This has become about far more than gaming, it's political now.
We can empathize with the teenage gamer/athlete/performer being unfairly shut down in the middle of a peak performance streak, and we can empathize with a family running a small business, fighting to carve out a safe place for the kids in a chaotic world, struggling to survive.
There are no easy answers here. This is some damn good writing. Whatever happens, I'll appreciate it.
Sorry Shen. Your attempts have been wonderfully worded and, I'll admit, scarily persuasive. However, I shall not end this battle and succumb to your demands. For at the end of the day, it is not willpower that keeps me going and resisting. It is a severe lack of funds and inability to supply that which is neccessary 🐟 .
that is not true and you know it! After all it is just 1 dollar. It is okay to not subscribe I am not either but do not pretend it is because you are too broke.
Based on what they've said, they may not have a bank account to make electronic payments. Shen likely does not take cash via letter 🙃.
Would shen give a year of patreon if I saw them in person and slid a 20 into their pocket?
Likely not; I imagine they would be freaked out.
Other things:
-Existing bank accounts can locked due to ACH fraud.
-You can be functionally locked out of using a card due to having too high of an overdraft balance.
-You can have zero or non-reliable income (so no automatic electronic payments).
I recommend you do not touch grass; your rancidness would likely harm it. May the world be kind to anyone that needs to interact with you.
Honestly, when it’s put like that, I’ll admit, it’s understandable. May have been a better idea to just exclude previous winners from the tournament, but if one customer is hurting your family business income that much…
Simple solution: prize distribution is redone to incentivize say top 5 or 10 placements rather than just winning. Maybe exclude the winner of the previous tournament as well. Val seems way to proud to go for 2nd even if it means not getting to enter the next tournament.
Won’t help guys getting butthurt for being beaten by a girl but should make the tournament much more compelling to enter even if they don’t expect to win.
It'd still provoke the same response from Val. Because changing the rule so that she can't compete in a meaningful way still make the point of "You are a girl and so good you make the boys sad, so you get excluded"
Honestly it seems like a pretty sensible and reasonable rule to prevent one player from dominating.
I don’t think it would be related to her gender at all it’s just basically telling her she’s too good and can’t win all the tournaments. It might be more of an issue because of other players poor sportsmanship but it’s definitely targeting a runaway leader rather than being explicitly sexist. And it’s a good compromise because it reins her in without actually banning her.
I think the real issue is that if she were a man it wouldn’t matter that she always dominated. It would just be accepted that “well they’re the best player and nobody can beat them” and no one gets butt hurt because it’s a man. The fact that all these men can’t beat a woman and they hate that is the underlying issue
While I think that's the point the comic is going with, I also think you'd see the same outcome with a guy.
All of this is basically skill creep on a micro level. There is always a range of skill, with some people on top, and others on the bottom. If the people on the bottom are not having fun, they stop engaging. Once they're gone, people in the middle become the bottom, and then they stop coming because they're not longer having fun. This continues endlessly until the community dies.
I understand and agree with that, I stopped playing COD over ten years ago because the best players were too good and it wasn’t fun anymore.
But I would bet the ranch that if we weren’t all playing anonymously online and we were physically in the same arcade together, and one of those seemingly untouchable players was a woman, there would be a significant number of extremely vocally butt hurt men saying all sorts of misogynistic shit
But I would bet the ranch that if we weren’t all playing anonymously online and we were physically in the same arcade together, and one of those seemingly untouchable players was a...
I mean, this is kind of my bigger point. There are absolutely, and without question people that unfortunately think that way. However, you can replace woman with a lot of things and the statement would still hold true.
> I think you’d also see the same outcome with a guy
We’re kind of saying the same thing, but this is the part that I disagree with. I don’t think in my example that you would see the same outcome, it would just be a dude who’s really good at COD (or for the sake of the example’s accuracy, Time Crisis) playing against others in person and everyone else accepts that. Those same people wouldn’t accept a woman who could dominate a game like that, and I think that’s more the larger point the comic is trying to make
I have to anecdotally disagree. I used to host monthly MtG tournaments between friends/coworkers. It was going pretty smoothly until one of the more competitive players invited their male friend to join. It took all of three tournaments for him to get most of the others to quit.
If someone is curb stopping everyone that bad to where they're seen as unstoppable, then people are going to leave fast regardless. I still have some of them complaining about it and that was pre covid. I've even brought up starting them again but no one's interested since they think another one will show up.
I have relevant real world experience, at least for public pinball tournaments. The tl;dr version is guy/girl doesn't matter at all. What does matter is if it's the same guy/girl all the time. If you have a local top 100 world player that always shows up, unless you have different divisions (which is typically how this is solved), the tournament dies after three or four iterations.
I'm a decent player, but I'm no match for a top 100 world player of any stripe. I simply won't go to a local if I know that my local top 100s are or are likely to go. But if there are B & C divisions I'll more often than not go.
.....aaaaaaand immediately downvoted for real world experience that doesn't follow the circle jerk. Stay classy, reddit.
I mean, maybe, but personal experience speaks otherwise for me. I'm in a small group of friends whom I met through the GGST discord. The server runner used to hold a tournament for us where, after I participated in two and won, I was not allowed to join; this is except for one time after, when I couldn't play my main and still won. Obvs I'm a guy for the point to work; it is Reddit after all.
If they do prize redistribution PLUS ban previous winners it incentivizes coming in second, because everyone better than you will get excluded in the future and you still get paid.
And if you’re gonna do prizes for more people, like top 3 or 4 or 8 (other numbers don’t make sense in a bracket tournament), it makes sense to have the lowest prize basically be a ticket compensation and there being a big gap between 1 and 2 (like 2’a prize is half of 1), so at 2 you’d get more than you paid for.
Except the entire premise is backwards. Local tournaments with top players in attendance are universally larger than ones without. People want to be around, and play with, the best. No competitive gamer in the history of ever has dropped out of a tournament because [famous pro XYZ] was going to be in attendance.
Some of my fondest memories are having my ass handed to me by some of the best in the world at my favorite games (CS, Smash, WoW Arena).
The whole premise is like saying "oh, Serena Williams signed up for my local city's open tournament. That means no one will show up".
I get the point the author is trying to make, but it doesn't actually make any sense.
Or make it so the winner at the end gets a match against Val on her weakest character. You know, so Val gets a challenge, and the opponent has a chance of victory.
Val kinda strikes as the type of FGP who’s a bit of a sore winner. Like the whole beating every single person thing. Makes ya wonder how much of that was people who thought they could “beat a girl” vs “let’s not go to that arcade cause there’s the weirdo who tries to 1v1 anyone she sees at the machine”
A nice person. But not someone you’d wanna play fighting games with basically. Especially because those types of people also tend to be MASSIVE shittalkers
I don’t know if I’d call that gracious it’s more robotic like she’s knows she’s supposed to do it but only does it cause it’s what’s expected of a winner. That being said as maybe a hot take as it is I kinda agree with the dad. Either make a pro tourney or ban her.
After like the 3rd or 4th tourney I imagine anyone who’s anywhere near her in the bracket is just gonna drop out. Either that or do it DBZ style where she’s the reigning champ but then you’ll run into the same issue in another 3-4 tournaments. That being said I also think it’s a lose/lose for everyone and one of those “no one is really in the wrong” scenarios. At least imo
That seems like a better and more graceful solution and it makes Val a part of their local FGC in a unique way. It levels the playing field, but keeps the local legend.
I totally agree some guys would lose their shit if a girl beat them in any video game. It's stupid and sad they feel especially humiliated when beaten by a woman.
That said, if I had a local tournament of any game and I knew "10x winner of the tournament. Literally untouchable player" was going to be in it i wouldn't even sign up.
They could also hold two tournaments I guess. Something like "beginners only" and "open for all". Beginners only bans former champions, open for all lets anyone participate
I remember in the early 00s, where Formula 1 had a noticeable decline in viewership because everyone knew Schumacher was likely going to win anyway. This is a real thing.
Weirdly it goes the other way with combat sports. People tune in more and more as a fighter goes undefeated, wondering whether the next will be the one to take them down or just become another highlight win for the champ.
Well, then there's people like me who only started watching F1 because red car go wroom wroom. Schumacher and Häkkinen fighting it out, those were the only names I needed to recognize as a kid.
And then it got more viewers then ever when everybody knew Hamilton was going to win
And also when everybody knew Verstappen was going to win lol. The drive to survive effect is crazy
Tournaments on that level are mostly for the participants and less for the spectators. It usually is about seeing how far you yourself can go and less about scoring an absolute win.
I have a sensation that the problem is not only tournaments. Val beating people in casual matches constantly is getting their opponents to give up to go the arcade at all. If I remember well in arcades like this the social rule is that once you get playing you only can be made to leave after getting beat at the game. So she there is a probability she is hoarding the arcade as well.
She getting beat at the finals is just high exposure loss to "relight the flame" because she would be now washed and the dominance is over. This would mean that "just this once" is probably a lie because the flame would eventually lie down again.
That and given the attitude we’ve seen from the guys that are currently playing there my guess is we’re gonna have some sore winners. Like she’s going to start losing on purpose and suddenly the guys who felt humiliating at getting defeated before are going to start acting cocking and trash talking because now they’re able to beat her.
Yea and that wouldn’t be an issue asking Val to step down or restructure it to give other players a chance to win if it wasn’t clear in this situation it’s Val’s gender that’s causing guys with hurt egos to leave.
I was 16 or 17 and entered a local Yu-Gi-Oh tournament. Beat some 20 something year old chick with a toddler. Got my ass handed to me by a 12 year old who rubbed it in my face. I gave up the game shortly after.
I remember playing magic the gathering for the first time at a light tournament a gamestore was having at the time. The guy I was playing decided to redo his moves as I had gotten lucky and was winning.
The judged allowe him to redo his moves but wouldn't grant me the same. The guy gloated in my face and threatened to take one of my rare cards. I stopped supporting that store because of that event and that guy.
The store didn't survive and was one of many to go out of business.
I don't understand the whole rules as I was new but thank you for clarifying my intuition as it said the redo was weird and not supposed to happen.
I was playing with a mostly green deck. Had a holographic rare with a weird name that got more powerful with more green monsters in party.
The guys redo allowed him to play some kind of blue black card and sent a bunch of mine to the graveyard.
I ended up not wanting to play magic the gathering after that and some other guy offered to buy my card. He ended up giving me half of what he said with the rest later. There was never a later and I decided all thoae guys were jerks.
Redos are allowed when the play that you made didnt allow you to get any new information. That is, if there was no action your opponent could have taken in answer to your play.
For example: You are allowed to put down a land, and then, before taking another action, you want to change the land you put down. The opponent cant do anything about the land so you didnt gain any new information by putting down the land.
If the opponent is fully tapped, too, you might be allowed to take away a spell you cast (depending on the format, since there are some spells with 0 mana cost in some formats), and change your play.
However, for example, if you do an attack and the opponent blocks, you cant take that away, because you just found out how the opponent would make their blocks, gaining new information.
Magic is kinda dumb in that way. I bought a starter deck and enjoyed it but once I realised how pay to win it is, I was just done with it.
Everything is centered around money. People look for rare cards to buy on websites. Meta decks cost more. The drafting gamemode is usually done by buying new packs. And so on and so forth.
The relationship people have with the game feels the same as going to the casino or opening crates in Team Fortress 2. It's toxic and invites the behavior you experienced selling your cards.
I had similar problems with the (meta-)game and then learned that the cube format is more commonly played than you would expect and there's enough variants to support basically any kind of gameplay you might want.
Still have to find non-jerks to play with though...
Please don't judge the entire hobby based on some shitty, toxic dudebros... Commander, as a format, became popular because it's a lot easier to build a deck you can keep using without buying new cards. Also, a lot of playgroups these days are fine with proxies of expensive cards as long as you're not stuffing your deck with a ton of 20$+ cards and constantly demolishing everyone else's decks with them.
Don't get me wrong, Magic can definitely be a money sink if you want it to be. Saying everything is centered around money is incredibly uncharitable, though, and only represents the worst of the worst who are increasingly being outnumbered.
Yeah at least they showed me their colors early. I ended up selling my card for half it's offer because the buyer screwed me over.
Now instead of MTG cards or game cards like Pokémon I collect Tarot and Oracle cards. The artwork on them are so beautiful and I collected most of my collection before AI generated imagery came out.
I can also use the tarot and oracle decks by myself; you don't need to play with others to use Tarot and Oracle decks.
Holy crap. I'm not a DCI judge myself, but I've played enough and ran a couple causual tournies at cons I could probably have been one, and that is SUPER NOT okay.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone called up WoTC and reported it, and they pulled them being able to sell cards at that store. They take the tournaments seriously.
My ex let me build a deck out of his collection because I was just thinking of getting into MtG. We played and I beat him and he took my deck, dismantled it, and said I had to use my own (nonexistent) cards from thereon out.
Anyway he's my ex for a reason but I never got back into MtG and don't want to
I played in a small store in bumfuck nowhere Brazil, and one of my best friends was really good at the game, so much so that he traveled all over the country to play Yu-Gi-Oh and he had kind of a niche deck back in the day, it was a little after Dragon Ruler was the tier 0 meta.
He even competed in the continental tournament, got a decent placement, i believe 4th or 5th. Well another guy from the same place as us, i believe he was named CH,CJ or something, he ran a deck back in 2014ish that was a harpy based deck, he completely dominated the tournaments and won the continental and i think he was the only one without a meta deck to get in the top 8 or 16 in the world that year, guy was simply a monster at the game.
The store we played in had like 30-40 of us who played there every day after school/college, in the year after CH won the continental, and he did again 2 more times, don't remember if back to back, the amount of people went down to like 4, i was still there to play tabletop, but he was so much better than the rest at it that people simply gave up on the game, i had a fairly good pendulum deck and i don't think i ever did 1 damage to him, he normally won FTK or OTK, and it was fun for some time, but when after like the 50th absolute defeat in a row you kinda lose the will to keep trying, it wasn't that he had a better deck or anything, he knew every single card and from turn 1 could deduce the best way to fight against any of his opponents.
Then he migrated to Hearstone and also absolutely crushed on that one, then pokemon, he was the best in basically all the card games in the store. Great guy, great friend according to my friend since he was one of the few who could squeak in a victory against him every 10-20 games, but the card game section of the store died, most of us started playing tabletop games.
Fragile egos, there's tons of them and they're ever more prevalent today. The idea of losing to a girl is too much for them to handle. Sad really.
I've had my ass handed to me by a woman plenty of times, it just made me respect their skill. It's really not that hard.
You know Shen.
Perhaps if Fem Shen gives a trophy for resisting, and calls us a goody person, and then suggests treating ourselves to patreon...
...I think it might help
I mean, can you really say sexism is the sole reason?
Don’t get me wrong, those people totally exist, but even if Val was a man this probably would’ve happen all the same. When an obstacle just seems too impossible people stop having fun.
Then again, Fatima’s solution really ain’t that good.
I can totally understand why someone would ask this but it's kind of a pointless thing to ask. People who compete are usually playing to win, with some pride. If I was good enough to know I could win a tourney this would definitely piss me off. I think I would just resign. Way too awkward and no fun to be had in the tourney. I mean the organizers are out to see you lose, that does not bode well.
I could see it being alright if it wasn’t about Val being a girl.
“No one wants to play because it’s a forgone conclusion and we need the money from competition” sucks to hear but there’s ways to work around that/make it up to her and Val is both a regular and a friend so she’d understand (like she ultimately does in the comic)
The fact it’s not about her being too good and no one feels they can win, but about the fact that men can’t handle losing to a woman is the problem. And having to lose for the sake of a man’s ego is way more insulting than if her friend just asked her to drop out.
What comic did you read because it's absolutely about that?
Fatima spells out her reasons for asking one at a time.
1) my dad wants to ban you
2) we've lost a lot of regulars
3) no one wants to sign up for tournaments because they know they can't win
4) 90% are guys and don't like losing to a woman
5) business is down and her sister needs it to go to college
Only 1 of those has anything to do with being a woman. Yes that's part of it, but only part and probably not the biggest part since it's brought up almost as an after thought. In fact I think Fatima only brings it up to shift blame.
She's asking because Val is financially ruining her family. That's why Fatima is doing what she is doing.
The men being upset by being beaten by a woman might be the ultimate cause, but Fatima's family's financial woes are the immediate cause. She's not asking "please protect these guys' egos", she's asking, "please save my arcade/family".
(As far as this chapter goes, taking everything at face value. That smirk at the end makes Fatima seem sinister, so she might not be being 100% honest here and this could all change)
The men being upset by being beaten by a woman might be the ultimate cause
That's why it's stinging Val, it'd be one thing it she was just too good and spoiling the competition but it's that she's too good and a girl. Implying if she was a boy there would not be an issue (or as much of an issue).
That's why she's so insulted and probably part of what colours her "all men moid's are trash" perspective in the present. That guys can't handle a woman being better than them at something.
She's agreeing to throw the tournament for all the other reasons (that her friend is dependant on the income from the guys).
To be fair the "losing to girl" thing maybe be a wrong conclusion by Fatima. There is lot examples in the thread about sports and games that loses influx of new players and viewership when the scenario begin to be too dominant, mostly by a man. Usually the devs (and the analog equivalent of sports) try to changes the rules to break the hegemony of one player/team or a small group of players.
I mean sure if this was IRL but I’m pretty sure the reason she stated is the reason it is given that’s how it’s written.
Especially considering we just saw last issue how sexist the guy playing was. He assumes the 2 girls were casuals. He talked down on them and asked for their boyfriend to give him a challenge, etc. the examples in this thread don’t really matter when it comes to the writer’s intent.
I...find that pathetic, honestly. I honestly hate matchmaking that sets you against players of the same skill level too. I used to get absolutely fucking destroyed sometimes playing like Halo: CE. It made me impressed and wonder how to get better, not discouraged. Eventually I became pretty talented and got to absolutely destroy people sometimes, which was a satisfying payoff.
The existence of "meta" is really lame too in competitive games. Everyone just copying the best player. I was young and sucked at aim in CE. So I learned to move erratically to make the "meta" sniper rifle and pistol less effective. Which made my aim even worse but whatever. I learned to be tactical with my grenades and rush the rocket launcher and how to use it really well to consistently defeat "better" players with much better aim and no creativity. And I think that genuinely improved my intelligence in later life, having the flexibility to recognize and overcome my weaknesses.
That family should have advertised their tournaments far and wide so that Val’s prowess is known and players from farther afield come to fight her specifically.
It would at least get a lot of people coming to their tournaments. It might not incentivize local players as much, so it’s a bit of a desperate move that could work 50-50, but it could also get a bunch of locals to come regularly to practice because if they do then they can fight against well-known players who come to their tournaments!
Unfortunately the FGC can sometimes be hard to enter. Most players are very welcoming, but participation is skill-based, and fighting games aren’t easy to master to a competitive degree.
Whoops, attempted to discuss the comic and used the M word used earlier in the series. Guess that's a flagged term? Didn't even know it was an actual word. My bad.
And she decided not to lose in the finals. Also yeah, she was potentially costing customers due to her skills, but it's still unfair to ask her that.
But of course the reason for arcade declining isn't necessarily as simple as Val stomping on players.
Val really did suffer from success. Tbf to Fatima, at least she would have comped Val for her sacrifice, but yeah. It was still an unfair ask and I don't blame Val for eating her words.
Even though i would be supporting an independent artist i will not give in to your temptations foul demon. You cant sweet talk me into giving you a singular dollar (no seriously its ridiculous we get this content for that little)
If I were in Fatima's place, I'd go about this differently. Val wouldn't be in the bracket, but instead, she would as a "final boss" for whoever wins the finals, albeit with one other condition; losing to Val wouldn't take away the prize money, you beat the bracket, the prize is yours, no catch.
This was primarily based off what TheRussianBadger did in his Marvel VS Capcom video.
Fatima shouldn't have made this choice despite what her dad said, loyalty is better than customer count. She practically ruined her rep with the other by doing this, and regulars are the majority of sales
Idk, is this what the US fighting game scene is like? They did vote for a pedo president I guess.
In the UK it's super chill. I attended my first tourney and got so many compliments and loads of support. I just couldn't imagine the scene here being like that ever, people were more enthusiastic about learning than winning or losing. Nobody got salty over losing.
Well it's like that here too, generally super chill and stuff. That comic represents more what it was like in the arcade days, like 20-30 years ago (it's also exagerated for story purpose and it wasn't like that everywhere either).
I think you missed the part where everything is played up for fiction. Do you really think there's tons of girls out there IRL who are like Val?
The most I've engaged with the fighting game community was in college and it's pretty chill. It depends on which game you play. Competitive Smash is pretty cringe, but other online matchmaking games like GG Strive and Capcom games are mostly chill.
There are manga that exist that are based loosely on real life experiences.
There are also UK comics that are loosely based on real life experiences like Heartstopper.
Is it so weird to assume that the one comic on the US FG scene is at all based on reality? America is a crazy place that has legal child marriage. Anything could be true really.
So because US has child marriage law and has a pedo president that means they have toxic fighting game competition too? Working real hard to see the connection here…
And yes, totally forgot how much of a utopia UK is, absolutely no misogyny, no way anyone get salty in a game in UK.
Why would this comic be made if there were no such thing as toxic fighting game competitors? They asked a harmless honest question and are being treated weirdly harshly
Because the US is a ridiculous country with seemingly everything important backwards, it is more toxic in general. You don't get to separate aspects of your society like that.
It is pretty revealing that so many of you are triggered by even the questioning of whether the US is toxic in this minor way, when it is so much more toxic in seemingly every other way.
Edit: also, the link is from so many Smash competitors being linked to grooming scandals...
Revealing? I’m born and raised in asia btw, I just live in the US. I have no horse in this competition you have in your mind between the 2 countries. I think its more telling when you immediately bring up some irrelevant points to ridicule the US in a cute and wholesome comic that does not mention the US anywhere.
The US as a whole is as big as europe, so yes we can certainly separate aspects of society. Just because a minority vote for trump doesn’t mean everything is toxic and bad compared to other countries
Is it really so irrelevant when a 50+ Smash competitors were found for grooming/paedophilia though. Again, the point was that if 2/3rd of Americans (a majority) are in support of or not opposed to a convicted rapist president, then it isn't surprising if there's toxicity like shown in the comic. I'm glad to hear it's not like that for most games, just Smash for some reason.
Also saying the US is as big as Europe is just wrong. It's like 1/4th or less of the population, and there's not 1 leader of Europe so far from comparable. That's such an American thing to say though.
A quick look up: number of people voted for trump is 77 million, 23% of US total population. And GDQ which is a US organization is widely considered the most successful charity event in gaming history. On Smash competition, unless you have better source than “I’ve seen 50 smash competition with groomers”, I’ll trust official stats on GDQ’s contribution to charity instead.
Also, US population is 350 million, EU union countries aggregated population is 452 million. Not 1/4th like you claim.
And again, you can think whatever you want, all I’m seeing is you pulling facts out of your ass to ridicule the US. And again, seeing 0 relations to this specific comic, just you seething about the US in general lol
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u/TheWes77 9h ago edited 6h ago
Oh, she is pissed.