Windsor gamers ‘want to be the very best, like no one ever was’
Windsor Pokemon X and Y group creator, Emerson Perkins, plays his limited edition Pokemon Nintendo 3DS at St. Clair College Feb. 21. Perkins has organized a competitive tournament for Nintendo’s Pokemon video game series.
by Justin Thompson
Windsor’s local gaming community is evolving into something bigger with the creation of a local Pokemon video game tournament.
Nintendo’s two newest games in the Pokemon series Pokemon X and Y were released for the handheld Nintendo 3DS console Oct. 12, 2013. Since the release of X and Y, 24-year-old St. Clair College student Emerson Perkins has created the Windsor Pokemon X and Y Group on Facebook. The group now has almost 100 members and is in the middle of its first tournament.
“It was mostly to expand on how many people we know who play because in our group of friends we had about five or six people who played,” said Perkins. “We wanted to make a bigger local community.”
Perkins created the tournament to gauge how many people within the city were interested in competitive play. He said he hopes to organize future competitions with an official venue after this one. About 12 people are participating in the group’s first organized event.
“I was trying to find out who would be interested in it,” said Perkins. “I decided to make an online group to see how many people in the area are interested in Pokemon and then go from there.”
The tournament is now active and is separated into two different tiers. The two tiers are overused and underused. In the overused tier, players battle with Pokemon that are considered extremely powerful. These are the most frequently used. While in the underused tier, players can use a variety of Pokemon that aren’t powerful but are underrated. Each tier has its own set of rules and regulations to make each battle challenging. Players battle each other in a best of three series online at a time of their own choosing.
Kevin Vu, a 15-year-old student at W.F Herman Secondary School is one of the most active members of the group. Vu said he helps other members by trading Pokemon and also providing strategies for competitive battles. Perkins said Vu is one of the most competitive members of the group.
“I’m cocky, so I feel as if I have a good chance in winning both of the tournaments,” said Vu.
Windsor isn’t the only city caught up in these video games. According to IGN.com, Nintendo sold over four million copies of the games worldwide in its first two days, making it the fastest selling 3DS game of all time.
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