2d Fighting Games to be Represented on the GGL possible tournaments fully sponsord

Tournaments & Events
1

For those who dont know, Im a member of the Global Gaming League (GGL). GGL is run by gamers, for gamers, and is a fairly prestigious league.

GGL has run several top level international events such as the Americup and the Eurocup spanning several PC games. We have hosted transatlantic world finals between nations, sent players to exhibition matches at E3, and run large events such as digital life showcasing competitive players, along side movie and music stars.

Some GGL members grew up on coin-up fighters; understand how competitive the scene is, and that it started some of the first true programmers. However recently the scene has lost its place to PC games and doesnt really have any representation in the larger professional leagues.

Im hoping to change all of that now. Ive been talking in email and over the phone with one of the head members of GGL; Jason Carlton, our Director of Community and Gaming. Jason started off his competitive career in Street Fighter, and is a former professional Quake player.

We would like to start off covering local Street Fighter events, and players. Im going to start in the Washington DC area with x3os tournament to sponsor players to EVO. These will then be covered through us, eventually turning into a breakout piece of the front page of our website on the fighting game community to help integrate it along side pro PC gaming.

From there we hope to cover larger fighting events. GGL has some of the best broadcasters in the gaming industry who are requested by WCG, CPL and other top organizations, and hosts video feed and match downloads. We would like to include 2d fighting games in this, including giving them streaming broadcasts, and media distribution.

If all goes well down the line we would be interested in sponsoring, and hosting a 2d fighting tournament, for cash prizes, much like we currently do with PC gaming. If all goes well we would enjoy having our main events also host 2d fighters with the best players in the world.

But we cant do this without you. I need some basic information to build off of from your perspective.

For starters I need a list of the best players at the x3o event to interview. We also need feedback on why the fighting game scene is so great, and why it should be included with PC gaming as a truly professional support.

We also need to know if we host a tournament what kind of support is needed to make it at minimum the gold standard the community looks to today, and how you would like it run. Be it hardware (we do have the ability to supply cabinets), media coverage, whatever.

Any an all input is appreciated as I have a conference call in the near future to help push this forward. If anybody needs contact information from the GGL or has requests Id prefer it was done in this thread, or if its important enough email me via the forums.

Please take a look around our site www.ggl.com and get familiar with how other things look so you have an idea what to ask for.

Thanks

GGL-steve

P.S.

I will update this thread as I recieve news from above on where we stand and where things are moving.

2

Interesting…

If you are looking for names of top players and you’ll be on the East Coast, I’d suggest to try hitting up NY (where is THE location to find most of them all in one spot) Though there are more on the coast, they are spread out south of NY.

Another place would be Cali, a lot more players, a lot of top players as well and pretty much around the same location (within 30 min to 2 hours) and I mean LA

I don’t know many from the DC area, but they have a few (some from MD/VA)

It’ll be great to go back to arcade cabs for that old school competiting and an arcade feel, not how it is now days with home consoles and personal arcade sticks/borrowed, but the only problem with that is having enough cabinets to support simultaenous matches, especially for Cvs2, MvC2, 3S, T5… that’s a hella lot of cabinets, and with all those cabinets you’ll have to worry about media feeding to big screens, capturing the final matches, machine malfuntions, and etc… It’s been done in the past, but with the past console tournaments we have found it to be easier to run on multiple consoles (plus it’s easy to get a hold of 20+ DCs/PS2s than cabs for each game and don’t forget the spacing it’ll take for the venue), but running a tournament period is never easy.

3

Sounds awesome. Could you try your luck with other fighters as well provided they have a scene?

4

This is really great news if the community cooperates.

A good place to hit is the NYC area, it’s pretty big for a lot of major games (3S, Guilty Gear, Marvel), a ton of the best players in the country live in the area and it’s really condensed so tournament turnouts are rather high, and if theres money backing it up, I garuntee people will get off their asses. Cabinets aren’t really a big deal to 3S and GG (and it might be advantageous to use consoles to attract more players since they can use pad).

If you need any help with working out Guilty Gear shit hit me up with an Email at Henaki@comcast.net or something.

5

Not interested if the best 2D fighter to come out in years is not included, otherwise there is already enough of 3S, MvC2, CvS2 stuff out there.

Look up KOF XI.

6

First let me say that as one of the director/organizers of the East Coast Championships this year, I am happy to see that GGL is interested in fighting games. I have heard about GGL before and I am familiar with your organization.

I can answer a LOT of your questions.

First, the popular games that are played right now:

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (on either Dreamcast or arcade cabinet)
Capcom vs SNK 2 (on PS2 or arcade cabinet)
Street Fighter III: Third Strike (on PS2 or arcade cabinet)
Super Street Fighter II: Turbo (arcade cabinet ONLY, console versions are not true to the original arcade version)

Tekken 5 (arcade or PS2)
Tekken Dark Resurrection (arcade only, there is no console port)

Guilty Gear Slash (japanese/import PS2)

Dead or Alive 4 (Xbox 360)

One important thing to note is that for each style of game, there are different controls required if played on an arcade cabinet. For example, MvC2, CvS2 and 3s are all played with perfect 360-style joysticks, while Super Street Fighter II Turbo is usually played on switch-style sticks, and Tekken is played on a totally different kind of cabinet made by Namco.

Typical tournaments for fighting games are double-elimination style, where you must lose to two separate opponents to be eliminated from the tournament. However, we have found that at larger-size tournaments (usually 100 or more players entering, for example) it is better to run several small 8- or 10-man pools that either play in a mini-double-elim bracket or a round-robin style. The top 2 from these pools then advance to a final, reset double elim bracket that basically plays out until there are only 8 people left in the tournament. Finally, the top 8 from each tournament are usually featured on a big screen, playing their matches in front of the entire tournament crowd in attendance. Optionally some tournaments have vouched to have the top 8 “walk down the aisle” with personalized entrance music and an announcer giving backround info on the player.

Prizes are usually as follows:
For each tournament, the player pays an entry fee that is set ahead of time. All entry fees are usually totalled up and then split in a 65%/25%/10% split for 1st/2nd/3rd place. The tournament itself pays for itself, because in addition to the entry fees for the games themselves, there is usually a “cover charge” to enter that is kept by the tournament organizers to defray the cost of the tournament itself. HOWEVER, as of yet, there has been no effort by anyone in the fighting game community to make profit on a tournament. Instead, most of us donate our time to have non-for-profit events. This creates a feeling of trust between the players and the organizers.

What equipment is needed for the tournaments? Well either multiple cabinets if you choose to go that route, or if you decide to go all console, you will obviously need multiple TVs/consoles. Up to now, all console tournaments have been STRICTLY BRING YOUR OWN STICK because 1. it would be way too costly for a tournament organizer to purchase enough joysticks that work on multiple consoles, and provide those for free, and 2. because most fighting game players OWN their own sticks anyway, and would prefer to play on the joystick they are already accustomed to playing on. A bonus would be having a projector screen system so that the top 8 can play in a theater-style format in front of all who attend.

As for media coverage, that can be hit or miss. The organizers of Evolution have attempted to get coverage before, but the best we’ve gotten are people from Game Show Network coming to EVO and making fun of the players, and that’s about it. So far, nobody has been willing to officially cover a fighting game tournament and take it seriously. This is probably because, unlike other games like Halo, fighting games get NO sponsorship from the makers of the games whatsoever, for unknown reasons. It’s hard to be taken seriously when you’ve got a staff of grassroots gamers organizing something with no sponsorship at all, and it’s non-for-profit.

Now for the other stuff:

If you’re asking who are going to be the top players at this x3o event, the answer is simply I don’t know. The tournament that you’ve chosen to attend and sponsor someone to go to EVO, I’m pretty sure nobody who is a major player in the Street Fighter community is familiar with, and I’m not even sure if any major players in the community are planning to attend. If you would really like to meet some of the top players, you will either have to go to a “hot spot” in the gaming community, or you will have to go to a “major” tournament in the Street Fighter Community. There are two of these coming up: ECCXI in May (memorial day weekend, in New Jersey) and then Midwest championships in June (in Chicago, Illinois). Both of these tournaments are considered “majors” and will have numerous top players from all around the country attending.

If you want to know what the “hot spots” are, NYC is definitely one and has a lot of the major Marvel Vs Capcom 2 top players. A little further south in the Virginia/Maryland/Florida area you will get some more Third Strike, CvS2 and MvC2 players. Texas is also a hotspot, and finally California is a HUGE source of players, since that is actually where the original Street Fighter craze in the USA began.

Why should Street Fighter be considered for GGL? Because fighting games are not only some of the most competitive, skillful games out there, but they are also extremely entertaining to watch. I have seen some of these Halo tournaments, and after about 10 minutes I am falling asleep. This simply doesn’t compare to the speed of a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 match, or the suspense of a Third Strike match. The fighting game community also has a wide variety of colorful players who are one hell of an entertainment factor themselves.

If you would like further info, or specifics on some of the top players, games, or the “major tournaments,” please let me know. As I said, I am a co-organizer of ECCXI this year and I would love to have someone in your organization attend and possibly interview some of the top players in the community.

7

This is a poor attitude to have, it’s a bad idea to come off as douches to every other form of competitive gaming, even if it’s in your own damn genre.

8

this is fantastic i used to play in cal for cs and am still in the wc3 scene, and something like this is great for our community. great work guys. NOW lets show them our best boys!

its our time

9

Yeah, I know, it’s almost as bad as ‘‘If SNK made it, it sucks’’. Which SRK is known for.

I’m just saying I suck at 3S and CvS2, and theres already tournaments everywhere featuring these games in the US, so I simply stated that this doesn’t interest me, unless KOF (something I have skill in) is included. And that if this is representative of 2D fighters, shouldn’t quality, newly released, tournament worthy fighters be included…?

Ahhhh fuk it…I should know better than to speak about the overall shitty U.S. gaming scene.