In recent years, eSports have become a worldwide phenomenon, taking what was once a very solitary pastime and transforming it into an exciting and engaging experience that brings people together.

And here in Michigan, there's one business that's making eSports more accessible than ever before.

So come along with us as we pay a visit to Block House in Alma.

(electronic music) In the quiet college town of Alma Michigan, there's something new and exciting happening downtown that's bringing in visitors from near and far.

Welcome to Block House.

- The live eSports, the great food and the craft cocktails.

So we kind of have, we have something for everybody.

You know, we have people, yeah, come from all over just to kind of see what it is, what's this all about?

And then if you do come on a competition day and just feel the excitement, you know?

- The nicest part about Block House is the diversity of experiences that it can provide.

And that's why I think it has such potential for growth.

It has such flexibility.

(electronic music continues) - I've been here almost four years and at that point, this place looked completely different.

There was no screens, no TVs.

So now just like seeing the transformation of like the design and how that plays such a big part in how people feel welcome here too, and how they feel comfortable and open enough to pick up a controller that they wouldn't normally pick up or try a new dish that they wouldn't normally try.

(electronic music continues) - The biggest thing that a lot of us say around here, especially amongst staff, they call it a block home, just because of the way it is and how people interact with each other.

You got open concept, you got our couches, we got our chairs, we got people just running around, kids just having a fun, it feels like you're at a house, and just hearing like all the laughter and the screams and people just enjoying their food.

And sometimes you even have random tables just talking to each other.

It's phenomenal how that works out.

- [Narrator] Chef Ethan Smerdon whips up incredible dishes that have become favorites among foodies in the area, but in addition to being a stellar restaurant, Block House is also the home turf of eSports teams at the middle school, high school and college level.

(upbeat music) And it all started when Alma College, located just down the road, had an open space that they just weren't sure how to utilize.

- I'm a professor at Alma College and one day the college said, "we have this vacant space in the Opera House.

"Do you have any ideas of what we could do with it?

"We wanted to do something with digital media."

And I said, "eSports.

"eSports, yes."

(upbeat music continues) This building goes back to the 1890s.

Clearly, so much history here.

And looking through some of the archival photographs, you can see that this was originally, opera was the great entertainment of its day.

- [Narrator] Flash forward to today where eSports is one of the fastest growing and farthest reaching entertainment outlets in existence.

For decades, video games have been a solitary pastime, but that notion gets turned on its head inside the walls of Block House.

Here it's about family, teamwork and community.

- To stay true to our mission in bringing communities together, we have to appeal to the whole gaming spectrum.

And so we talk about, there's hardcore gamers who know the ins and outs of all the machines around us.

There's casual gamers who occasionally will pick up a video game, and then there's a non-gamers.

And if we can make all that, that whole spectrum feel at home here, then we're doing something right.

- [Narrator] Since it's inception, Block House has worked tirelessly to spread their message to schools and parents in hopes of granting opportunities to students who might otherwise feel left out.

- So there's a lot of talks between ourselves and the schools, kind of getting them to realize what it is and how it can benefit, you know, this group of students that maybe don't have an outlet or have an activity, and that if they do it here at our Block House location, there's no cost, no extra work for them, just a matter letting their kids come play and saying, we can put Alma High School on a jersey or something for the kids.

So they get, you know, great jerseys, great swag kind of stuff that we can help provide so that they can be a part of it.

- For a high school student who likes PC gaming, but maybe they don't have the same setup at home.

We have high speed internet, we have these high end gaming PCs that are, but they're all like top end gaming.

If you want to play in eSports, these computers are, like dwarf anything that you would need to play those games.

- Some of the kids on the teams are three season athletes.

They've done this kind of stuff before.

There's other players that have never been on an organized team before.

And to see them pull on a jersey that has the logo of their school, to get on a stage and compete for their school, representing their school, and then have their family in the audience.

And when they score, instead of it just being logged downstairs in the basement, suddenly the whole venue erupts in cheers and applause.

And to see their face light up, it's a gift.

- [Narrator] And the experience is enhanced with live commentary and streaming of the competitions on Twitch.

It adds so much excitement to the proceedings and makes the experience more accessible to non-gamers.

- Someone like me, I appreciate the shout casters because they help me understand the game when I would normally have no idea what's happening.

- The shout casters and the productions help a ton.

When you're here and you're watching something that might not be familiar, but you hear someone else's voice and it sounds like a basketball game or a football game, and the commentator gets excited, you can start to, you start to feel it and you can start to learn about the game.

Right now, eSports it's so fast moving and it's growing so quickly, like there is so much potential to impact not just the surrounding community, but beyond that, the interconnectedness of eSports.

you end up rippling out into communities in a radius that we didn't even expect.

And now we're all really excited about seeing Block House grow into a second location.

And then even beyond that and start thinking even beyond Michigan.

One of the first few nights we were open, we realized that we had kind of inverted the model of Chuck E. Cheese.

And Chuck E. Cheese.

you know, they build a place for kids and the parents can get something to eat, but here we built a place where parents and college kids, they feel at home, but yet kids have a lot to do too.