If you were a top player in the FGC

That wouldn’t work, thanks to Smash players enough people seem to think we’re nazis already.

This is great (both the format in general and your specific commentary on that match).
You should do more. I’m already spreading the link around.
Also liked Valle’s guides in the streams, although he was kinda hard to understand w/o pre-made text. I could understand and learn from it but I think noobs will have a harder time with it.

good stuff

I actually did fight commentary for two of my matches, but I guess since they’re for Virtua Fighter no one really cares :confused:

But here they are anyway! I’m the Taka-arashi player
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I’d like to do more of this but because 5R isn’t available on console it’s hard to get motivated to do this when so little people are interested in it. :confused:

Talking about commentary, I love what KSK et al are doing with GodsGarden. They get top players to do commentary and share their thoughts on some of the matches played at the tournament.

Here’s Kokujin and Daigo commenting on some of the matches:
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It’s a great way to get players to understand what during high level play.

that is an awesome video.
it reminded me of these chess videos that i used to watch with my buddy.
positions in chess have their own personalities, similar to the different characters in street fighter.
master and grandmaster chess players will make videos or write whole books explaining the possibilities from certain stages of certain openings.
you talk about the importance of the moves that create situations and positions in the same way.
i subscribed.
this is a project that could yield some really great instructional entertainment.

Actually the fighting game community does have a clear idea what it wants. You said it in your post. The top players are small in amount. Listening to them exclusively will not improve the games, no matter how loud and vocal they are… will not attract a whole lot of customers, to be precise. Most every new mechanisms that were introduced were for the “scrubs” and scolded by top players. Just think about it… rage systems, chain combos, dodges, dashes, supers. Team fighters and I remember the days when tech throws were made “because scrubs cried about it.” Yet… making the game fairer and more accessible to more people is clearly the right direction to go as a business. Not everyone wants to play street fighter 2 in different flavours forever. There is a reason why smash brothers series now outsell all previously acclaimed franchises, because it listened and chopped off what MOST people saw as dumb and allowed MORE people to access the fighters. Continue to listen to the select few who can’t let go of SF2, then 20 years later we’ll still be making new skinned SF2. It’s just amusing to me that clearly the tops don’t really care and felt like justifying their positions, but they see that it ain’t going anywhere.

Updated versions of the old “How to play SF” movies would be a good way to get newer players into thing. Similar to the old SNES 1993 vid, teaching people about basic zoning strategies and character strengths/difficulties.

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Well, I’m not a top player - but I think what I’d do is try to establish visibility for the game by contacting local news outlets, etc, to see if they were interested in running a story about it. That’s the first thing.

There are a couple of larger efforts that I’d make, however.

I’d see what approach I could make to really systematize teaching the game to newer players who want to level up. There are a lot of great resources out there right now online, but what there really needs to be, in my opinion, is an effort made to systematize the learning process, so someone who has NEVER PLAYED BEFORE can start with the very, very basic things, and work their way up a clear, logically progressive fashion. Right now in SF4 we’ve got the trial mode and what not, and this helps, but that really only helps with the offensive side of the game - combos and such.

Perhaps developing a system of drills, to be practiced with a partner, would help?

Just practicing such fundamental things we take for granted as blocking, focus attacks, learning to jump straight up over different speeds of fireballs, learning to counter throws, etc etc. It sounds dry, but I think it’s the fundamentals that are really important to establish as soon as possible once people play the game, and having a systematic approach seems much more logical than just ‘jump in the pool and get beaten a lot’

I think it’s vital for the top players to establish such a training system for new players who want to be serious about getting good, which is exactly why I’d try to convince others of the need for such a system - and work with the top players to create drills of three different types:

a) generic - ie usable by any character in a given fighting game.
b) character specific - ie usable by a specific character in a given fighting game, regardless of what character the opponent’s using
c) matchup specific - ie, training that helps players to establish a greater understanding of a certain matchup.

of course it’s also good to play against other people who are trying to beat you as soon as possible, but a systematic approach, creating drills and such for teaching this stuff can’t hurt, in my opinion. It’s no substitute for ‘real world’ experience of competition, merely a supplement.

More importantly than this, however - I think what I’d really work towards (would have to be in concert with Capcom and/or the other top players) I’d work to come up with the best form of organization…rather than having the scene as it is, with various regions having their own little independent kingdoms, so to speak - i think what’s really needed for it to grow in North America at least, is the establishment of an official sanctioning body.

Many different forms of competition do this, but the model I’m thinking of, particularly because it’s dealing with a game that’s also the intellectual property of a specific company, is something close to the DCI - which sanctions the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering.

By creating an overall sanctioning body for Street Fighter, where information on all upcoming sanctioned events could be found, points could be accumulated depending on match results, and players, who would recieve a player number, could enter their information online to find others in their region.

There would be a lot of advantages to this approach, I think.

For sanctioned games, it would allow for scores to be compiled according to individual game, as well as a composite score based upon one’s performance in multiple games. There could be room for all sorts of competition using this model- from high level events with big prizes to regular low entry fee events designed to attract new/casual players (like Friday Night Magic for M:TG)

The money from this could go towards helping to establish the grassroots scene in regions where it’s currently underrepresented, as well as helping to raise the visibility of the game in the top markets. This could also help to establish a bigger youth scene, to ensure that the next generation of World Warriors are fighting in the years to come.

I’d love to be a top player in the FGC - but even more than that, I’d love to give back to this great scene by becoming a top systematizer of knowledge, and an organizer to help take this stuff to the next level.

Good analysis, looking forward to the next video in the series.

That said, I still think we need to do something similar to Ken Bogard’s channel. The reason is that you can’t dissect every match liek that, so live insightful commentary while watching a large tourney (like NSB) is very helpful. It’s not as in-depth, but it’s better than watching without commentary (which people are going to do anyway, so might as well have comments). I actually wanted to do something like it, but I wasn’t sure if people would be interested. It’s also quite the timesink and responsibility (if you upload part 1, people will want the rest).

What I find really interesting is that you suddenly get a total of 4 interpretations of a certain play. If you’re following a match (and really following it) then you’ll be almost playing it as well, thinking about the decisions you would make as the players are actually making them. For instance when I would be reaching for a certain button in footsies, the player might do something else instead that works even better, so I learn from that. But then you also get the commentator’s take on it, which really helps by giving you a wider range of options and exposing you to different ways of thinking.

A less important but still notable aspect of commentary is that you also learn a little bit about the players themselves.

This can be a community effort, having a centralized channel for uploading commentated tournaments and exhibitions. I’m definitely interested- anyone else willing to help?

i support amro’s idea

Self commentary on your own recorded matches, what you were thinking, why you reacted in a certain way. Perhaps something of that nature would spur a different line of thinking in newer players, a sort of AHA moment as it were.