FGC – The Fighting Games Community
Source: http://static.zerochan.net/Street.Fighter.full.172203.jpg
I’m a big fan of video games, especially fighting games which, in my opinion, are very competitive and unique. In fighting games two opposite players compete with each other usually using one chosen character from the game’s roster.
Compared to other types of video games they require very high agility, precision, quick decision making and ability to study your opponent, learn his tactics and take advantage of its flaws.
On a higher, competitive level, fighting games are almost like chess.
FGC – Rise Of The Fighting Game Community: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F15lBHqdrFg
One of the most prominent games from this genre are: Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken and Virtua Fighter, just to name a few.
In Asia, USA, and some European countries there are big communities (called FGCs) that consist of skilled competitive players as well as tournament organizers. In some cases even the developers of those games contribute to the tournament scene, for example Capcom, Japanese developer of the Street Fighter series, recently has announced that the prize pool for Capcom Cup (a series of tournament in a league format) will reach half a million dollars!
Best Of
Capcom Cup 2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU5qb-b-VVg
Members of the FGC often share their knowledge and tactics via YouTube videos, Twitch streams or many dedicated websites. Some even provide live training sessions. If you’d like to check some of those, I recommend starting with the following YouTube channels:
Unfortunately
in Poland the tournament scene or the FGC is nonexistent. Even though e-sports
are very popular in our country (just recently
in Katowice there has been held
a major e-sports show/ tournament called IEM – Intel Extreme Masters, there
were many games present but unfortunately no fighting games).
Why is that?
For sure
there are many factors but, in my opinion, the most important one are
the Arcades. In USA and especially Asia Arcades were very popular in the 80’s
and 90’s, and it was these Arcades where the fighting games originated from as
highly competitive video games. In most Asian countries Arcades never went out
of fashion, what’s more they
are usually more popular than PC’s or consoles. Also because of Arcades the
most popular controllers are not typical joysticks as we know them from
consoles but rather an arcade stick which you can see in the image below.
Source: http://store.madcatz.com/Mad-Catz-FightStick-TE2-for-Xbox-One-001.jpg
In Poland, Arcades were unfortunately a rarity even in the 90’s - the Golden Age of Arcades and they didn’t survive at all, although sometimes you can find some single arcade cabinets in some venues. That’s one of the main reasons why fighting games are not so popular in our country, never mind the competitive/tournament aspect.
Because of all the above mentioned reasons – for the Polish fighting games’ fans, the only option is to spectate the major tournaments via streams or video archives on YouTube or to actually travel abroad to those tournaments if we’d like to compete.
Speaking of major tournaments – on July 17-19 in Las Vegas there will be held one of the biggest and most prestigious FGC tournaments in the world – Evolution 2015. I highly encourage you to give it a try and watch a stream of this event at http://www.twitch.tv/srkevo1
EVO: A Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NUrMQ1AslQ
Sources:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_game
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_arcade_video_games
- http://capcomprotour.com/announcing-capcom-pro-tour-2015/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_game
Here are some questions that I’d like to ask you:
- Have you played any fighting games?
- Would you be interested in attending a big fighting games tournament, either as a competitor or as a viewer?
- Why in Poland the FGC tournament scene is nonexistent compared to other European countries like France or England?
- Have you ever been to an Arcade? If so, when? And what are your memories of this experience?
Comments
1. I have played fighting games a couple of times. I get easily very excited by those games because I always want to win. The part that I dislike about them is that often they are repetitive.
2. I would like to attend. It doesn't matter whether I would be competitor or viewer, it is important to me who would I be with and that's what really matters.
3. Maybe because the percentage of people living in poland is the highest for elderly people? Also, our country is poorer and that may have it's own influence. Not so many people get to play console in young age. People have to work hard to live and that makes it very unfriendly environment for gaming.
4. I have never been to an Arcade but I hope one day I will. There were 2 gaming events that I participated in, one was PSP Experience (it was right before launching the Play Station Portable console) and the other was an event organised in PJWSTK for Counter Strike Source competetive teams.
Nah, I don't think I'm good enough to play in a tournament :) and I wouldn't be interested in participating as a viewer because for me all fun comes from playing the game. Or at least watch someone that I personally know.
I'm not really sure why the tournament scene is nonexistent... maybe there is just no sponsor to start the business? There are other, more profitable games to invest in.
No, I've never been to an Arcade.
However, I don't think I could spectate (or play) such games for a long time. I prefer to watch more tactical games or MMOs. Even though I'm not good at League of Legends, I really enjoy watching tournaments. I'd love to go to Katowice and see LOL tournament for myself. I even wanted to see it in the cinema (they transmitted it in Multikino) but sadly, tickets sold out really quickly.
I always thought that the key to success is pressing the biggest amount of buttons on the pad hahah :D
I have never been to any tournament nor arcade, I don't really have any experience :P
Sure, the first one I've played was Street Fighter II when I was few years old, it crashed very often. It was the time when
game could not work for a month then magically start work. Then I played Mortal Kombat II a lot. The last one I played was Mortal Kombat 9 and it was great.
Would you be interested in attending a big fighting games tournament, either as a competitor or as a viewer?
No. I would have to train a lot and I don't have time for that. I am not intersted in watching other people play.
Why in Poland the FGC tournament scene is nonexistent compared to other European countries like France or England?
Cause Poland is retarded country on so many levels and to be perfectly honest: gaming is not valuable job as many others.
Have you ever been to an Arcade? If so, when? And what are your memories of this experience?
Few times when I was young. I like to hit punching bag some time.
I think I would not like to attend any game tournament. I am sorry but for me watching how other people are playing games must be boring.
I have never been to an Arcade.
even as a viewer. It is hard to say for me why in Poland the FGC tournament scene doesn't exists, this is not my area of interest.
I would rather attend the tournament as a viewer because my 'fighting skills' have become rusty over the years and I'm afraid I would make fun of myself if I tried competing there. Observing others play can however prove to be a nice way to learn how to professionally play fighting games.
Polish society is big on strategy and moba games. Community in our country prefers strategic approach and keyboard + mouse combination rather than button mashing on a gamepad.
I used to attend arcade as a child. All I can remember is that it was pretty expensive (for a child), playing one game for 10 mins cost me a fortune and I had to ask my parents for money and they weren't really happy about giving their son some coins which would be spent on button mashing.
Actually time and time again many researches show that it's the other way around.
Games in general, lower aggression and can influence you in many positive ways, and yes, that includes violent or generally action themed games.
here's one of many articles that can be found on this subject - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2014/08/27/a-surprising-new-study-on-how-video-games-impact-children/
Fighting games actually can improve your reflexes, accuracy, focus, tactical thinking as well as perseverance, pattern recognition and estimation skills.
What's cool about that is that those titles will be avaiable on PC ! So you won't be forced to buy a new console in order to play them :)
Maybe you should give them another go!
As a fun fact:during easter holidays there was a Tekken tournament - held in London, with people from all over the world, and a Polish competitor reached 3rd place.
You can find archived footage of that event on youtube, here is one of the fights - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgrNX5xPq_0
FGC Tournaments are usualy quite diverse events which I didn't mention in the main article. It's not like you only compete the entire event. Usualy there are many attractions like cosplay contests, side gaming events (for example a chance to play on old, original arcade games with the whole cabinet intact) and many other.
Fighting games are among the most accessible games on casual levels in my opinion, and they can be a really fun way to spend some time with your friends. You don't have to be a professional competitor to enjoy them :)
Unfortunately, there are no arcades that I know of in Warsaw anymore, but for example in Level Up bar on Moliera there are actual Tekken 2 arcade cabinets if someday you'd like to try it out with friends.
Sometimes it's hard to appreciate something when you don't fully realize how much work goes into it.
But nowadays FG's did really step up their game in terms of presentation and being interesting for viewers(in both the graphics and the gameplay design).
I also think it's just the nature of FG's that they might seem repetitive compared to other games - after all you can say the same thing about marshall arts/sports like boxing, MMA or Muay-Thai
Guilty Gear - a 2D Anime Fighting game (fun fact - the newest iteration was made in full 3D but in such way that the graphics seem to be hand drawn/animated)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKGPhKu3jNg
Pokken - a 3D fighting game where you play as one of the pokemons, from the creators of Tekken.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EF92j3g1pE
Injustice - Fighting game where you can compete using superheroes/villains from the DC Universe (ex. Batman, Wonder Woman, Joker)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGRcblXDaJw
Virtua Fighter - Fighting game that is more realistic than the others, uses real world fighting styles in gameplay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rRI7IlQJAc
Nidhogg - a fun fighting game created in the style of 8 bit classics :) where play as a swordsman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaOocHXMhlU
Super Smash Brothers - a fighting game up to 8 players, where you can control most of the legendary Nintendo characters (like Mario!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb1m_wyB4bM
I have played Mortal Combat, and some other fighting games with my friends on parties a lot of times, but I'm really not into it. I was never good at such games and, frankly, I have no intention to be better, this genre never appealed to me. However, I do like to watch others play fighting games. For me it's as interesting as watching traditional sports match. I wouldn't mind attending a tournament if there was one! But as a spectator of course. :)
I don't know why FGC tournament scene doesn't exist in Poland because I'm not familiar with this subject. Your explanation in the article seems convincing.
Yes, I've been to arcade a few times. It was in high school mostly I believe, and I remember I enjoyed it, especially the atmosphere of the place.
I never had a opportunity to attend any game tournament, but maybe I will go next year to e-sport tournament in Katowice. I think that it might be very nice experience to participate in such kind of tournament.
I used to play arcade games when I was around 10 years old and it was really great experience and fun. From all arcade games probably my favorite one was metal slug.
I used to play contra (with friends) - and for me it is best FGC game ever :)
And something from the Internet:
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=901459799873214&set=vb.739586189393910&type=2&theater
But I think playing games can be a kind of relaxing for some people, so I'm not against that.
I'm not familiar with this subject so I can't answer why FGC tournament scene doesn't exist in Poland. Also, I have never been to Arcade.