Cities around the world have been showing their enthusiasm for gaming as an educational tool, and New York City is helping to lead that charge with its first annual NYC Video Game Festival on Saturday, May 31. The day-long event will feature esports competitions, arcades, and indie game demos, all taking place at Convene Brookfield Place in lower Manhattan.
The NYC Video Game Festival will also host the finals of the fifth-annual Minecraft Education Battle of the Boroughs Esports competition. The competition has fostered creativity among the school kids of New York City as they’re tasked with solving some of the city’s challenges using the tools within Minecraft. For example, last year, kids were tasked with designing a new Brooklyn Army Terminal Climate Innovation Hub.
Each borough of New York City will be sending three finalist teams (representing elementary, middle, and high school) for a total of 15 teams competing.
In addition to the Minecraft competition, New York-based colleges will be sending their best and brightest Fortnite and Valorant players to compete in the 2025 Collegiate Championship. One of the teams competing is The Quad Gods, the world’s first all-quadriplegic esports team, which was recently featured in an HBO Documentary.
The May 31 event is just the beginning, as New York City is planning on hosting a variety of gaming events over the next several months as part of its NYC Summer of Games initiative. A full rundown of all of this summer’s events can be found here.
Polygon is thrilled to partner with New York City as part of this event, which has allowed kids to really prove that games have the ability to solve real-life challenges. We hope to see you there!
