Love To Fight

Love to Fight

Edward Sullivan

Anh Vu

Every week, on Friday at 6 pm EST, people of different backgrounds and skill levels from all over Rochester group up in a small room for one purpose: to play fighting games together. Some of them play with the controllers, some others play with laptops, and some others stand behind watching, cheering, and showing tips. All the players who come to these fighting games weekly, locals, enjoy fighting games but more importantly, are building a community around their love for the games.

Participants in local fighting game tournaments of the RIT Fighting Game Community in RIT Institute Hall, Rochester, New York, on February, 23rd, 2024. Photo: Anh Vu.

Participants in local fighting game tournaments of the RIT Fighting Game Community in RIT Institute Hall, Rochester, New York, on February, 23rd, 2024. Photo: Anh Vu.

These fighting game players call this community the “Fighting Game Community”. These locals have weekly tournaments run in different fighting games, which are run by Tournament Organizers, TO.

“I think my first introduction to fighting games was playing Smash Bros with my brother and family, and then I got into other fighting games from there, mostly playing online.”  Danial Kuya, who is the tournament organizer, said. He talked about how he switched into playing fighting games in person more after as well.

Starting off by playing Super Smash Bros. Daniel slowly became closer to the eventual fate of joining the fighting game community. No matter where you come from, the community accepts you as long as you want to play and respect others. Everyone has to start from the bottom and climb their way up to the top. Everyone tries their best to help other players climb to their potential. On his first Rochester local tournament, Daniel found himself receiving advice from those around him.

“The first tournament I went to, which was the one on campus, uh, Zerofest, I lost pretty bad. I remember all the people gave me a bunch of tips on how to play and improve.”

While fighting each other in tournament matches, the community gives each other advice and tips to improve. The love of battling each other in these games drew people closer, and the desire to improve and to become the best drives everyone to help each other. As time passed, Daniel started to spend more time with these people outside of fighting games.

“Pretty much everyone I hang out with after classes is from here, it's a great place to make friends.”

Daniel met his friends through their mutual interest in fighting games and wanted to improve in fighting games. All these people would gather every Friday at 5 pm to set up with fighting game locals, at RIT FGC, for the day. Locals are where anyone can come and play in a tournament or casual games to improve. Anyone from a beginner to an expert trying to hone their craft is welcome. Everyone is trying their best to improve and have fun, but what is everyone improving for?

Bigger than the local tournament would be regional; as the name suggests, these tournaments have players from across the entire region show up to fight it out. Regional tournaments are hosted less often than locals and usually have a larger venue and an increased number of players. Rochester’s Regional is “Upstate Uproar” hosted by A Gamers Nostalgia.

Daniel participated in the latest Upstate Uproar in October 2023 and ended the tournament in third place. While hoping for first place, he was satisfied for the time being with this result. These tournaments help to increase the communication between different smaller fighting game communities.

Player and tournament organizer Daniel in local fighting game tournaments of the RIT Fighting Game Community in RIT Institute Hall, Rochester, New York, on February, 16th, 2024. Photo: Anh Vu.

Belonging to the Rochester Fighting Game Community for years and having participated in Upstate Uproar in 2023 and 2024, Drew shared about the population in Rochester FGC: “Rochester FGC is the most diverse community I have ever seen.”

“Before COVID, the tournaments focused on offline popularity in big cities, which already have diverse people. After COVID, the community became more open and accepting of minorities so it grew in population.”

Rochester Fighting Game Community welcomes people of color, LGBT+. The community actively fights against racism. According to Drew, people get banned from the tournaments for being racist.

Population growth also correlates with game popularity. Being a club member of RIT FGC for four years, Drew observed that the number of participants in the club's tournaments has doubled after the popular games Guilty Gear/Strive and Mortal Kombat were released.

“A tournament is one big cocktail party where people come and drink together”.

Drew was an introvert before he discovered the Rochester Fighting Game Community. People at Rochester FGC always welcome you no matter how different your background is. He has a lot of fun here. He shared an interesting insight: “Last year in the Florida tournament, one guy in NYC set up a big karaoke setup after the tournaments.”

Drew shared that he is not a great team player. Drew shared that he is very competent and prefers one-on-one games instead. The first game Drew played was BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle and ended up with DNF Duel today. He felt a deep community sense when interacting with his favorite game niche community: the DNF Duel players. According to Drew, the Rochester Fighting Game Community was divided by the number of smaller niche communities specialized in one game. People often get connected and make friends in their belonging niche communities.

Participants in local fighting game tournaments of the RIT Fighting Game Community in RIT Institute Hall, Rochester, New York, on February, 23rd, 2024. Photo: Anh Vu.

Every few months, there would be massive tournaments with hundreds, if not thousands, of entrants, which people travel all around the globe to participate in. These massive tournaments are called majors. Majors are the most important events in the fighting game community. 

Participants in local fighting game tournaments of the RIT Fighting Game Community in RIT Institute Hall, Rochester, New York, on February, 23rd, 2024. Photo: Anh Vu.

However, majors have entry fees and can be across the country. Due to this, going to every major is not possible for unsponsored players, those without the backing of a company or organization. Despite these costs, the Rochester local fighting game players, and fighting game enthusiasts across Rochester hope one day to go to one of these majors and show off all of the improvement they have made in their time with the Rochester Fighting Game Community.