Evo 2k8

[buhwhyen]

Its official, no GGXXAC at Evo this year.
www.evo2k.com/

[Pikachu]

That's such a fucking letdown. God dammit.

Edit - Ok, after reading a few posts regarding reactions, here are my thoughts:

The best way for anyone to get through this is probably do what 3S did. 3S did disappear for a year after we were embarassed by the Japanese, after all. I guess I'll have to wait and see what the rest of the GG community does in reaction in the coming months and make my decisions accordingly. I don't think the game is dead unless the entire GG community has an emo breakdown, which I think a portion, at least, will. But good riddance to them.

In the mean time, I'm still playing.

[Duragar]

Whee at finally deciding to log in and look around.

Sucks that Evo2k8 won't have Guilty Gear... but doesn't stop me from wanting to play and get better at it.

If worse comes to worst, we could work on rallying the remainders for a regroup next year. Dunno how dedicated we want to be on this, nor can I guarantee my ability to put forth time/effort into it, but keep in mind that if we have a decent core of players, others will probably be interested in competing as well.

EDIT: by "put forth time and effort," I mean rallying the community. I'm already working on my own gameplay.

[Pikachu]

If people can "stick it to the man" in this case, so to speak, the best way to do it is to hold side tournies and have Guilty Gear at all other major tournaments. Evo is the biggest tourney for fighters in the U.S., but it is NOT the only major.

I am still irked that they'd thrown out GG, because their reasoning honestly doesn't add up. Sure, last year at Evo people showed up late for finals and stuff. That's a very minor portion of the community, regardless of how uncool that was. People not showing up for finals in the community? Well, they claim big name players who weren't in the finals didn't show. Does that mean there were no GG players in the audience? I am not sure the Evo staff recognizes all the faces in the community. Their last bit of reason: time. If players are running late, that makes the community look bad, and this is a slight against GG players I thought was legitimate. But this is still a solution remedied by kicking a few people out of the tourney to teach the majority a lesson.

Other people will argue that the game is less balanced, or average, or it's gay. Subjective ad hominem garbage that can be applied to any game. As big as Evo is, I've worked with fairly large operations in other fields... and business always works the same damn way. No one can argue with numbers. In a year where GGAC is fresh off an American release, the hype should be bigger, and in a more cohesive community, even behavior will be more professional.

If you want to tackle the subject of fanboyism, which GG has a huge share of (not that SF didn't in its heyday), it's completely irrelevant to the inclusion of a game, minus the issue of image. With the inclusion of Brawl, however, I think this is a moot point. If we're talking about objective drawing capabilities, more revenue generated by entry fees, and all that, GGAC should provide more than CvS2, without needing import PS2's anymore thanks to a U.S. release.

I can only think of a few things the Evo staff may not want to be honest about in dropping GG:

1. They want to hit the community in retribution. I think this is less likely, because it's immature to the point of insane irrationality. But did the shit behavior last year influence the staff? Hell yes.

2. They can't support a seventh game. They have come out and said they can only support so many games, which is true. I don't know what their human resource scenario is like, so I reserve judgment on this point. I actually want to attend Evo not just to watch as a fighting game fan, but as a business-minded person. The SRK staff sometimes acts like a corporation, and sometimes like a n00b special interest group who thinks conducting the tourney as a business means they have to do it as a career. Flawed notion.

3. They have sponsors who want more mainstream games. This seems a very likely argument, actually, because sponsors are more uptight about their image. A geeky, fanboy game like GG is cult-favorite enough to make sponsors cringe, especially since these sponsors are not in touch with the fighting game community in a global sense. Even Brawl, an apparently immature game, is so popular that they can excuse it. Why? They're a business, and they want numbers. I would never underestimate the power of sponsor pull.

4. Prominent haters in the Evo community. This is another likely one. Somehow, there's an insane amount of bile reserved for GG. Arcana Hearts will be teased for being feminine. Melty Blood will be called gay. Guilty Gear will be lynched for faggotry. Every game gets insulted, but the ones thrown at GG are quite spiteful. There's good reason for some of it, but in terms of creating a reaction, the hate has just overcome reason. I "hate" 3rd Strike. I don't want to hear "Ey! Ey! Ey! <low forward, super>", or Yun's owl impressions. If I ran a tourney, I'd be damned if I threw out 3rd Strike. If I held an e-sports event, I'd include Halo without a second thought. And even CS.

But of course, the FGC is a passionate crowd, and a mass of people. Masses != reason. The staff who run it do so from a certain perspective which is their strength and detriment. However, they'll still pay attention to unstoppable hype. Smash Bros. made it, and GG will survive as well. On the other hand, I really think SRK.com could use a good marketing division and business minds who also want to help fighters in general.