Spring Break
Gaming subculture thrives at shopping malls nationwide
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While most people think of the arcade as a place for fun and relaxation, others take gaming very seriously, especially in the world of fighting games. Some of the most popular fighting games include Capcom vs. SNK 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Tekken 4 and even the old school Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo.
People from all over the nation compete in various tournaments at different arcades. These can be as long as fourteen hours a day depending on how many machines there are. Each tournament works with a bracket system, and in the end the best person at each game emerges and takes home a cash prize.
The cash prizes usually come from the registration fees that people pay, with around 70 percent going to the first place winner, 20 percent to the runner-up and 10 percent to whoever comes in third. Since competing costs ten dollars per participant and as many as 500 people participate, the cash price is no chump change.
Every year there are three main nation-wide tournaments. The year 2001 saw the East Coast Championship 6 (ECC6), Midwest Championship (MWC) and, the biggest of them all, B5 Street Fighter 2K1 Championship. For B5, people from all over the United States and Japan flew to California to compete in a 2-day tournament.
Winning any of these tournaments is no piece of cake. Almost every year the same people are in the top ten with some new surprises here and there. This year's surprise competitor was a fifteen or sixteen-year-old named Justin Wong from New York. He swept the nation by taking first place in all three major tournaments in Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
This gaming community is fairly popular. Many Web sites are dedicated to providing strategy and videos, but the main Web site that most people go to for information is http://www.shoryuken.com. It contains message boards that people use to discuss strategies, announce upcoming tournaments and give results of tournaments. The site also has a multimedia section where some people show off fighting combos they have discovered or mastered in various games.
So how serious do people get about this? Some come up with theories of game play and write twenty-page articles explaining how to use a certain character in a game. Others spend countless hours at the arcade playing and making friends with those who play with them, or just talk about the game in almost every conversation they have.
This is the subculture that revolves around the gaming community. People come together to have fun and see how they match up against other people. In any community there exist rivals and the gaming community is no exception. There are the East Coast vs. West Coast and the USA vs. Japan rivalries, but in the end there is no real hatred, just fun and enjoyment with others with similar interests.