Regarding Smash 4 at EVO

I know this discussion is a bit old already, but I feel I need to take this off my chest.

First of all, let me say that this is from the perspective of someone outside of the Smash community. I’m not a Smash player. I respect the game and the amount of skill needed to get good at it, but I never myself had interest in competing at it, I’m more of a 3D and/or ground footsies game type of guy, and I’ve been to EVO to compete on Street Fighter V, Pokkén and Tekken 7, if that shows what type of games I like.

That being said, before anything else, I’m a human being, and not I only I want to be treated as such, but I want others to be treated like that as well. I had a blast at EVO, despite some complaints overall it was an awesome event for me, and deep down in my heart I wish everyone else could say that. Everyone who was there paid to be at this event, and if anyone feels like it wasn’t a good experience they have ALL right to complain about it, they are consumers after all, and people do this all the time. The only thing that should be into consideration is if the complaints are valid or not.

EVO understands that, they are the biggest fighting game tournament in the world, so of course they know how to run a business. A proof of that is that Ponder acknowledge the issues that happened and came to the Smash 4 community asking for feedback, explicitly saying they want to improve their experience next year. As you can see below:

Evo 2016 – Smash 4 Retrospective
byu/Ponder insmashbros

My concern is not about the standing of the EVO staff about this situation, but rather, about the FGC standing about all this situation. Some of the issues that Smash 4 faced was lack of space, few stations to run up tournaments, and delays that caused the tournament to run until up late even though people needed to play early next day. The FGC was quick to call Smash players crybabies who has no respect, someone even made an article on SRK about it, but I guess you all forget that this has already happened to other games, and that when it happened, you didn’t like to be treated like that and complained as well.

I hate to have to use Final Round as an example for this since they are my favorite fighting game event (I’ve been there 5 times in a row, even though I’m Brazilian), but some of those issues also happened on their event. In 2012 they received more people than they were expecting, and people (including myself) had to play on a crowded ballroom until late at night. I don’t feel that was their fault that year, they weren’t expecting the event to be that big, and on the next year they moved to another venue which was able to accommodate the event pretty well until 2015. I always see both sides of the coins when I’m faced with a problem, and even though that affected me, I completely understood what was going on and at the time I didn’t even complain about it. The rest of the FGC though… they complained a lot and weren’t too happy about it.

Some years have passed, and this year Final Round received a MASSIVE amount of players, especially for Street Fighter V, and once again, the event was bigger than what they were expecting. Because of that there weren’t room for everyone, the event had to deal with some huge delays, basically everything that smash 4 had to deal at EVO. The FGC BASHED the event so badly, that Alex Jebailey complaints even ended up at Destructoid.

https://www.destructoid.com/ceo-gaming-s-alex-jebailey-slams-final-round-19-update–349896.phtml

At the time few people tried to understand the point of view of Final Round, and everyone talked about how bad that was for the community since it was the first major of a lot of people and etc… and I’m pretty much sure the Street Fighter community complained MUCH MORE about it than the Smash 4 community complained about EVO. But guess what? Final Round had more excuses for having this issue because they accept on-site registration (which I’m grateful for because it saved my neck back in 2011 and 2013), EVO on the other hand already knows what to expect attendance wise, so why exactly it is acceptable to complain about Final Round but not about EVO?

Not only that, but when the issue with Final Round happened no one came to the biggest fighting game website in the world and talked crap like how you deserve it because you are not big enough yet to have respect from the community.

http://shoryuken.com/2016/07/28/same-time-next-year-super-smash-bros-for-wii-us-future-at-evo/

Once again, I see both sides of the coin, and my intention is not to blame EVO or Final Round for what happened, I used to be a TO myself and I know how much of a pain it can be. I’m complaining about how hypocritical the FGC is with this attitude of only being OK to complain when it happens to you but not with other people. The Smash 4 community is composed of a lot of relatively new players that one day could be the future of the FGC as a whole, just like Street Fighter V and many other recent fighting games. But acting like that and treating them as trash just for liking Smash instead of Street Fighter is only giving those people a reason to never come back and make the FGC smaller. One day this type of toxic behavior could be our doom, most players are getting older and we don’t have the liberty to mistreat younger players (or any human being, on that regard) like they are nothing. Remember how the FGC was treated back in the “dark ages”? Remember how FGC created a hate for eSports after what happened at that EVO x MLG event for being treated the same way the Smash 4 community was treated at EVO? If this continues like that we could be back to those days, or we could get to a even darker place.

Thank you for reading and I hope this opens up your mind.

Sobre a comunidade de Street Fighter V

Existe algo que já estou com vontade de falar faz um tempo mas meio que me segurava para não dizer, mas agora que to vendo como a comunidade de Smash 4 está sendo tratada mesmo provando ter números e hype eu cansei de ficar quieto.

 

Comunidade de Street Fighter (e, em partes, de Melee): vocês podem ser os grandiosos, vocês podem ser o dito jogo principal de luta, vocês podem ser o jogo com mais prestígio, mais reconhecimento e mais jogadores. Mas não se esqueçam, vocês ainda são uma comunidade, assim como qualquer outra.

 

Desde que Street Fighter IV se tornou um jogo gigantesco em 2009 vocês atacam outras comunidades e tratam as mesmas como lixo. Já fizeram isso com a comunidade anime, já fizeram isso com a comunidade 3D, e agora três dos maiores alvos são as comunidade de Smash 4, Pokkén e Killer Instinct. Vocês podem ser do jogo mais bem sucedido, mas um dia o jogo e a comunidade de vocês não só pode como (se seguir desse jeito) IRÁ decair, vocês tratam os outros jogos de uma forma que definitivamente não gostariam de ser tratados, chamando os mesmos de side games, tirando o mérito de top players e de partidas de nível, dando pouco tempo de stream ou de telão em torneios, e chamando tanto os jogos em si como suas comunidade de lixo ou que não são jogos de luta.

 

Ninguém gosta de ser tratado assim, nem vocês mesmos, ou já se esqueceram da era negra entre 2002 e 2008 que não saia nenhum jogo de luta novo da Capcom e ninguém ligava para vocês? Já se esqueceram também da EVO 2005, aonde a mesma fez parceria com a MLG para rodarem os dois eventos juntos e a EVO foi tratada de maneira tão ruim quanto a comunidade de Smash 4 foi esse ano? Tanto que agora os eSports são os inimigozinhos da EVO e da FGC né, existe todo esse papo de como jogo de luta não é eSport e que os eventos de eSports estão errados de serem do jeito que são. Mas quando é no umbigo do outro, não só é ok serem tratados assim, como quem reclama é visto como chorão.

 

Essa arrogância de vocês já é algo que está deteriorando numa velocidade absurda a comunidade do Brasil, e se continuar assim poderá afetar a comunidade norte americana também. Se botem no lugar de vocês, abaixem essa cabeça ae e aprendem a ser humildes, pois o que vocês tem hoje pode não durar para sempre.