This week the distributor for Capcom’s games in Australian, THQ, held a special event in Sydney to promote forthcoming titles including the much-anticipated Street Fighter x Tekken. The Super Ultimate CAPCOM Showcase (Arcade Edition) was a great drawcard for casual and competitive players alike, with Seth Killian from Capcom USA in attendance as well.
In this week’s article I’ll talk about external opportunities that tournament organisers and players come across. I’ll discuss how the community can make the most of these types of events with examples from activities in Sydney.
External Events
Here I define external events as any event organised by people and/or organisations separate to the fighting game community with fighting games prominently included. There doesn’t have to be a tournament at such an event, but tournaments can provide extra incentive for competitive players to take interest.
There are many events that can be classified as “external”, including conventions (e.g. Animania), media-run events (e.g. the Gamespot AU Soul Calibur V tournament) and corporate-run events. The CAPCOM showcase in Sydney is an example of a corporate-run event, where the corporations involved were the distributors and developers of the games on display.
External events are promoted to an audience that goes beyond the competitive community, and as such they provide a great opportunity for tournament players and organisers to engage with the wider gaming population.
There are three key ways the community can capitalise on external opportunities: direct contributions, community support and promoting the scene.
Direct Contributions
With the right connections it’s possible for community groups to be directly involved with external events. This might involve providing some gaming gear, like arcade sticks, or running a tournament bracket as part of the event. By bringing some community experience into the mix an external event can be used to give people a taste of what the competitive fighting game scene has to offer.
Even if the community is given the chance to run parts of an external event, it’s important to realise that their input and control can be very limited. Since external events are largely planned by non-fighting game community people you should expect the conditions will mirror a typical community tournament setting. Conditions may be less than ideal for serious play e.g. lack of space, poor controllers, laggy displays, etc.
Regardless of what you find when you arrive, the important thing is to just get in there and make the most of it. If an external event hands you lemons, make the best lemonade you can under the circumstance. EXC355UM and the team from Shadowloo were invited to run a tournament for SFxT at the CAPCOM Showcase. They only had 3 setups to work with, very limited space, limited ways for people to see any of the matches, no PA to get people’s attention and only 2 arcade sticks. Even with all these limitations Shadowloo put together an excellent pre-release tournament which ran very smoothly, taking full advantage of Seth Killian’s celebrity status along the way.
Community Support
It’s very important for the competitive community to attend external events. Even if there’s no direct contribution from the community, an external event still provides competitive players a platform for displaying their skills to a wider audience.
It’s important to go in with realistic expectations. External events are rarely made with tournament players in mind, even if a tournament is part of the event. Take the opportunity to show people what you can do in the game, but remember that playing isn’t the only way to make an impression. Try talking to any interested people that you haven’t met before, and help raise their awareness of the competitive fighting game scene.
The Sydney community showed excellent support at the CAPCOM Showcase event, with welcome interstate support from Melbourne as well. With limited chances to play people spent a lot of time socialising about their shared interest in fighting games. I personally caught up with a lot of people I rarely get time to talk with, and was pleased to hear people helping to promote websites like OzHadou and Shadowloo to attendees.
Promoting the Scene
While players talk to people about community websites, tournament organisers have a rare opportunity to expand connections and indulge in some well-directed advertising. You might be able to speak with industry or media representatives that might have an interest in being involved with one of your upcoming tournaments. With a little planning and budget you can also hand out promotional material to advertise forthcoming community events.
The OHN team some good promotion work at the Gamespot AU Soul Calibur V tournament, where they handed out OHN flyers to tournament participants. The OHN team also took the opportunity to catch up with THQ representatives at the CAPCOM Showcase event.
Making the Most of It
The important thing to remember is that external events provide unique promotional opportunities for the competitive fighting game scene. These events are rarely run to community tournament standards, but are promoted to a much wider audience, many of whom might be potential future members of the competitive scene. By supporting external events, the Australian fighting game community can help raise its profile to the wider gaming population, including gamers, gaming press and corporations within the gaming industry.
Linked photos from the Super Ultimate CAPCOM Showcase (Arcade Edition) event courtesy of kientan.
Feedback and Future Articles
If you have any feedback about this article, or would like to request a subject for a future Bracketed article, you can send me a PM or an email, or make a post in the Bracketed Feedback thread on the OzHadou forums.
]– Ziggy –[
