African American college football is unlike any other sport. The game is exciting enough, but it is the pageantry surrounding it and the halftime perfomances that truly take it to a whole ‘nother level.
Nerjyzed Entertainment Inc. out of Baton Rouge, La., has tried to capture that experience in a sports video game called the Black College Football Experience or BCFx – The Doug Williams Edition. BCFx features the football teams and marching bands from 35 Historically Black Colleges and Universities and combines football game action with a drum pad for playing drum line cadences from the game’s archive of over 300 songs. The game’s realistic halftime show provides substantive background information in its Legend’s Museum on the respective campuses and their athletic and academic programs. This mix creates a unique blend of an entertainment platform and a resource guide for anyone interested in the history, tradition and current educational benefits of HBCUs.
Sidni Lloyd-Shorter, director of business development for Nerjyzed says “we created the game because we not only wanted to entertain our young people, but to educate them about these wonderful institutions. So, that was a very important feature for us and we invested an enormous amount of resources to ensure that we could bring this to fruition.”
What’s especially notable is that BCFx is the first game developed by a black-owned company that has made it in the major gaming console platform which is no easy feat. The gaming community is a notoriously closed white, male culture that is primarily dominated by a few Silicon Valley behemoths like Electronic Arts (EA). So for Nerjyzed founder and CEO Jacqeuline S. Beauchamp, a black female, breaking though the barriers is indeed laudable.
Super retailer Wal-Mart was made is ramping up to carry BCFx in its outlets and that could be a real game changer for Nergyzed. –stanley yorker
