Event sponsor: UGC

In 2004, 18-year-old founder Matt Jackson was passionate about two things: sports and video games. Intrigued by the similar competitive properties of his interests, Matt decided to combine them. The marrying of sports and video games led him to develop his own local area network (LAN) center — the equivalent of today’s esports arenas — to host local competitive video gaming tournaments from his parent’s basement. What resulted and grew out of the basement eventually became The Game Attic, one of Southern Illinois’ first video gaming facilities, which moved to a 25’x 25’ space above a local restaurant.