LOS ANGELES \u2014 On a recent afternoon inside the Cinemark Playa Vista multiplex, a sold-out movie theater was packed with more than 100 children and their parents. The youngsters weren\u2019t gathering to watch \u201cMinions\u201d or \u201cInside Out\u201d for the zillionth time. Instead, they came armed with their laptops to competitively play the video game \u201cMinecraft\u201d together.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe theaters want to be a destination not just for movies but for entertainment,\u201d said Brett Morris, president and COO of Super League Gaming, a company that\u2019s turning conventional movie theaters into e-sports playgrounds for children.<\/p>\n
From their laptops, the players \u2014 mostly ages 7 to 14 \u2014 duked it on a virtual \u201cMinecraft\u201d playing field while a third-person perspective was projected on the mammoth theater screen, welcoming parental spectators and broadcasting bragging rights at the end of each round.<\/p>\n
After hosting several similar such preview events, Super League Gaming is kicking off its inaugural six-week fall season Oct. 5 in more than 30 cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami and Anchorage, Alaska. The season\u2019s top winner will receive a $5,000 scholarship.<\/p>\n
Super League Gaming, which has partnered with the AMC and Regal theater chains in addition to Cinemark, was born out of Morris\u2019 desire to marry the comradery of little league sports with the communal nature of old-school game arcades.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe grew up in a generation where we would go into an arcade and compete,\u201d said Morris, who has two gamer daughters. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just about competition. The memories we relished most were the social moments. Our kids don\u2019t have that face-to-face interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morris said the league\u2019s organizers selected \u201cMinecraft\u201d because the hugely popular brick-building game encourages creativity and collaboration. It\u2019s also an open-source title, meaning Super League Gaming organizers can freely tinker with it to suit their competitive needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve made \u2018Minecraft,\u2019 the world\u2019s most popular game, better by adding this theater element,\u201d said Morris. \u201cWe\u2019ve built it to take advantage of all the interaction that the kids can have inside the theater. It\u2019s not the same experience as just playing by yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the competitive aspect of Super League Gaming, Morris said the organization isn\u2019t necessarily looking to groom the next generation of e-sports athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently, e-sports is very competitive,\u201d said Morris. \u201cIt\u2019s different with \u2018Minecraft.\u2019 We see ourselves as a recreational league below e-sports, where you can actually come in and play. Our kids are coming to the theater to play together, not just watch.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LOS ANGELES \u2014 On a recent afternoon inside the Cinemark Playa Vista multiplex, a sold-out movie theater was packed with more than 100 children and their parents. The youngsters weren\u2019t gathering to watch \u201cMinions\u201d or \u201cInside Out\u201d for the zillionth time. Instead, they came armed with their laptops to competitively play the video game \u201cMinecraft\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":21703,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-21702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21702"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}