NeoN8ism

Whenever locals hit a bit of a dry spell, I see people jump to a few standard conclusions as to why. Things like the quality of modern games, to the mindset of young players or even a lack of content (looking at you Street Fighter) are often pointed to as culprits for when local attendance numbers are down. While I do think that stuff plays a part as to why locals can struggle, it is by no means the whole story. The FGC doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and things outside of fighting games and the culture surrounding them will have a great impact on your scene’s growth or lack thereof. So, I wanted to list out some things that I have identified as being the political interests of a local Fighting Game Community.

Why am I doing this? Because I believe that the FGC as it currently is, is extremely passive, but it doesn’t have to be. I believe that if you can identify the things that your local scene needs to grow and maintain itself, then your local FGC can exert influence over your local politics and push to get those things done. How exactly to do that I do not have the answer to, but identifying your needs is the first step. This post has a few of what I see as broadly applicable political interests of an FGC, but it is by no means exhaustive, and every local scene will have their own specific lists. Also, this will be focusing on scenes in the USA, since I wouldn’t be able to speak on other countries.

Affordability

This is a simple one. A local FGC needs players who have expendable income to pay for equipment, games and venues. A higher cost of living, will obviously lead to less expendable income for the playerbase, and thus hosting local games becomes a much taller order. If you’re struggling to put food on the table, buying a new $70 game is out of the question for yourself, let alone for a community setup.

This is also closely intertwined with the working conditions of your playerbase. They not only need to be able to afford participating in the scene, but they need to have the time and energy to do it too. If their working conditions are particularly bad, it could hinder their ability to regularly attend locals, which would in turn hinder the growth of the scene.

Affordability doesn’t just affect you at the individual level though, it also affects where you’re playing. As stated above, a local FGC is interested in all the costs of living being low in the interest of its players, but it is especially interested in keeping electricity costs low, as you’re going to be using a lot of it.

A walkable, desegregated community

If you want to go to your locals, you need to be able to get there. No shit… but if you need a car to reasonably get to your locals, that is hugely limiting to the growth and sustainability of your scene. If you need a car to get to locals but don’t have one, you will need to either spend more money on something like an Uber or you need to carpool with someone who does. An Uber will increase the cost of going to locals for that person substantially, which makes them less likely to show. Carpooling, while way cheaper and great for community building, is unreliable. If the person who you carpool with stops going, you’re back to square one. Or what if no one in your FGC lives close enough to you for carpooling to make sense?

Segregation compounds this issue. If you have highways ripping through your neighborhood, built to serve those who live outside of it, getting to a local is even harder without a car. Furthermore, if your community is distinctly segregated, your pool of players, organizers and leaders is being fractured and choked off.

if your local community is instead built around humans, this problem does not exist. If you can take public transport or bike to your locals, a lot more people will be there more consistently. Therefore, robust public transport and proper bike lanes are things that local FGCs are highly interested in seeing become reality.

A safe and secure playerbase

If you want to go to locals, you need to be alive and free. This means that a local FGC is existentially threatened by police brutality and ICE. A local scene cannot thrive if its members are at risk of being stolen off the streets by masked men. A local scene cannot thrive if its members are at risk of being killed every time they interact with police. Therefore, both ICE and the systemic racism of cops are a threat to the growth and sustainability of the FGC and local scenes have an inherent interest in seeing them dismantled.

Those are the main ones that I have come up with for now. Of course there are dozens more interests that I could list, and every local scene is going to have its own unique list of interests, but these are what I believe to be the most broadly applicable ones.

The FGC has the power to advocate for itself and its members, we saw this with the outpouring for Ludim a community member who was detained by ICE recently. However, that energy can be harnessed and pushed towards your local scene. This is only step one, next we need to come up with a plan to put this into action.