Kellen Donahue
Photo Courtesy of Presley Beal
Have you ever seen a street fight in the corner of Gillies? For the last year, no one has. Attached to the wall in one of campus’s beloved spots for students to chat and eat, there is a corner designated for gamers that has been dark since 2023. If you wouldn’t call yourself a gamer, you might miss it. Or maybe you missed it even being a gamer. However, a prospective Gordon student got a glimmer in his eye when he caught the darkness of the screen.
Upon first look at the campus, this fall, freshman Kellen Donahue set his sights on a mission saying, “The day I got here, I saw this arcade machine and I was like ‘Dang, I really want to use that’…and it didn’t work.” Kellen himself is an undecided major as of now, though Gillies’ Late Night Supervisor Tammy Jennings was far impressed with his ability to see the arcade machine active and in color after she watched professionals attempt and fail to fix the piece after over a year. “I have been told by a lot of people that this thing has been down for a year or so, so basically, I took matters into my own hands,” Kellen said…and that he did. Kellen was seemingly playing his own game in real life attempting to track down high-demanded people to get “the green light to open [that] thing up and play around in there,” as he said. With his foresight, Kellen knew if nothing was getting fixed, he had to take the lead.
As each long-awaited email response hit Kellen’s inbox, at I should do.”
“I did some research on the brand of the arcade, the make, the model, you could almost hear the ba-ding as he reached new levels in the process. He said, “I did talk to multiple people who were in charge like the director of Student Life and the [president] of GCSA about wh what it does, what games are on it, how to get into it, and really this was just a solo endeavor,” ultimately putting his gamer knowledge to the test.
“Eventually through just sheer force of trying, I was able to find out the problem and fix it, and now it is up and running and I am installing my own games.” Off of campus, and before becoming a student at Gordon, Kellen Donahue lives in New Hampshire, surrounded by his gamer brothers, who he actually called up to help orchestrate the procedure. He joked that they were far more knowledgeable than him with the technology, though surprising anyone could be more gamer-enlightened than the freshman.
With a fresh view on campus, Kellen noticed that the virtual gaming community is slim. He remarked, “It was during the club fair a few weeks back that I noticed there weren’t any gaming clubs,” going on to notice, “the closest thing I could find was the TableTop Club, but that’s not video games.” Being a part of competitive gaming groups at home in New Hampshire revealed to him his love for the community and felt the weight of Gordon without a group. “I feel like this [machine] could be the start of a gaming club, if it gathers enough interest,” he said.
“Even if you don’t know how to play [the games], it’s super easy to pick up…they’re really easy to get into and really fun to play and improve at with different people who also enjoy the games.”
Gillies arcade machine contains both modern and retro games, as new as Guilty Gear Strive, and as retro as The Street Fighter Anniversary Collection with all the old street fighter characters. With obvious love of virtual fighting games, Kellen recognizes that a community could be built on campus with other people who love gaming as much as him. “All I got to say is, the Fighting Game Community (FGC) is awesome. Fighting games are beautiful, so go support the FGC…” Kellen said, “…the ‘F’ is for Family.” Kellen’s encouragement for gamers is to just go to tournaments saying “it’s a great way to meet people and get better at the game.”
Though the newly fixed gaming console doesn’t yet include sweets like Candy Crush, freshman Kellen Donahue made sure to outright say, “I’m a gamer basically–I’m not going to sugar-coat it.”
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