Offer absolutely everything, absolutely everytime

I bought Guilty Gear X2 as a freshman in college. I had only previously played a few fighting games (Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Primal Rage). At the end of my Freshman year, I was made president of the gaming club on campus (a title I held for some time). And so, Guilty Gear became a part of the club's weekly routine. Every week we would play video games, and every week we would have a TV with Halo 2 (and later, Halo 3), a TV with DDR (later Guitar Hero, even later Rock Band) and a TV with Guilty Gear X2 (later Accent core). As President, I was constantly introducing myself to students who would walk in. I would show them around our club room, invite them to play any games or choose one we weren't currently playing, and then always (ALWAYS) invite them to play Guilty Gear. Oftentimes they would refuse, stating "I'm no good at fighting games."

And I would always immediately respond that I, too, was terrible at fighting games, I just knew the basics pretty decently. Not a one of us had any great skill in the fighting game genre. Everyone thought I was good, and my constant response is that I only appeared to be any good because I played the game a lot more than anyone else. I had a better grasp of basic strategies because I went into training mode and spent time with every character. But I never really went anywhere extraordinary, and neither did any of the rest of us in the club.

I never thought of being a top player, or anything. I just wanted to play Guilty Gear with dudes. I friggin' loved Guilty Gear XX. A whole lot. I asked anyone who came to visit the club office for a match. Anyone coming to a club event. Even people doing other club activities. And I knew, even before asking, that my enthusiasm for the game would shine through and win people over. I convinced several of my friends (and the club itself, besides) to buy copies of Guity Gear in one incarnation or another. I actually convinced people who played a few matches to go into training and mess around more, and sometimes they even listened to me. Various friends eventually found a character (sometimes two!) and learned some basic combos or at least special moves that they liked to use. It never got very complex, and I didn't expect anyone to really stick with it. If they bothered to play at all, it was a huge victory.

But one of my friends ran with the hobby. I knew I had reeled him in good when he bought a Tekken 5 arcade stick (which he is now far better at using than I am). And now here we are, writing a blog about how great this genre is.

The Opening Demo: An Introduction - 06.04.09

While practicing 3S execution last night, my new roommate, let’s call him Ryan, walked in and asked “What’s up? Is that Street Fighter?”

“Yeah, SFIII. 3rd Strike.” I replied, distracted as CPU Alex finished the round with yet another Boomerang Raid. “Huh. What system is this for?” As I considered how to answer his question without coming across like even more of a nerd, sitting on the floor with a Tekken 5 stick and a CPS3 emulator, it occurred to me that perhaps my grand designs for transforming my housemates into sparring partners were doomed from the start. Despite the polite inquiry, he was clearly not looking to learn how to play.

I decided to go the console route: “It was an arcade game ported to the Dreamcast, but I also have it for PS2.” “No way, this is a PS2 game? I’m surprised because it looks so crappy.” My heart sank, even if he was accidentally correct. “You know, 2D,” he continued, “I thought it would have been 32 or 64-bit.”

My first thought was to take umbrage at the mid-90s Sony-executive mentality that inexplicably regards the third dimension as inherently superior, but that would have been counter-productive. I then considered pointing out the gorgeous animation and mentioning how the art style overcomes the technical limitations of the board, but it did not seem worth the effort. If he wasn’t struck by the game’s aesthetics, no amount of explaining why he should appreciate sprite-work was going to change his opinion. Instead, I shrugged and kept playing.

“Nice,” he complimented, as Akuma’s low fierce finished the next round and I accepted the praise without clarifying it was supposed to have been a Dragon Punch. “I wish I was good at video games,” he lamented.

This last remark struck me, because, as you probably gathered from the blog name, I am in no way a good player. However, that innocuous, offhand comment really speaks to the issues facing the genre and community today. Fighting games have grown dramatically more complex since the heyday of SFII, but even back then, relatively small differences in ability resulted in severely unbalanced matches. Depth is necessary for a fighter’s longevity, but it can easily discourage new players from trying to learn. The number of times I have invited someone to play Street Fighter, Guilty Gear or Virtua Fighter, only to be declined with some variation of “I suck at these kinds of games,” is rather disheartening. You can’t get better if you don’t try. I can’t get better if you don’t try…

I am a scrub, a n00b, a fighting game neophyte and almost resigned to staying one. Don’t get me wrong, there is no shortage of enthusiasm; I play frequently, lurk on SRK and Dustloop, read character guides, follow gootecks’ podcasts and the Dogface Show, study frame data and watch entirely too many match videos. All that is lacking is the most important element: superior opponents, preferably in the form of an accessible arcade scene. Recently discovering GGPO and 2DF has been an incredible boon, but as any tournament veteran worth their salt will tell you, there is no substitute for live, lag-less competition.

For such a crappy player, why blog about the area of my in-expertise? Mostly, I hope to give a different perspective on the scene. In my experience, new players are often insulted or ignored, which only serves to shrink and weaken the community in the long term. Granted, some of the scorn is deserved and not everyone helps themselves as they much as they can, but I want to show that not everyone who makes stupid, beginner mistakes is hopeless. Or maybe not; after all, I am just a scrub.

As for Ryan, it was wrong to dismiss him outright, without even asking if he wanted to play; this is exactly the kind of exclusionary, elitist attitude that needs to change. How can we expect to keep the games we love healthy without a steady stream of novices to bring new thinking, styles and commercial success? Of course most of them will not stick around for long; fighting games are an inherently niche hobby that require a dedication anathematic to anything mainstream. But maybe, just maybe, if a greater effort was made to reach out to new players, we could make more converts and really revitalize the genre, instead of just using them as short-lived punching bags.

I certainly would not be as engaged as I am today if not for the enthusiasm and determination of another friend…