we were ever able to do a renovation of Norris, placing the game room function in a more prominent location that might be more visible would be a desirable thing,” Thomas said. “In the meantime, we’re going to make the improvements that we can.”
To design and implement this new gaming center, Thomas and his staff are working with Savage Geckos, a consulting company that focuses on improving student union game rooms through gauging student opinion. Norris staff have held two focus groups on improving the center within the past six months.
Medill sophomore Scott Olstad participated in both of these focus groups. Last year, his group, Quarter Circle Punch, a former campus video game club, held a Guitar Hero II tournament in the Game Room. While the addition of the interactive gaming center would be a welcome improvement, he said the university should also be sure to consider the room’s appearance.
“The Game Room right now is just gray concrete walls with really harsh lighting, and it’s just a very oppressive place to be,” he said. “They really need to turn around the aesthetic of the room.”
Thomas said they still have to decide how to charge students for use of the new gaming center, though they will model the Norris pricing structure off comparable game centers Savage Geckos has installed in other universities.
