Capcom's Gentrification Part 1 : Street Fighter's Early Urban Culture

(reaction to the last article made it profoundly clear that I was adding too many notations to the articles, I am leaving this one as-is - ed)

A beat up standup machine at a 7-11.  Video games in the Pizza Hut lobby to distract children.  The town arcade.  When Street Fighter 2 took off, it was in these places that people gathered to face off against each other in visual gladiatorial combat.  The age of American circle gate bat sticks and convex buttons sure to grind your fingers to the bone.  The age of Street Fighter.

Street Fighter 2 took the world by storm, and gave many people who could not afford game consoles or computers at home a vibrant and exciting way to prove who was better.  A handful of quarters was much cheaper than a Super Nintendo, and if you were one of the town's elite, you could put in a night's work on some pocket change.  Because of the accessibility and low price, inner city youth flocked to these arcade machines and were the life's blood of the Street Fighter community.  Predominately African-American and Asian, these World Warriors honed their skills and tested them steel against steel on a nightly basis.

This was a time where there was no real money to be made.  It was purely to compete.  Those that did try to eke out a living were seen as outcasts and foolhardy.  In the documentary Bang the Machine, John Choi mentions his father, the owner of a convenience store asking him how much he was slotted to make in the next tournament.  Choi had to sheepishly say one hundred dollars.  Obviously his father would rather his son work in the family business, it was safer and more lucrative.  But Choi marched his own path.

To this day you can still hear hushed whispers of legendary players in the pre-history era of Street Fighter.  Names such as Tomo were living legends, but had not been seen by many of the later 90s crowd.  Were they around today, they could have been top stars, but because of timing they are lost in the early annals of Street Fighter.

As the years went on, tournaments started to spring up, driven by people wanting to help foster a community and prove who was the best of the best in their respective cities.  Some players traveled to various cities to compete, and some began to garner some star power.  During this time, fighting game history is better recorded, with Street Fighter 2 Super Turbo and Street Fighter Alpha 2 bringing in throngs of players to the scene.  Names like James Chen, David Sirlin, and Alex Valle all cut their respective teeth in this era and started to garner a following and name recognition.

Street Fighter Three was released to little applause.  While the game was built with an urban feel, it was too different from the Street Fighter 2 formula for many of the players to get into the game.

Also of note was the coastal war of the United States.  The west coast, known for rushdown tactics thought themselves vastly superior to the east coast, known for turtling.  The major breakdown being the state of California against New York City.  Bang the Machine had a large west coast bias, with Eddie Lee being the only real east coast player to have any mention, and the only one brought on the trip to Japan.

Speaking of Japan, on a technical and strategic level, they were miles above the United States in this era.  A fledgling young star, Umehara Daigo, was a prodigical beast laying waste to any US player that dared come within his reach.  During the 5 on 5 tournament the US players could only best Japan in Marvel vs Capcom 2.  This game was embraced heavily by the United States but thought of as a mash heavy mess that was below Japan's technical standards.  The perfect outcome of a Japanese match was a draw, the perfect outcome for Marvel vs Capcom 2 was complete obliteration of your opponent. Marvel vs Capcom 2 was America's game, and a means of empowerment for African-American youth.  The racially charged culture of Marvel vs Capcom 2 may have also been one of the reasons Japan shied away from the game.  The game was boisterous, loud, and insane, as was the community that loved it dearly.  Compared to the culturally reserved Japanese, this was completely foreign and repugnant.  

This game added a gallon of gasoline to the West vs East battle.  California's Magneto vs New York City's Blackheart.  Prior to the homogenization and sorting out of tiers and teams, Marvel vs Capcom 2 was a wild west of expression and pure id.  Some African-Americans attribute fighting games from keeping them off the streets and joining neighborhood gangs, but they were still able to feel this same kind of hunger and rivalry within the fighting game community itself.  The areas themselves were still not without their risks though.  Community pillar Josh Wigfall was shot in a drive-by, Dark Prince Chaos threatened people with knives and had to be removed from venues, and other times where the competition and sometimes contentious nature of the community almost exploded into violent episodes.  Fighting games were about feeling and beating your opponent.  Sometimes the winner talked a little too much trash, or the loser was a little too hurt, but the community went on.

Arcade machines remained the norm, as console ports of fighting games were either inferior, or in the case of Street Fighter Alpha 2 for the SNES, completely unplayable.  As such the Japanese ball top square gate, and ultra sensitive buttons were foreign to the United States.  America was a country of force, and you used all of that force with every input.  When EVO made the move to the Dreamcast version of Marvel vs Capcom 2, many community members balked at the idea.  One because the only stick readily available was the bulky MAS stick, and also because without the weight of an arcade machine, controlling the input heavy characters in Marvel Vs Capcom 2 was seen as too intense to be contained in a wooden box filled with wires.  The sticks would move around while trying to do Magneto's triangle jumps, completely messing up the input they said.  Like all change though, it eventually took with the Dreamcast version becoming the de facto tournament standard for Marvel vs Capcom 2.  Suddenly instead of training with a handful of quarters and traveling to tournaments played on arcade machines, players were tasked with either learning the game on the onerous dreamcast pad, or coming up with money for either a custom made or MAS stick.  This was the beginning of a socio-economic turn which began to take fighting games out of the inner cities and into the hands of those slightly more affluent.

In part 2 we cover the advent of Street Fighter 4, and the drastic changes it had on the community.

James Kelly -  Community Specialist