Editor’s note: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not reflect Shoryuken.com as a whole.
We recently took the time to sit down with a Smash Bros. tournament organizer about an upcoming event, Kings of the North. We talked about the upcoming event, what it’s like organizing an event like this, as well as some insight about adding FGC games to a Smash event. The two communities obviously don’t mix very freely. Smash is often added into FGC events, but the other way around is fairly rare. He also provided some insight on the Smash community, and where that community stands when it comes to the FGC, as well as his opinions on some of the popular FGC vs. Smash drama.
John “Zidiane” Silvia: Could you start by introducing yourself?
Cary “Vro” Zhang: Sure thing. My name is Cary Zhang, my gamer tag is Vro. I’ve been competing in the Melee competitive scene for about 10 years. Over the past year or so, I’ve been organizing a lot of events around Chicago. Nov 19-20 will be Kings of the North V. This year I’ve been invited by the team who hosts it to help run the event. Kings has had 4 years of great Smash tournaments and growth and this year they seek to expand to the fighting game community. Last year, Frosty Faustings had a few free play setups at Kings IV and held small 8 man brackets. Since Kings IV, I’ve worked closely with the FGC in Chicago to help bridge the gap between traditional fighters and Melee. I’ve worked on the Frosty Faustings team, Combo Breaker, competed and helped behind the scenes with CEO, and of course attended Evo. There is very little experience to draw upon, assimilating the FGC into Smash events. There is precedence for the other way, bringing Smash into FGC established events. As I’ve talked more and more to respected organizers of the FGC, I begin to understand the cultural and historical differences between the two communities. My hope is to do what my peers have done inversely–that is, to bring FGC somewhat successfully into a Smash event. There are a lot of challenges.
J: Which events have you organized?
C: I organized Rubicon 1-12, a monthly that invited top players from around the nation. I host a bar monthly at Emporium. I host weeklies at a nearby college. I organized Show Me Your Moves 17, a 300-person event in September. I also consult many tournaments around the Midwest, as well as the aforementioned work I did in the FGC and Smash crossover events.
J: How has the reaction been to your announcing this merger event so far?
C: So far, it’s been a very slow promotion. The Smash side of things has been taking some time to cook up. I don’t know how it was on the back end of things last year, as I was only a competitor. It’s been even slower on the FGC side. I’ve made announcements like the pot bonus, and secondary ballroom, dedicated streamer and TO. It’s all new to me, bringing their community into ours, so I am just being perceptive of it. There’s really not much activity.
J: You said that, of course, you’re charting new territory with this event. FGC at a Smash event is a fairly new precedent. As far as FGC events, is there a specific event you are looking at from an organizational standpoint to help map out what you wanted for Kings of the North?
C: Because the FGC side of things will be all on Sunday, with exception to any side events I can manage to fit on Saturday to entice players to stay the whole weekend (things like Street Fighter teams), it should be a pretty straightforward event. FGC players can choose to enter Smash or hang out on Saturday and on Sunday, they’ll have a pretty normal 1 day event, with a high stakes pot bonus and side events.
From the Smash perspective, all qualifying matches will be on Saturday and players can choose to enter FGC events on Sunday. There should be minimal conflicts and I’ve foreseen cross over and tried to minimize it by bracket caps and generous scheduling. It’s a pretty introductory year for the two games, so I’ve tried to keep the mix casual.
J: It’s well established at this point that Smash is a game that tends to run without much crossover from the traditional FGC, and the Smash-exclusive events are a testament to that. What went into the decision to make a change to this decade old formula of Smash-exclusivity?
C: That’s a great question. I have been to over 100 melee tournaments this year and I can say there’s a lot of room to explore. One of the end of summer Smash tournaments was Shine, which was Smash exclusive. It was an amazing experience and it affirmed my belief that the only side event Melee players want is more Melee (amateur brackets). Seeing how the FGC heard or felt about Shine (Twitter drama over floating seeds, vip area, etc.) made me irritated to say the least. But it’s this annoyance that drives me to find more solutions to bridging the gap.
I was invited to work on both Frosty Faustings and Combo Breaker and it amazed me how easily those events were able to fit Smash events into their infrastructure. Looking at things like CEO and Evo make it more and more clear that there is certainly a future for Smash with FGC. However, the merger is not without fault, as many Smash players have heavily criticized these cross overs. This is where I confront new territory, which is having the Smash event bring in FGC and not the other way around.
Many of the complaints Smash players have with these cross over events is the lack of care, understanding, or respect many FGC players, organizers, or community members show. The easiest example is in numbers–Wii U players alone, not all of Smash, made a significant portion of the attendance in both CEO and Evo, but were unproportionately supported. It turns out, the Smash community has some of the best attendance/traveling ability of any of these tournament communities, with exception to Street Fighter V.
My goal is to show unconditional understanding and as much support as I can with the FGC at Kings V. I am working with local organizers to make sure I am doing things in a traditional way. Noah Vandercook, the TO of the Chicago Mix Up Monthly RB Qualifiers will be TOing Steet Fighter.
J: When you say that Smash is disproportionately supported, what do you mean exactly? Were there not enough setups?
C: If you were at CEO or Evo, the floor plans were not suitable based on attendance ratios. Smash in general also receives the short stick for broadcasting, despite pulling in better numbers both live and online. These issues are understandable due to precedence and history, and these two orgs have said they will adjust more in the coming year.
J: Have there been any other criticisms revolving integration, other than space and streams?
C: The qualms at regional-sized events, like Frosty and Combo Breaker, are that the schedule for the events are too long for regional-sized Smash events. This has to do with proximity and how the two communities have differing attitudes about travel. For the Smash community, the Midwest at large is one region and it isn’t without question for a serious competitor to have to drive 3+ hours one weekend of the month. I don’t find the FGC sharing this attitude, mostly due to history, age, and the availability of online rank games. So for Smash players who traveled from 1 state over, they are not as keen to stay 3 days instead of 2, or 1 day instead of 2.
The aforementioned FGC events draw players from a little further away; there are fewer serious events so FGC players take these more seriously. Cross over is also another time constraint that the FGC works with but the Smash community is not as tolerant of. When it comes to 3 day events or nationals, we can more understanding. But events like Frosty or Combo Breaker end up breaking the natural flow or schedule of Smash tournaments in favor of longer schedules to allow cross over. At Kings V, I’ve tried to limit this cross over by focusing on the premium titles.
J: Could this difference in attitude about time allotment come from the differences in the number of games? FGC tournaments can have upwards of 10 tournament titles, where Smash seems to have a set number of games to play.
C: Exactly. The Smash community finds this type of cross over more annoying to a schedule because our players do not care for multiple games. Frosty is a great example of a tournament that embraces dozens of titles and creates a schedule to allow for it. Smash players are more used to more focused schedules.
J: Do you think this difference in attitude is something that can be negotiated amicably? Giving more time to one game gives less time to others, and giving enough to too many games would block out smaller titles completely, which I don’t think FGC fans would like, but Smash seems pretty adamant about this.
C: I don’t think there’s any education to be done on the attendee’s side of things. Event organizers are getting better at master schedules and there’s no suitable way (that I can think of) to change the current blocking system of 2 hours. It comes down to organizational decisions, like the one I made to have fewer FGC events and to cap GG/Marvel. Attendees will pick tournaments that are more favorable for them or events will become more tolerable due to their scale, awesome factor, or whatever.
J: You mentioned earlier a lack of respect from other FGC players towards Smash. What did you mean by that?
C: This is just a general sentiment. The FGC in general is older than the Smash scene and from a majority of my encounters with the FGC, they are more likely to be seniors about something (this is the way it is, we’ve been doing it like this, etc.), they are more likely to be insensitive about something (deal with it, you guys are being ____, you guys are kids), and they are more likely to be aggressive in their opinions (you shouldn’t have X, why do you guys do Y). I have literally never seen a Smash player tell an FGC member or event how their event should be, unless Smash was also there, like CEO or Evo.
J: Some of the player conflicts you mentioned earlier, do you foresee them happening at your event in the same way? Before, every interaction with Smash and FGC at a tournament was held at a mainly FGC event. Do you think any of this will be pronounced, or perhaps play out differently at a mainly Smash event?
C: My hope is that the FGC perception of the event is that it was streamlined for them to choose their experience. I think that Smash players will have few complaints about bringing in the FGC due to extra dedicated space and stream. I am not employing anything like floating seeds, so I don’t anticipate stepping on anyone’s toes in that way either.
I don’t think I can think of anyone else with my experience and position, having gone to so many FGC cross over events. I don’t anticipate any of the common complaints I had myself or from other Smash community members and from what I anticipate of the FGC, they will have a pretty straightforward time. It will take time to tell how the promotion worked and how receptive they are, so maybe attendance or the live experience itself is something I have to look out for.
I do have the trusty help of many community leaders and I found that community leaders really helped bridge the gap when it came to Smash being brought into the FGC.
J: As far as the floating seed/VIP business, you’re trying to minimalize this for KotN, right? Do you think this will have any impact on the Smash community? Perhaps not for just this one event, but if this attitude is adopted and more events start becoming mergers that follow your example, do you foresee any reaction from the Smash community?
C: These perks or organizational techniques are necessary for some Smash events at the higher level to some degree. Every event is different and there are a lot of external pressures on events outside of what the organizer wants the tournament’s identity to be. So if an event can only be two days, some compromises have to be made. I think moving forward with FGC and Smash, the compromises and plans made have to be careful ones. There’s still a lot of unexplored territory and not a lot of data to back up ideas. For instance, it was very hard for CEO and Evo to predict how large Wii U was going to be, but they also chose not to adapt within whatever time frame before the event they could. So there’s a lot going on behind the scenes and to be honest, most Smash players don’t personally care about floating or VIP. This affects only the top players, which I tried to explain have a different kind of culture and experience from not only the average Smash player, but also from the average top player of any game.
How I run my regional cross over tournament will not affect how Evo or CEO handles Smash. But it may be a door for the FGC to see how things are run on our side. It’s not that different at all, in the big picture. Smash fans are just a bit more obsessive over a single game and that makes the culture just that much different.
J: What’s the thing you’re most hopeful will come out of this merger?
C: I’d rather list something concrete than abstract, so I’ll just say I hope everyone watches at least the finals of each of the headlining games–Wii U, Melee, and SFV. There’s a lot of money on the line and personally I’d watch the finals of any big tournament. So here’s to bridging the gap.
The FGC and the Smash communities both seem pretty distant currently, but there are obviously people on both sides who care about their scenes and are trying to bring them together. Personally, I want to see the bridge formed and fortified. For the moment, however, we have to just wait and see how events like Kings of the North turn out.
