Why Game? 1 - TextFiles.com

the series is, by accident or design, efficiently
tailored to encourage this kind of fascination-
bordering-on-obsession. The visceral thrill of
pressing buttons to see your character beat up
another is all well and good, but Street Fighter -
in its various incarnations - de-emphasizes this.
That kind of thrill alone is short-lived and shal-
low –(see Mortal Kombat). What Street Fighter
encourages is much deeper; when you beat your
challengers at the local arcade, you can feel with
brutal clarity that it was your superior command
of the arcade stick, your elevated understanding
of cross-ups and high-low mixups and character
matchups, and your calm balance of offense and
defense that delivered your victory.
Street Fighter gamers treat their games
like sports, for the most part. Some of us play
casually to blow off steam and enjoy the game,
others play semi-professionally because they
can win tournaments consistently. We talk excit-
edly about the latest strategies and combos
employed by upper-echelon players in impor-
tant matches, and review hours and hours of
combo videos and tournament footage. We bond
with other people over the game, and then go
and eat dinner together at the local Denny’s
afterward. We develop regional and animosities
toward each other that fuel rivalries and keep
things interesting. And we cannot, as a rule, re-
sist the siren temptation of stopping by arcades
when we travel - especially to other countries
- to size up the competition and see if we can’t
pick up a few new tricks to wow the guys at
home. Some of us even bet on the damn tour-
naments. This is a group of people that take
their games pretty seriously, and it was this
112 The Gamer’s Quarter Issue #3
community that caused me to mature from a
tech porn gamer - the type who drool over specs
and read IGN - to someone who can just love
the game.
Three years or so after getting serious
about Street Fighter, though, I had to leave the
beautiful urban mishmash of the San Fran-
cisco Bay Area for the rolling strip malls and
desolation of Southern California for college. I
immersed myself in school - the classes, and the
people, the clubs and activities. I gradually be-
gan to wean myself from Street Fighter; I’d play
once a day to keep myself sharp, then maybe
once a week - go to the arcade a few times
a month, no more. There were new things to
keep my interest, and I had seen way too many
dedicated Street Fighter gamers sacrifice their
grades every time a new mixup or unblockable
or combo was released to the general public.
But I needed something to channel that care-
fully cultivated desire for competitive gaming
into. I had tried teaching my roommates to play
Capcom vs. SNK 2 and even Soul Calibur II but
nothing seemed to stick.
And then while browsing the class catalog
for the upcoming semester, my eyes lingered on
a Shotokan Karate class.
The next two semesters saw me learning
Shotokan Karate, which led to ground-fight-
ing in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which in turn had me
watching the no-holds-barred Ultimate Fighting
Championship. Two years after beginning with
Karate, I am spending my post-sophomore sum-
mer training in American Boxing and continuing
BJJ for a combined four hours a day with the
goal of reaching a complete fighting system
that includes elements from collegiate wrestling
and Muay Thai Kickboxing as well. What I have
discovered in mixed martial arts is in many ways
an extension of what I found in Street Fighter;
it satisfies the childhood desire to learn how to
fight and to practice fighting without actually
hurting someone, it provides a game for me
that is as deep and individualized - if not more
so - than anything ever found in an arcade, it
provides a great community that brings people