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On Thursday (Aug. 15), Purdue celebrated the opening of the Alienware Purdue Gaming Lounge – a partnership with Dell Technologies – located in the France A. Córdova Recreational Sports Center.

High-tech venue elevates esports experience for gamers and innovators

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University on Thursday (Aug. 15) officially opened its new esports facility, the Alienware Purdue Gaming Lounge, amid pomp, pageantry and high-tech gadgetry. Housed within the France A. Córdova Recreational Sports Center, the 2,000-square-foot esports space is outfitted with Alienware, Dell Technologies’ iconic gaming brand.

In June, Dell Technologies and Purdue announced an agreement to establish the APGL, one of the largest dedicated collegiate gaming facilities in the country.

In addition to casual gaming use, the lounge will provide an elite gaming space for students to train and compete in esports. There are several esports and gaming organizations at Purdue. This offering also serves as a unique attraction for prospective incoming students.

“The esports ecosystem at Purdue is thriving, with thousands of students actively participating,” said Mike Warren, senior director of Recreation & Wellness at Purdue. “Whether students are looking to get casually involved or compete at higher levels, we are excited to support gaming here at Purdue RecWell, showcasing the latest technology.”

Purdue had a soft opening of the APGL in June, which provided students the opportunity to utilize the technology during the summer semester while giving staff time to tweak systems to their highest performance levels.

“Watching the students walk into this beautiful facility and hearing their enthusiastic feedback over the Alienware technology has been rewarding to witness,” said Beth McCuskey, Purdue University’s vice provost for student life. “It validates Purdue’s investment in the space and our strategic partnership with Dell Technologies to embolden Boilermaker gamers — from novices to varsity-level players — to engage at the highest levels of esport competition.”

The APGL offers Purdue staff, faculty, students, esports clubs and visitors a unique gaming experience. Gamers who visit the venue will be able to enjoy some of the current and most popular titles, including Counter-Strike, League of Legends, Rocket League and Valorant.

The gaming lounge is equipped with 22 gaming desktops and three gaming laptops, as well as a Nintendo Switch and a PlayStation 5.

The Alienware-powered system, in the varsity and training rooms, includes:

• Processor: Intel® Core™ i9 14900F (24-Core, 68MB Total Cache, 2.0GHz to 5.8GHz w/Turbo Boost Max 3.0)
• GPU: NVIDIA(R) GeForce RTX™ 4080 SUPER 16GB GDDR6X
• RAM: 64GB, 2x32GB, DDR5, 5200MHz
• Storage: 1TB NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD

Matt McGowan, general manager of Alienware, highlighted Dell’s significant commitment to esports and explained how its technology fosters the educational community among students and universities.

“Esports gaming technology is not just about bolstering the next generation of gamers competing to their best abilities; it’s about inspiring the future of discovery,” McGowan said. “This partnership between Alienware and Purdue will empower players and support those gamers in becoming the next generation of innovators, engineers and researchers that Purdue has built its academic reputation on.”

The France A. Córdova Recreational Sports Center (Co-Rec) is a multifaceted fitness and wellness facility that offers a wide range of recreational activities aimed at promoting the holistic well-being of students, faculty and staff. It includes sports courts, swimming pools, fitness classes and exercise equipment. Now, thanks to the APGL, well-being evolves to cognitive skills.

“These students are learning in environments that you wouldn’t find in any other type of setting like this,” McCuskey said. “They’re gaming together. They’re strategizing. They’re communicating. They’re problem-solving. And they’re learning soft skills that will help them stand out in the job market.”

The venue includes a broadcast studio that will allow students to produce video content and stream matches to general audiences. It also includes training and review space for the high-level teams to review their performance and improve.

“This space is about more than gaming; it’s about developing social connections, finding a community and creating a sense of belonging,” Warren added. “We believe it will attract students to RecWell who may have never set one foot inside the facility. Once here, the students will see the entire intersection of diverse offerings for holistic well-being.”

As part of the agreement, Dell/Alienware will provide annual scholarship funding during the term of the collaboration, reflecting Dell’s commitment to leveraging the positive impacts of esports to bolster education.

APGL will be open weekday afternoons until the Co-Rec closes and throughout building hours on the weekend. Hours and events can be found on the APGL website.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a public research institution demonstrating excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top four in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, including nearly 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 13 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the Mitch Daniels School of Business, Purdue Computes and the One Health initiative — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.