Senem Gülal trains with her team twice a week during the season.

Then she practices strategy and moves with her five teammates for two hours.

"I'm responsible for helping the team with utility and supporting the damage to do more damage." Words that may sound like gibberish to many gamers use them quite naturally in their everyday lives: "utility", that is the additional effect of an attack in play.

The "damage" is the character on the team responsible for inflicting damage on the opponent.

Senem is part of the e-sports university group at the Goethe University in Frankfurt.

Their specialty is the game Overwatch, a so-called multiplayer first-person shooter set in a far-advanced future vision of Earth.

It is always played six against six.

Each team member has a role.

There are clear strategies, moves, game positions that are exchanged on a trial basis.

Like in football.

Only the striker is not called "striker", but in the case of Overwatch "Damage", the "defenders" are "supporters" and the "tank" is comparable to a goalkeeper.

Senem plays the first support - the backbone of their team.

“The Social Aspect of Gaming”

Senem studies American Studies and History at the Goethe University in Frankfurt.

She's been playing video games for as long as she can remember.

It wasn't uncool for her as a girl in the schoolyard, on the contrary - her best friend also "gambled", she says.

Today the two live three hours apart.

They keep in touch through gaming.

“The social aspect of gaming is often forgotten.

It's not just about the game for me, it's about spending time together," says Senem.

The university group gave her a closeness to people that was actually not possible during social distancing, isolation and curfews.

A team sport.

When it comes to university sports, some might think primarily of jazz dance, karate and beach volleyball.

However, some universities or technical colleges, such as Bayreuth or Karlsruhe, also offer “electronic sports”.

Team players like League of Legends, probably the best-known strategy game in the gamer scene, but also sports simulations like FIFA and Formula 1 are played.

The group in Frankfurt was founded by Jan Köhler.

He started gambling when he was 15, right after he got his first PC.

He grew up in a small village.

Fewer than 300 residents, poor infrastructure, hardly any ways out.

For him, too, gaming became a social exchange and an opportunity to spend time with his friends after school.

They want to play "up there".

Contact with people is also a priority when Köhler founded the university group in 2017.

“I came to Frankfurt and was looking for a connection, people with the same hobby.” Interest is great, the 1st EC Frankfurt now has 175 members.

Students of all courses gamble here: lawyers, chemists, political scientists, computer scientists.

From the university group, Köhler and Adam Husseini founded a registered association in 2018.

Also to enable membership for people who are not studying.

The 1. EC is a mass sports club - i.e. organizes e-sports at amateur level.

But for some gamers, e-sports is more than a hobby, they want to play at the top.

This also works in the university environment: In the university league, they compete directly with other students.

Different university groups compete against each other in different games.

Today this is not only possible at national level, but also at the Europe-wide "Amazon European Masters".

The games will be streamed live.

As a student in the professional league?

The prospects of the professional league may also be tempting for some students: the game is sometimes played in huge arenas, winnings reach the seven-figure range, and a lot of money is spent in the industry for talented players: the 17-year-old Counterstrike player changed only a few months ago Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov for $600,000 from the Ukrainian youth team from Natus Vincere to one of the leading esports organizations "G2 E-Sports".