The FGC has always been comprised of genuine people who honestly care about the game and the people. Even when there’s drama, or rivalries, or even flat out hostility, we’re all part of the same family, all here because we love our favorite games.
I have a lot of respect for community members who take it beyond themselves, and who do their part to contribute to a bigger and better community. Today, we’re joined by a leading member of the King of Fighters community, someone who’s been actively supporting his game for years.
John “Zidiane” Silvia: Could you just introduce yourself?
James Alderson: My name is James Alderson. I’m from Northern California, born and raised in San Francisco. I’m 27 years old and my passion is Chemistry. My day job is working as a tutor for a Youth Employment program. I’ve been playing fighting games since I was a little kid. I didn’t start seriously considering fighting games until I ran into a KOF 2000 arcade machine in an LA arcade. I saw K’ and I immediately fell in love with it. Since the early 2000’s, I’ve played as many King of Fighters games as I could. I’d play at an arcade in my college with local players. I’d get crushed by people way better than me and I went looking for ways to get better. Then KOFXIII dropped in our arcades and Southtown Arcade opened. After that, the FGC world kept expanding and expanding.
Silvia: I ran into you through the KOF community survey you did. Tell me a bit about that, how it started, and what kind of reception you’ve gotten on it.
Alderson: Well, Southtown Arcade was closing down. We didn’t really have anywhere to go. I felt lost, my friends felt lost, and we were scared the game would fall off too. I thought about what other communities have done. Arcade Infinity closed in LA and many other arcades were closing too. How did they do it? So, Ivan and I, started working on making a survey. At first, it was just about preserving KOF in NorCal and using the best practices here. That idea morphed a lot once we realized how useful the information was. We wanted to share this with other people to keep their communities thriving with the game.
Silvia: What kind of reception did you get, passing out this survey?
Alderson: At first, people were really sketchy. They didn’t see the point in helping. For a month or two, there wasn’t a lot of support. Dreamcancel was a big help. With Ivan’s connections with the community, we got on the front page of the site. We posted at SRK and some of their KOF community got involved too. Some people even took it to Wednesday Night Fights and shared it live. That’s when it really started to gain traction. People started talking about it and sharing. I posted the information to a Facebook group called “KOF Tournament Players” and met a lot of great people from the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh area. One in particular, Jason, helped us make bar graphs so the data was easier to consume.
Silvia: That was for the original survey back in 2012. What about the current one?
Alderson: When KOF XIV dropped, I reposted the data from the 2012 survey to that group. I thought it would be helpful for people trying to push the game in their area. Gunsmith from Orochinagi said that with a new game, it’d be good to do another survey. That’s when we started working on a new one.
Silvia: You seem to have put in quite a bit of leg work for your community. Has that work ethic helped in any other areas of community building these last few years?
Alderson: I feel like I had direction after the survey. Armed with that knowledge, I tried to attend events farther away from home. I tried to encourage and develop talent in different areas. I’d donate money to causes and push out support for endeavors like Wikis for KOFXIII, supporting and publicizing videos/articles to educate new players, taking time to train new players, setting up and funding tournaments for new players, and getting involved with local tournament organizers.
After 2015, I took a break from the FGC and KOF XIII, but I was happily surprised when many of things I did kept people playing. A lot of new people have jumped into KOF. They are more organized and tight-knit. The community is growing and talent is blooming.
Silvia: You’ve spent a lot of time guiding other players, it looks like. What motivates you to keep going?
Alderson: I’m just doing what I can when I can do it. I feel like the franchise itself is a great one. I do get some satisfaction from seeing work I’ve done be enjoyed. What really drives me is the need. I do what I feel our community needs and I don’t stop till I’ve made an impact. In the end, I guess I try to satisfy myself in feeling I’ve made a difference somewhere.
Silvia: As far as moving forward, do you have anything left on your plate you are trying to get done, or start doing as far as community work?
Alderson: I am working, as we speak, on releasing a public version of the survey. As promised, I want people to be armed with all the information they can to grow our community. Once that’s done, I’m going to look at the data more closely. Our next course of action should be from the people who want it.
To clarify, our next course of action should be dictated by who wants it.
Silvia: Thank you for talking with me today. Did you have any parting words you wanted to say?
Alderson: Watch Super Desperation Radio. Keep supporting your community in any game you play. I will be streaming fighting games of all kinds with my good buddy Tenouraku on this channel. By teaching him KOF on stream, maybe I can help others learn too.
