Questions from a manager at a Video Game Arena

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
1

Hi,

My name is Sean and I am the manager of a video game arena in Maryland, we have a 43,000 square foot facility with over 70 consoles (Xbox 360/One, Wii + WiiU, PS3, Gamecube, Atari, Sega Genesis) and 100+ games. I would like to have the arena appeal more to the fighting game scene, we used to have an outside person organize super smash bros tournaments but they weren’t very well attended ( I learned quickly that gamers don’t necessarily make good employees at a video game arena) we offer a selection of fighting games and I have had customers interested in organized competitive fighting gaming tournaments but it’s outside my area of expertise.

So my questions for you guys are:

What kind of tournament style is best suited for a fighting game tournament?

How do you reach the fighting game audience? (This community seems like a good step)

What do people generally charge for admission into fighting game tournaments?

I’m not looking to become the next big giant fighting game event, but I want the Arena to cater to all different genres of video games for my customers.

Thank you for any assistance.

2

Since youre in maryland, youre best bet is to just reach out to the og’s in that area, or reach out to the thread on this site.

You can always just contact skisonic, who has been in the fighting game community for over a decade now, and is a maryland native. He is a well known commentator, and could help you along the way of answering many of those questions, and helping you with local contacts.

https://twitter.com/skisonic

I believe people still go to xanadu for games in baltimore maryland too

https://twitter.com/xanadugames

The easiest thing to do for tournament format is just go to the tournament forum here, and choose a major and x copy it to an extent.

The main places i know of that fighting game players are, are here, neogaf (has a weekly thread in its gaming section thats pretty active), r kappa (troll central, but its popular), TYM (test your might), and things like “mvc3 reddit”, usf4 reddit. Oh, and twitter obviously, but there is no central database for everyone who is into fighting games, and is on twitter.

You could just start following the known names you see in top 16 for varioius games, follow the known streamers like teamsp00ky, iplaywinner, leveluplive, etc… and then just follow more as they come. Also lots of people stream in the community often, so getting a tag on twitch to communicate with various players.

General admission varies. Thats up to your discretion, and your needs. Nothing over 20 though for a monthly or weekly, unless youre talking about admission for something that isnt the tourney.

You can basically just watch the neogaf thread, and srk frontpage daily for whats coming up, and just see who is at tournies, their contact info, what people are talking about, etc…

3

Thank you! I wasn’t expecting such an in-depth reply, I really appreciate it.

4

“What kind of tournament style is best suited for a fighting game tournament?”

In the states doing a Double Elimination bracket is the standard everywhere, also for smaller tournaments as far as I can tell…

In Europe (or at least in the Netherlands) we often do round-robin pools of which the best 2/3/4 (depending on the turnout) continue to a double elimination bracket. It’s nice for players that lose a lot, since they will get to play quite a few games before they are eliminated even if they lose everything, but it obviously takes more time.