Editor’s note: Some responses have been slightly altered for clarity. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the interviewer and interviewee; they do not reflect Shoryuken as a whole.
I recently sat down with Jamie York. He’s the owner of a ‘Mom and Pop’ arcade, one that sells games and holds tournaments, including fighting game tournaments. I wanted to take a peek at what it was like behind the curtain to see what it’s like running regular locals and Majors. You can read what he had to say below.
John “Zidiane” Silvia: Tell me a bit about yourself and where we’re at.
Jamie York: Sure. My name’s Jamie York. I’m the owner of Game Underground, a store in the Natick Mall of Natick, Massachusettes. It’s the biggest Mall in New England, and we run fighting game events every Friday night for Fight Night. We also do Smash Brothers on Tuesday and Thursday for Smash 4, Project M, and Melee. We also run monthlies for all kinds of different fighting games. We play everything from Magic: The Gathering to Halo to Street Fighter–all kinds of games.
JS: When did you first decide to hold events for fighting games?
JY: Actually, I used to be the manager of a place called Game Universe. That started about 10 years ago with my friend Dave, and around the time SFIV came out the scene was picking up. We had always wanted to hold events and tournaments at the store, so that was one of the first ones we started with. So, we ran pretty big SFIV and MVC3 tournaments, and we just sorta grew with those games pretty much.
JS: How long did it take before you started running bigger events like GUTS?
JY: I’d say we started getting bigger about 6 years ago. GUTS1 was about five years ago. We skipped a year when we were moving our store from our old venue in Framingham to our current one in Natick, so it was too much to run GUTS at the same time as moving the store.
JS: That was right after GUTS3, right?
JY: Yeah. GUTS3 was on the Capcom Pro Tour. It was awesome. We had over 750 in attendance, and we had over 20,000 people watching online between Smash and Street Fighter. This year we’re hoping to break 1,000 players for GUTS4 across all games. My goal is over 1,200. I think we can do it, there are a lot more games we’re running now than before.
JS: What’s the drive behind the dedication needed to consistently make these locals and big tournaments happen?
JY: Well, our weekly events are what keeps us going as a store. We pretty much have four big things that keep us running: we sell video games, we have an arcade, Magic: The Gathering, and we have video game tournaments and nightly meet-ups. With everybody attending every week, we think it’s worth it for New England to have a big event like GUTS for all the guys that support us. You never know how big or successful an event is going to be, but I know it’s worth it for these guys to have a home game to go to instead of having to travel out to CEO and Evo, or Big E’s events. It’s nice for them to be able to do something that’s local and, once in a while, having people come to play on their turf.
JS: How much time does doing everything for fighting games take? How much free time do you have between all these events?
JY: Myself? Well… I try to be competitive in, like, SFV, but I literally work seven days a week at my store right now, and I have been for the last few months. It’s pretty much me, my wife, and a couple of our best friends running this place. Like, today I got here at 10 AM and I’m working until 2 AM, you know what I mean? Tomorrow I’ve got a big Melee tournament, I gotta come back at 10 AM and will probably leave past midnight again, but, you know, I take a lot of happiness in providing a place for people to come and make friends and have a place to compete and get better.
It means a lot to me when I watch a big event that like LuckyD travels to and they feature some of our MA friends on the stream. It means a lot to the players around here. I personally have made a lot of friends in the FGC; I can’t even express how much that means to me. People tell me stories all the time about, you know, maybe they didn’t have too many people to hang out with, but now they got their crew that they go to all the big events on the EC together. It’s become a really big group thing to be a part of. It’s really nice. I really love being a part of that and helping provide a scene.
This was the store we sat in while I interviewed him about his past and his hopes for the future.
JS: Tell me a bit about what it’s been like maintaining your local. How do you get people to come out and keep coming out?
JY: I think the hardest part is getting a solid venue to go to. Because we are the venue it really helps us, but I know there are a lot of other people that try in NE to do the best they can to hold events at like bars or Chinese restaurants or things like that. I respect those guys a lot because you have to go out there and find a place that’ll let you play. I just try to, as part of what we’re doing, be that place for people to go. When we started Game Underground, even before then when we were Game Universe, eSports was barely a thing that people were talking about. I always loved playing fighting games growing up, you know? I grew up playing Mortal Kombat II and Street Fighter II and all those old games with my friends and had the best times, so I understand what it’s like growing up and having that enviornment to go somewhere and play that. I used to go to the local arcade here in Natick Mall and play Tekken and Soul Calibur all the time. There was no arcade in this mall for 10 years, and now we have an arcade again and a place to go and play people and prove what you’re worth from all your training. It’s something to be said to be in the same room with people, that face to face competition. It’s amazing, it’s a lot of fun.
JS: Which communities are the most active in your locals?
JY: Oh man. Well, I have to say a combination of all the Smash Brothers games and SFV. Those are definitely the biggest followings we have here, but we definitely see people come here and they play Skullgirls, they play Marvel, they play KI, MK; KOFXIV is gonna be big here, Tekken 7 is gonna be HUGE. Right now there’s no Tekken presence at GU, but when Tekken 5: Dark Ressurection came out we got the arcade machine. We used to have a 20 person line because there was no console version of it, and now Tekken 7 hopefully one day will come out in America on consoles. People in Boston are dying to play this game, you know, we can’t get the arcade version, not easily, so we’re waiting; we’re ready for Tekken 7.
JS: For the people out there who are thinking of hosting locals like yours, how lucrative is it to keep holding these locals and Majors?
JY: I’m hoping one day that it will be? I mean, to be honest with you, I’m very lucky to have a job I get to go to every day that pays the bills, but I’m not GameStop, you know what I mean? We’re not millionaires here guys. I’m just happy to have a job I go to every day that I have fun at, and I make enough money to provide for my family and help a few other people in the community to be okay with their work, but you know… it’s a struggle. I mean… GUTS is something where I’m never sure if we’re even going to break even on, but I feel like we need to do it for this community. I hope that we can do well with it one day, maybe one day we can grow to be as big as CEO or something like that.
We gotta take it one step at a time, though. Going from GUTS1 we had like 350 people, GUTS2 had over 400, GUTS3 had 750 people show up. There are more games out now and more people in the scene, and we have friends helping us grow the Smash scene, so New England is starting to get really big. I don’t think that people realize across the country how good of a scene we have here. Even though no one here has made it to like Top 8 at Evo yet or anything, we have good players that love the game and the community and are willing to travel to big events, so it’s only a matter of time before one of these hungry guys is gonna do that. Like Marss, one of our Smash 4 players, started placing really high at Majors, and he plays a lot of games and comes for our weeklies. I’m really happy that the Smash 4 community here is starting to get a lot of attention. Some of these Street Fighter guys are starting to do really well and I’m excited that, you know, New England could be viewed at the same level as New York and the West Coast.
JS: What’s been the most memorable moment or experience so far in holding these events, either locals or Majors?
JY: Just having players come up to me and say, “Oh yeah, man, I drove 3 and a half hours to come here today.” That’s insane, like, I can’t even explain to you what it’s like… having the kind of reach that lets other people from other states know about my store. It’s very humbling, and just amazing, I can’t even describe it. I’d say that and also, probably, just… the hype of being able to work really hard on something like GUTS and have people turn out for it and the exciting matches we get to see there, it’s awesome, just that means a lot to me.
JS: If you could guarantee one thing to absolutely happen for prospective attendees at your upcoming Major, GUTS4, what would it be?
JY: Haha… uh… I’m just giving you dead silence, sorry. I don’t even know how to not just say “People play videos games”! You know what? What I can promise you is that we’ll put on a good event, to the best of our abilities. It will be fun, there will be a lot of good people to play games with. Also, no matter what game you play at GUTS, you’ll feel like we’re treating you as an equal, and we’re trying to do our best to feature everyone. That’s what I can guarentee.
JS: I saw a Killer Instinct setup in the back, there. I know you’ve mentioned KOF and SFV are the new games that are definitely getting a lot of hype, but is Killer Instinct going to have a presence there?
JY: Oh yeah, definitely, KI will be there. We’re having over 20 games at GUTS4. We’re holding obvious tournaments like SFV, as well as games like Super Turbo and Skullgirls, Guilty Gear, a lot of Anime fighters that people want us to feature. We’ll do our best to make sure that everyone has something featured that they want.
JS: If anyone wants to find out more information about GUTS or your locals, where can they do that?
JY: Our website is Game-Underground.com and our facebook is facebook.com/GameUnderground.
JS: Was there anything else you wanted to say?
JY: Just that if you’re in the NE area I would encourage you to come and check us out. I know a lot of people play online, and that’s awesome, but there’s really something to be said about meeting people face to face, and coming to play with people that have the same interests as you. There’s something to be said for making friends in places like this, you can make a lot of friends if you try to get out there and play.