Evo 2010 Game Announced Live on SRK Podcast @ 7PM PST!

Shoryu_Reppa · January 28, 2010, 2:07pm

Gonna go ahead and agree with myself and say CVS2

FMJaguar · January 28, 2010, 2:16pm

While tournament rules are technically a meritocracy, the underlying scene isn’t. Japan players have more access than US players, Online players have a worse experience than offline players. In this case we have roughly half the population that is non existant in the top ranks of the game.

A scene should increase the skill level of all players. Weird that it’s suddenly bad to do for women what we would normally do for any other group. Is anyone against online tournaments? tournaments in the middle of nowhere? why is this different than any other tournament that you don’t go to? Because it’s in the same room as a tournament you are going to on the same weekend? It’s ok to run invitationals? regional tournaments? teams(extra wtf)? but not women? really?

SweetJohnnyV · January 28, 2010, 2:16pm

I like the idea about having a mini MVC2 and CVS2 tourney and doing top 4 for each on the big screen. I also think that voting wise, Melty might have a shot.

Personally, I still think running something like Alpha Anthology would be cool. Though to be fair, most people probably aren’t practiced up on that game.

PS: About the women’s tournament. On one hand, ya I agree that it’s a bit sexist and all. But on the other hand, I actually do think it may get more girls to go to Evo and I have ZERO doubt that it’ll amp up the press and spectator excitement. It may be a circus act, but I think it’ll also help the overall hype and awareness factor of Evo. So, to that end, I don’t think it’s ALL bad…

Vintage · January 28, 2010, 2:18pm

Wow, VF made a really good post a few pages back. Having official side tournies get stage time on Sunday is a great idea, assuming it’s plausible. This would ensure more games actually getting played at Evo. Perhaps all of these side tournies should take place & conclude on Fri night so that the Evo staff can have ample time to make preparations on Sunday? I suppose if this idea really did come to fruition, I wonder what criteria would be needed for a side event to become official? A certain number of players?

Mizuki, you just might have a chance for classic ST, so…savor the opportunity.

SweetJV,

LOL, at your earlier post. I’m sure I heard that rhetoric before? Oh that’s right, we DID talk about that @ Denjin ,’)

pherai · January 28, 2010, 2:23pm

Isn’t it different cause anyone can theoretically enter an online tournament, regional tournament, or team tournament, yet no matter what I do, I couldn’t enter a female only tournament?

Invitationals I agree though, unless they have qualifiers.

inkblot · January 28, 2010, 2:23pm

Regarding the ladies only SSF4 tournament:

I strongly disagree with the notion that it is somehow insulting to women for them to have their own tournament in addition to the open tournament. SF4 is the first SF that a critical mass of women are playing. As a demographic they are trying to catch up a male-dominated community that has been playing the game for nearly two decades. You could say throw the minnows in with the sharks in the main tournament and let them take their lumps like everyone else, but IMO this tough love approach is not the best way to nurture the budding female SF community. The ladies only tournament gives women who are just getting into competitive gaming a tournament setting where they can test their skills against their peers who are all roughly at the same part of hopefully a long and fruitful journey. Women are still welcome and encouraged to compete in the open tournament if they choose. Heck, compete in both!

I also disagree that putting the women’s tournament on the big stage at Evo somehow cheapens the event. Evo has had many special events on stage that don’t strictly feature the very “best of the best” but instead feature some angle that is interesting to the community. Sometimes these surprises end up being some of the more memorable moments at Evo. If the women competitors take the game seriously and the spectators take them seriously then it should be a great event. All you guys who are bashing the tournament because you respect women so much should cheer on the winners at the finals and encourage them to keep playing.

mooyang90 · January 28, 2010, 2:25pm

FMJaguar:

While tournament rules are technically a meritocracy, the underlying scene isn’t. Japan players have more access than US players, Online players have a worse experience than offline players. In this case we have roughly half the population that is non existant in the top ranks of the game.

Most of the time we try to make things even by increasing the competition levels in those groups to make up for the unfairness in the system. Weird that it’s suddenly bad to do for women what we would normally do for any other group. Is anyone against online tournaments? tournaments in the middle of nowhere? why is this different than any other tournament that you don’t go to? Because it’s in the same room as a tournament you are going to on the same weekend? It’s ok to run invitationals? regional tournaments? teams(extra wtf)? but not women? really?

lmao that argument makes no sense whatsoever. Invitationals limit the playerbase to only players who have attained a certain mastery of the game, yet is still available for anyone who puts in the effort to reach such a level. Regionals limit a playerbase based on where they live. Those limitations are perfectly reasonable, but a woman’s only event is not. What you are saying essentially is because they have a vagina, they cannot plink as well as the boys, or hit links as well as the boys, or mindgame as well as the boys. You are basically labeling them all as second-class human beings.

Inkblot mentioned women have nearly two decades to catch up on…but what about the new male players that were introduced to FGs with SFIV? If you really want to cultivate new players why not have a side-tournament with new players only? Separating women into their own category only stigmatizes the fact that they are different from males, and that they are born with a weaker capability to master fighting games.

SweetJohnnyV · January 28, 2010, 2:31pm

Hehe, yup.

BTW, I hereby announce that if anyone loses to me in the HDR tourney and wants to money match me for a re-match in ST, then I accept up to $50 per person. Minimum best 2/3, Max first to 10.

TheSix · January 28, 2010, 2:33pm

No team tourney? No mvc2 or 3S?

K’mon.

Shoryu_Reppa · January 28, 2010, 2:33pm

Same characters?

inkblot · January 28, 2010, 2:34pm

No. What we are saying is that the FGC traditionally has been a male-dominated culture that has unintentionally (and sometimes intentionally) presented an intimidating environment for female players. To encourage the budding female competitive players, Evo is hosting an even where they can compete against other players with similar backgrounds. Evo is doing this because we want to ENCOURAGE women to keep playing and get better.

If we were preventing women from competing in the open tournament your statement would ring true.

SweetJohnnyV · January 28, 2010, 2:37pm

You can use whoever you want.

EDIT: But no Akuma, of course.

slash5150 · January 28, 2010, 2:41pm

I just threw this idea around on Twitter (and I’m uber tired so I’m going to try to post coherently)

But what about doing some kind of national mini-tour or something? I know SoCal did the LOSF thing back in June which had a good turn out but that was one area.

Maybe I’m totally delusional, but if there were enough ladies out there who wanted to see an all female SSF4 tournament, they would try to show interest in the smaller things.

I don’t know, just ideas.

shoultzula · January 28, 2010, 2:44pm

wtf is TVC doing up there and over mvc2?

HDR went to EVO the year it got dropped. Why is mvc2 any different? didn’t mvc2 have the most downloads of any game over XBL out doing HDR?

:tdown::tdown::tdown:

Dark_Gaiden · January 28, 2010, 2:44pm

Ok…too much interest and discussion is going towards the “women tournament.” What we should be discussing is what VirtuaFighterFour posted. His idea of official side tournaments being recognized by the Evo staff is an amazing idea. Especially if each game has an opportunity to be on the bigscreen/streamed (finals of each game). This would give those guys who always post that “X” game should be represented at Evo, a definitive reason to be at Evo…as they now have an opportunity to showcase their respective scene to others. I think this suggestion (if accepted) could definitely bring new life to the other games (aka non main Evo games…like Vampire Savior, HF, A2/A3, CvS2, etc).

SweetJohnnyV · January 28, 2010, 2:49pm

Totally agree!!!

vegetabroly · January 28, 2010, 2:49pm

i dont care if the girls are having there own tourney good for them im just =) hd remix is on the list

Kersey · January 28, 2010, 2:53pm

VirtuaFighterFour:

I’m telling you. Hold official side tournaments for 3S, ST, CvS2, MvC2, and even a wild card like HF. But don’t put the top 8 on the big screen, just put the top 4, or even just the grand finals. Or even run those games as single elimination (SBO format) to reduce the amount of time needed to run those tournaments. I’d rather see a few John Choi CvS2 matches and a few Sanford MvC2 matches or whatever get some big screen time than have something like an all female SSFIV sideshow.

Yeah maybe CvS2 or MvC2 can’t pull in SSFIV or T6BR numbers but give them at least one match on the big screen. Would it really hurt to have the grand finals from side tournaments be featured events alongside big draws like the SSFIV top 8 or whatnot? Just a thought.

Seriously what is the harm in allowing one or two CvS2 matches on the big screen?

Especially if they are as insane as the recent match of [media=youtube]s_eleFvonXM"[/media] from NorCal Regionals.

This is the greatest thing I ever read.

vegetabroly · January 28, 2010, 2:53pm

that would be nice and some killer instinct and i wouldn’t mind trying out cvs2

Mr_Jared · January 28, 2010, 3:00pm

Inkblot: I have to agree completely with Mooyang on this one. It does sound very hypocritical to say that the girls-only tournament is due to the fact that there are a lot of women who just started playing SF4, while the very same thing can be said about the men. I know players who started with SF4 and I consider them to be some of the best in California. Male-dominated scene or not, someone has to break the glass ceiling and I don’t see a circus act being proper motivation.

As I can’t possibly seem to ever shut up on the subject of women in games (I have strong role models on this subject ) I wrote up a piece that can be seen over at my blog, but I’ll paste it here and bold the important bits.

I have an assignment for you readers out there: a simple two-step questionaire for you to spring upon your friends.

First, ask any video game fan who they think the strongest woman in the world is. Chances are they’ll respond with Chun-Li, and why not? While Samus Aran may be considered the original “strong female lead” of video games, Chun-Li proved once and for all that women could kick just as much ass as the boys, still be sexy while doing it and at the end of the game she didn’t even have to strip down to her underpants to prove it. With her unique fashion sense and ferocious fighting style, Chun-Li has become a timeless icon for women in gaming.

Now for the second question: **would you still respect Chun-Li had she entered a girls-only Street Fighter tournament? **Suddenly, the persona of Chun-Li doesn’t sound all that fierce or, for lack of a better term, badass. This is what the organizers of the annual EVO Championship Series fighting game tournament (whom I love dearly) are asking the community to do with their ladies-only “Femme Fatale” tournament and I can’t tolerate this idea one bit.

First and foremost** I’d like to make one thing clear: I wish for as many women as possible to play fighting games. What makes the fighting game community so great is the diversity of the player base. No matter where I’m at, whether it’s a tournament or a small, private gathering, I see white people, black people, asians, hispanics and everything in between, but I hardly ever see are women and that’s a shame. So the last thing I want to do is discourage any female gamers out there from picking up an arcade stick and slugging it out on a competitive level.** There are tons of competitive female gamers in plenty of other genres of games, so their lack of representation in fighting games is something of an oddity.

But discouraging these women is exactly what the girls-only tournaments tend to do. While I can sort of understand the idea of nobility behind wanting to open the door to female Street Fighter players by giving them an accessible taste of what competitive play is all about, at the same time you’re essentially regulating them to a sideshow in the worse sense of the word. You’re saying that because they were born with a vagina, they’re clearly inferior and not competent enough to compete with the boys and this type of thinking – whether its intended or not – is bullshit and a slap to the face to all the women currently playing the game to even suggest this.

Unlike professional sports where physical differences create unfair advantages, the world of competitive gaming is an equal playing field for the sexes. Video games and fighting games especially are a challenge of mental strength and there is nothing preventing a woman from playing at an equal or greater skill level than any man. As UltraDavid from SoCal put it, “This isn’t basketball; in our games, women can dunk. Now it’s rare that women want to and do get good at fighting games, but the problem is just an issue of lack of interest, not of lack of ability. And I don’t think parading them around in a freak show is gonna drum up any extra interest.”

Having spoken to one of Arcade Infinity’s tournament organizers (the original spot for girl-only Street Fighter tournaments) I can confirm that after holding two separate “Ladies of Street Fighter” tournaments there has been no noticeable difference in the player base. Arcade Infinity tournaments still consist of 100% dudes while the “Ladies of Street Fighter” returned to sitting on the sidelines. If the EVO organizers are hoping this experiment will usher forth a new era in competitive female gamers, they can stop right now: the sideshow experiment is already a failure.

Beyond the sexism and technical aspects behind running a female-only video game tournament is the community itself and what kind of effect these events have already had on it. **The previous events were rife with high school-esque in-fighting amongst some of the competitors and brought out the worst amongst others, even those who weren’t even involved. Can anyone even remember who won the first “Ladies Night” tournament? Despite her being a very legit player, the internal trash talk ensured that it didn’t matter. **

This type of hostile environment is not one that should be repeated. On the other side of the coin are the men. EVO is held every year in Las Vegas and while drinking at the event is discouraged, that doesn’t mean people don’t get liquored up before every major event.** All it’s going to take is for a single drunken spectator to shout an overtly sexist remark and its over, guaranteed.** Not only would this become a moment of shame for EVO for years to come, but the competitors themselves would be deeply humiliated and for what? For wanting to play Street Fighter in a competition seemingly built for them.

I can go forever as to why I think this is terrible idea, but I think I’ve provided enough reasons. **I know that the organizers behind EVO had nothing but the best intentions when they crafted this idea as they’d never do anything malicious or harmful towards the community, but this is simply a boneheaded idea and it should not be taken any further. **

I understand that the organizers are in a pinch when it comes to figuring out while games to place in the line-up for EVO 2010 and that running Super Street Fighter IV is a must, so **I have a suggestion: scrap the Femme Fatale tournament and replace it with a 2v2 tournament. Team tournaments have exploded in this past year as it gives the community a reason to become closer knit and – let’s face it – everyone loves coming up with whacky names for their teams. You’d also be dipping into the same pool of 1,000+ guaranteed entries for the single tournaments twice who would gladly pay to play even more. It’s essentially money on top of money and for the cash strapped EVO organization, I can’t possibly think of a downside to this.
**
Even if EVO decides to go ahead with the girls-only tournament, I still plan to attend the event and support it with all my heart. Still, you have to ask yourself would you still respect Chun-Li had she bailed out of the second World Warrior tournament and opted for a girls-only tournament? For the matter, would any self respecting woman do the same?

tl;dr: I love you guys but no sir, I don’t like it. Whatever cheap publicity comes out of this will be at the expense of the community.

Oh, and +1 to VirtuaFighterFour. It’d be great to have a segment in the finals dedicated to showcasing the finals of the bigger side-tourneys, especially since they’re entirely community driven. JACKIE CHAN BAYBEE!