I thought I’d throw in my two cents about the events that transpired with Cross Assault along with some other things on my mind as of late related to the fighting game community. Yes, I am hiding under a throwaway account, because lets face it. These things aren’t really received well. I understand I will either 1. Get flamed to all eternity 2. Have the thread closed within minutes or 3. Both.
Edit: To clarify, what instigated me into writing this was the events of what happened to SuperYan on Cross Assault along with following twitter posts and post show streams by various FGC personalities.
Edit 2: Sorry to ask for this, but if anyone can cross poss this on NeoGAF that would be awesome, getting an account from there takes like 6 months.
This thread will probably get closed at first sight by a mod, but if you’re willing for the argument to mature and gestate along with people adding reasonable and respectful responses, I think we can make some progress here.
I wanted to preface this with the fact that I am new; I came in at the very end of 2008 with the whole SF4 bandwagon. However, I am not new to competitive gaming. I’ve played Halo 2 competitively right up until SF4 and wanted a new change of pace, so I found this community and never left since.
The mindset of the arcade days and “the way things were” just doesn’t work anymore. “Get used to it” or “Get over it” is not a real argument. It is off putting to newcomers and opposes of what the majority of the players think the main goal is. First off, whenever I hear people talk about where they want to see the scene sometime from now, they always say “I want the scene to get bigger, to blow up.” If this is the goal, probably half of the actions negate that all together.
And for those of you who say, "Who cares about new people? We need to keep the appeal of our community alive” then you really need to speak to the other half of the machine. I’m not saying turn our scene into Starcraft or Counter Strike, I’m saying 1995 isn’t 2012.
It seems that the older guard of the fighting game community is one of the greater reasons why we cannot expand. From the alleged happenings at Capcom which prevent Capcom game representation for fighting games (see: Cross Counter Live 2/14/12) to the cannibalization when dealing with other games that aren’t all that different ie: how some of us view smash or certain 3d fighters or MK (people chanting MK sucks at EVO for reference.)
We fight all the time about why we can’t get sponsorships or money and this is why. Yes the old flavor of the arcade is important to keep in essence, but if it is not just off putting to people but straight offensive why would they put up with it? We don’t put up with things we don’t like when businesses mistreat us as a community (such as that whole mess with Tom Brady and the gaming league he was involved with.)
Do you really think that execs from companies even half of a percent interested in funding our events pay that much attention to us? All they see is this is a bad horse to bet on. The numbers of viewers are low, which I will talk about later, and this screams controversy. Think about any cause out there that is even remotely controversial. Better yet think of someone or some group that was outed because of a controversial stance they took - sponsors dropped.
I think that the appeal that some new viewers have to the FGC is the camaraderie, not the drama. For instance the “staging” (unsure of the legitimacy) of Mike Ross vs. Jago was just upsetting and I personally think was unnecessary. I think that this really pushes people away from it instead of driving up new people towards our community. What was the point of it really? To get more views from people? The only people that are even half interested in it are the PEOPLE ALREADY WATCHING IT. Stop making fake drama.
Yes, we know I am new to the scene, what should my opinion matter? Because of the fact that I just showed up can help me step back to the mindset of when I first found out about this community, and right now if I didn’t love with fighting games, and not the people, I would just say “no thank you” and be with some other group of people that can act appropriately. Its 2012 damn it, stop it with the misogyny and get with the program. Harassment is harassment.
I understand there is corruption and drama in everything. Even other competitive video game scenes like Starcraft had games thrown for who knows how much money in Korea. I keep hearing that we’re different than them, then why can’t we be better. If we can’t, and I am completely wrong, then back to lurking I go and I’ll just admire it from afar.
To be honest, I don’t know why I even feel like I should be writing this. I am a stream monster. I lurk the forums. I could throw all my sticks and games out the window and be completely uninvested in this community whatsoever. But I love these fighting games more than any other game that I’ve played, even ones I played at a tournament level. I don’t even want to buy SFXT anymore, and it’s not Capcom’s fault. They’re the one finally giving us a chance with this reality show along with the prize pool money. This is just leaving a bad taste in my mouth and reminding me that this is why we can’t have nice things.