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What fighting games do to the avarage person: a quick story

SwiftTomHanks

SwiftTomHanks

missiles are coming
The event of watching or taking part in fighting games can really bring out some crazy emotions in people that I feel like you would never see otherwize. I'm normally a pretty calm guy, but set me in a crowd back in the mlg days of mk, I'd rip a bitches' head off to show my devotion to KT Smith. However after years of exposure to the fgc, it's fair to say that people like ourselves have just become accustomed to this... that anything loud and crazy is good hype lol.

The school I teach at held a Smash tournament today after school hours to raise money for Holliday charities. Having bodied my students in a Marvel, Madden, and Halo tournament, once again I was asked to enter this one. Where this got really interesting was watching and hearing students reactions who have never been around fighting games, or maybe even video games at all. A good chunk of my students found out about this and wanted to come see what was going on just as spectators. Once there was only 4-8 people left some of these kids went fucking nuts. These are hipster art kids mind you. I almost lost a match from cracking up when I heard an otherwize super polite art girl yell "get puffed on bitch!" as my Jiggs won a match against some Marth scumbag.

What is it about fighting games that bring out these raw emotions?! These students have no pre knowledge of the fgc, and would have fit right in with a god damn Marvel scene. How do we know, naturally to act like this around video game competition? I thought it was just us, the hardcore scene that shouted crazy stuff like that...not quiet and respectful art students.

What I gained today if anything was
#getpuffedon
 
Saboteur-6

Saboteur-6

Filthy Casual
Competition brings out emotions regardless of the medium and people like to talk shit. It's culturally accepted in the FGC (meaning it's allowed/encouraged) so it's only unique in that sense. I grew up playing competitive sports up until the end of high school and it happens there too it's just not as culturally accepted and can result with in-game penalties.
 
Saboteur-6

Saboteur-6

Filthy Casual
I'd make an argument that the amount of shit talking in competitive video games is likely one of the reasons it's perceived as juvenile by mainstream audiences and actively undermines the desire to be accepted as a legitimate sport where you can bring in serious earnings. It undermines growth of the scene (as in mainstream broadcast/spectating appeal) and makes being a professional gamer that much more of a pipedream or an anomaly.

It's like the FGC wants to be like professional wrestling (which is sports entertainment a.k.a. NOT respected as a professional sport) instead of something like the NBA or NFL.
 
CrimsonShadow

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
Fighting, or any kind of physical (or simulated physical) competition is a primal act that takes us to our very roots as human beings. At that moment you're done with society and done with small talk; and it's only about who can get the upper edge or come out on top.

It's an emotional and exciting thing, that triggers all kinds of hormones as you go tit-for-tat (or watch someone else duke it out).

When you're young and maybe still learning your way around society in a world controlled by adults, a video game is every kid's chance to feel powerful. So they go in 100% :)

With that said; shame on you STH for beating on these poor innocent and helpless children.
 
SwiftTomHanks

SwiftTomHanks

missiles are coming
Saboteur-6 said:
I'd make an argument that the amount of shit talking in competitive video games is likely one of the reasons it's perceived as juvenile by mainstream audiences and actively undermines the desire to be accepted as a legitimate sport where you can bring in serious earnings. It undermines growth of the scene (as in mainstream broadcast/spectating appeal) and makes being a professional gamer that much more of a pipedream or an anomaly.

It's like the FGC wants to be like professional wrestling (which is sports entertainment a.k.a. NOT respected as a professional sport) instead of something like the NBA or NFL.
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Pretty much, but it seems like a big contributor in holding the fgc back is just natural human emotions.
 
Saboteur-6

Saboteur-6

Filthy Casual
SwiftTomHanks said:
Pretty much, but it seems like a big contributor in holding the fgc back is just natural human emotions.
Click to expand...
Nah man it's $. If competing in video games brought in the type of revenue mainstream athletics did it'd change the entire dynamic. Only way for that to happen is for FGC tournaments to be exponentially more profitable to investors, advertisers, and organizers. That only happens with mainstream appeal.
 
SwiftTomHanks

SwiftTomHanks

missiles are coming
Saboteur-6 said:
Nah man it's $. If competing in video games brought in the type of revenue mainstream athletics did it'd change the entire dynamic. Only way for that to happen is for FGC tournaments to be exponentially more profitable to investors, advertisers, and organizers. That only happens with mainstream appeal.
Click to expand...
It's a cycle then, what stops us from getting investors ect. is the WWE mentality.
 
GUNZaBLAZE

GUNZaBLAZE

Noob
You been to a baseball game? It compares to how die hard baseball fans feel when their team is winning or losing (crazy yelling, cursing peoples mothers etc.) However, in fighting games it is easy to understand who is winning or losing, plus you can pick a character you want to win, so the hype does not take any time invested like sports do. Having to learn players names and their win average and number and all that stuff is irrelevant to have a good time as a spectator at a fighting game tournament. It's just immediate competitive fun.
 
Compbros

Compbros

Man of Tomorrow
Saboteur-6 said:
I'd make an argument that the amount of shit talking in competitive video games is likely one of the reasons it's perceived as juvenile by mainstream audiences and actively undermines the desire to be accepted as a legitimate sport where you can bring in serious earnings. It undermines growth of the scene (as in mainstream broadcast/spectating appeal) and makes being a professional gamer that much more of a pipedream or an anomaly.

It's like the FGC wants to be like professional wrestling (which is sports entertainment a.k.a. NOT respected as a professional sport) instead of something like the NBA or NFL.
Click to expand...

The NFL has just as much of this "juvenile" nature: Excessive taunting; fights; people shit talking during, before, and after plays; complaining/whining; swearing, etc...
 
Saboteur-6

Saboteur-6

Filthy Casual
Compbros said:
The NFL has just as much of this "juvenile" nature: Excessive taunting; fights; people shit talking during, before, and after plays; complaining/whining; swearing, etc...
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I swear to god we've argued this point before and I'm not doing it again. You don't want to accept the fact that there's a pronounced difference in the approach of sportsmanship in mainstream team sports and try to generalize incidents like that validates your claim that the "NFL is juvenile too." Of course that type of shit talking happens, it's just not CELEBRATED by the sport at the level it is in something like wrestling were it's "all part of the show." NFL players CAN be juvenile assholes. It doesn't mean the league, the fans, or the goddam sport support/encourage it as a whole.
 
Compbros

Compbros

Man of Tomorrow
Saboteur-6 said:
I swear to god we've argued this point before and I'm not doing it again. You don't want to accept the fact that there's a pronounced difference in the approach of sportsmanship in mainstream team sports and try to generalize incidents like that validates your claim that the "NFL is juvenile too." Of course that type of shit talking happens, it's just not CELEBRATED by the sport at the level it is in something like wrestling were it's "all part of the show." NFL players CAN be juvenile assholes. It doesn't mean the league, the fans, or the goddam sport support/encourage it as a whole.
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Oh, we have, haven't we lol? That's pretty funny to me. Anyway, it's not about accepting it, it's merely what happens and it does happen. To say "the FGC isn't legit because we're seen as juvenile" and then name one of the most popular sports, in the same breath, when it's full of juveniles and "divas" (T.O., Ochocinco, Randy Moss, Cortland Finnegan, etc...) is a weird mentality. Also, these players were absolutely supported by fans who found their antics "hilarious" for the most part and the league, for the most part, let them carry on. The NFL has recently come out against certain celebrations and there was an outcry from fans, broadcasters, journalists and the like because celebrations are all "part of the show".


Edit:
SwiftTomHanks said:
There's an excessive celebration rule in the nfl; if there was one in the fgc people like pig and 16bit would have to start with 15% less health just about every match.
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It's penalized to a point: You can't get in the opponents face with a celebration (which most people in the FGC don't do) but people have elaborate dances and all kinds of nonsense. For the most part, bursts of raw emotion are hardly penalized.
 
GLoRToR

GLoRToR

Positive Poster!
SwiftTomHanks said:
What is it about fighting games that bring out these raw emotions?!
#getpuffedon
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Adrenaline. Alcohol and adrenaline breaks the conventional barriers in one's mind, to the point of one's own hidden thoughts coming out.
We all know the scenario of getting carried away in debates, in fights, in traffic situations, where people just yell stuff and later they apologise and didn't mean it and sorry. Well they did mean it because these things come from the subconscious.
This is why people say that if you want to know somebody, fight them.
 
Euphoric

Euphoric

MKX
It's because 1v1 fights are in our primitive nature that's surpassed through evolution and laws, it unleashes through FGs, because a 1v1 is the purest form of competition. Your character is the virtual embodiment of your mind. We as humans are always competing against each other, you're born alone and you die alone, so get puffed on bitch!
 
HellblazerHawkman

HellblazerHawkman

Confused Thanagarian
Whenever I bust out SSB, I roll Jigglypuff to make my friends feel bad about life. I think the important question is why do we feel the need to play Jigglypuff and body scrubs?
 
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