By: Kirara Sparrow
In a recent announcement, President Holloway announced that all university operations would be suspended until further notice. His speech centered around the newly released game Helldivers 2, referencing a need for all students and faculty to buy and play the game.
“Super Earth needs us on the front lines! The Automatons are advancing into our territory, killing civilians, and opposing our very way of life! It is our duty to expand managed democracy to these systems, so download the game and log the fuck on!”
The response to this from Rutgers was one of shock, but overall acceptance. To quote one anonymous student, “Why the hell wouldn’t I want to stop going to class to play this bomb ass game?” The day following the announcement, the Rutgers campus was a ghost town, with everyone locked in on distributing managed democracy to every corner of the galaxy.
The game’s premise centers on combating large waves of aliens in groups of up to four players, all contributing towards pushing the aliens’ forces away from Super Earth and other friendly planets. Because of this shared process mechanic, Holloway seems to want to push Rutgers’ large student body towards contributing to this cause.
This move seems to have had unexpected consequences, however. Helldivers’ player count has exploded in the days since its release, to the point that the servers cannot handle the amount of people trying to log in. This was due in no short part to Holloway’s proclamation, leading to a short follow up announcement made by Holloway, where he said, “Please can a few of you stop trying to log in. I’ve been locked out for two hours. Mom said it’s my turn on Helldivers 2.” The issues with the servers lead to the majority of the students sitting in queue for most of the day, instead of actually playing the game or doing their school work, an outcome that many are actually pretty okay with.
President Holloway also promised to reimburse the 40 dollar cost of the game to every person at Rutgers who bought it, but has yet to make any comments on how this will come about. President Holloway has reportedly been avoiding speaking about these reimbursements, every time using the excuse of, “Sorry, I need to check if I’m in game yet. The front lines await!”