When asked what she thought of Thursday’s grand re-opening of the Norris University Center Game Room, Weinberg freshman Chelsea Callahan looked confused.
“It sounds cool – where is it?” she said.
For many students, all the Game Room’s improvements may come as less of a surprise than the fact that there actually is a Game Room in the Norris Underground. Communication junior Kenisha Morgan, who has worked at the Game Room for two years, said she hopes the changes fix this problem.
“We’re just trying to get more people to come in, to draw people in,” she said.
New posters on the walls, a flat-screen TV, eight Xboxes, a Wii and a Rock Band station, set up on a stage with lights, give the room a more modern feel, Morgan said. Students can still play ping-pong, pool and more traditional arcade games and can also sign up to compete in tournaments or reserve the Game Room for a group.
The new games might attract some, but just getting the word out that the room exists should help, said Michael Giannetto, who started working at the Game Room this fall.
“I’ve told people I worked here, and they didn’t even know we had one,” the McCormick freshman said.
Many of the changes were made to improve the ambiance of the room, Giannetto said. The pool tables were refurbished with a bright purple felt, and fluorescent lighting was replaced by overhead lighting that is better for playing pool.
But for all the changes, students still struggle with the Game Room’s cost, Morgan said. It costs $3 an hour to play ping-pong and pool. Video games for one person are $3 an hour with a $1 extra charge for each additional person. Dance Dance Revolution, air hockey and the arcade games use quarters.
“Typically we don’t have a lot of people down here in the Game Room because we charge,” Morgan said. “People would come in and say, ‘Oh, that sucks. Well, I could just go to my best friend’s dorm and play there.'”
For Tiffany Liu, a friend’s Xbox would be a more likely option if she wanted to play video games, the Weinberg senior said. She has never been to the Game Room.
“I don’t play video games much,” she said. “I might be interested in pool, or if they had an air hockey machine.”
The Game Room does have an air hockey machine, and has had one for a while. It is one of the few games that has been there for years, along with racing car and pinball arcade games.
The rest of the arcade games, however, did not make the cut, Morgan said.
“We had all these weird arcade games, which weren’t very cool at all,” she said. “The racing car game and the pinball game stayed because those were the games that people actually played.”
Some people do not mind paying for the games, Morgan said. Alumni bring their children, and Evanston residents use the Game Room as well, she said.
The Game Room also has its share of loyal followers.
“There is a freshman who comes in every Wednesday to play DDR,” she said.
DDR is one of the more popular games, Morgan said. Two months out of the year, the Game Room lets students play DDR for free.
There’s also a group of Norris employees who come down to play Rock Band. And why not? Norris employees can use the Game Room for free.
Callahan said she likes playing DDR and might check out the Game Room at some point. But she does not plan to make it her Saturday night activity.
“It sounds like fun,” she said. “But there are probably other things I’d rather be doing.”
