NVIDIA loves gaming. That’s because most of us are gamers. Which is why we brought students from some of the biggest colleges in the country to our campus for a little game of “Call of Duty: Black Ops II.”
Over the past three months, our “Rivalries” tournament has caused a sensation. We’ve pitted teams from colleges from around the U.S. against one another for the opportunity to travel to our campus and compete for the championship.
After a series grueling best-of-seven matches this weekend –livecast via Twitch.tv – East Carolina came out on top. Big surprise. Oregon State, USC and Cal had all been named as favorites by NVIDIA employees and players on opposing teams.
“We practiced really hard and it really paid off,” John ‘Cliff” Stubbs said after dominating USC, 4-0 for the championship.
“That’s how you win, you get better after every game, and they got better and better and better,” NVIDIA GeForce Community Manger Kris Rey said after watching East Carolina’s victory.
Make no mistake, the tournament provided plenty of opportunities to get the word out about NVIDIA’s products. More than 150 spectators packed our company cafeteria. Thousands more showed up online.
Master of ceremonies Tom Petersen gave away NVIDIA graphics cards to an audience hungry for hands-on time with our products (his trademark: challenging audience members to solve math puzzles).
All the schools whose students participated in the tournament received PCs equipped with NVIDIA GPUs. And at the end of the tournament a truly enormous – and very shiny – trophy was presented.
There’s more to come. We’re continuing to partner with publishers to create – and promote – great games with events like these. Over the past several months our GeForce business donated some serious hardware to the schools whose students participated in this year’s tournament. And we’re looking forward to donating more gear – and enjoying more of the action that gear makes possible.
Photo credit: Keoki Young
