I assume by now that most active gamers know that universities offer scholarships to e-athletes. Depending on where you go, they are available for League of Legends, Overwatch, and a few others. It makes sense, it’s a team-based activity that if marketed well, schools could probably make more money from their students than they spend on them.
Of course, there are many games that simply don’t fall into this category. Even MMORPGs where many players collaborate and play together just don’t work the same way. For one, players have to do a lot of non-competitive stuff before they can even start PvP or high-end raids. People who play the games might watch it, but you won’t build a college-specific audience. (Mostly) single-player RPGs are even less ideal.
Therefore, as a rule, you probably won’t receive a grant for your Lost Ark or Genshin Impact expansion.
However, there is an exception.
As it turns out, the University of Silicon Valley offers what it calls “Max Achievement ScholarshipThese scholarships reward players-turned-students for “extraordinary persistence, systems thinking and creative problem-solving – including in digital worlds.” Two levels of scholarships are offered. The first is the Legendary tier. This offers players up to $5,000 per semester, with three semesters per year. That means players can receive up to $15,000 per year for school.
The list is divided into numerous categories such as: B. console/platform specific trophy hunting, roguelikes and roguelites, Souls-likes, strategy, survival and skill-based precision challenges. Given the focus of this website, we will discuss the MMORPGs and Live Service Games category. However, keep in mind that there are a few other games on the list. So for example, if you have all the achievements including There is No Spoon by Factorio, you can definitely apply.
What is required to qualify for a Legendary Tier Scholarship? Well, the website lists several games that students can receive a scholarship to play. These are RuneScape, Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls Online, Guild Wars 2 and Warframe. Each has its own requirements, but the general criteria is that players “achieve extremely rare feats that require more than 500 hours of sustained mastery of complex systems.” The site shows that typically less than one percent of a game’s players have achieved this.
For example, XIV players must have all their jobs, combat, and crafters/gatherers leveled to 100. (I would suspect this requirement will increase with Evercold drops.) Warframe requires a mastery rank of 30+ and completion of all story quests. Oh. And just so you know, they will check your in-game profile using appropriate methods to make sure you are honest.
The second tier, the Mastery tier, rewards players up to $2,500 for each term and requires “significant achievements as a completist that demonstrate advanced skills and perseverance.” This is where the requirements actually get a little weird. The games listed here are RuneScape, RuneScape 3, Final Fantasy XIV, World of Warcraft, Destiny 2, Lost Ark and Genshin Impact. And the difficulty difference between at least two of them seems pretty big.
As a player of XIV and Genshin Impact, it’s pretty easy to compare them. For XIV, players must have completed all role quests and all 12 Extreme Trials. Now it’s fair to say that the role quest thing isn’t all that difficult. At a certain point they got rid of the job (class) quests and switched to only offering one quest for each role. Instead of reaching jobs with more than 30 levels and completing quests for each, the player can complete five combat jobs (one for each role) and three crafter/gatherer jobs. However, the extreme tests require a little more effort. Yes, the earlier ones are pretty easy to tackle since your equipment has outdated them, but you’ll spend time learning the later ones.
Genshin, on the other hand, requires the completion of all Archon quests. This just means that you have completed the main story. If you are an avid gamer, you have done this. The other requirement is to have 8 characters at friendship level 10. This usually requires you to either just use the character in your party or put him in your teapot with things he likes and then visit him again and collect the friendship bonus. You have to keep an overview. But it’s not really in the same league as completing an Extreme Trial or collecting Raid Seals. Perhaps a better choice would have been to have players play a specific portion of the game’s various endgame content, or to max out some characters’ abilities – something that definitely requires endurance.
However, the good news is that there are some scholarships available for this Prospective students to take with them. Of course, the prerequisite for this is that you want to attend the University of Silicon Valley.