Godlike Entertainment places our Analyze Cube on EVO’s Top 8 Mexican MODOK, TA Frutsy, Team World UMvC3 competitor
By DMG Bobby “Blacktastic” Cruz, SB staff writer
Special thanks to Esteban “VS Wolf” for translation for Frutsy!
We also have the exciting announcement that Frutsy’s two close friends and fellow top players from Mexico, EM Taekua (9th at EVO 2012) and VS Wolf, will be making the trip to SBa as well! We’re honored to be hosting them and looking forward to helping them represent Mexico’s community to the whole world!
GE: How excited are you to be returning to American shores to compete at Season’s Beatings: Ascension?
Frutsy: I am very excited! It’s incredible to me that all of this is happening. I am really happy I got invited into the event and it will be my honor to participate and do my best.
GE: Which players from around the globe would you like to see on Team World with you for the 5-on-5 exhibition against the U.S.?
Wow, that’s a tough decision! I personally don’t know who is the best but it would be an honor if I could fight side by side with Chou, Abegen, and Zak Bennett….wow thinking about it its too much people I would love as partners !
Captain America. MODOK. Taskmaster: How long have you been using this team? What were other teams you experimented with before sticking to this one?
I have been using this team since a bit before UMVC3 came out, I used to play Taskmaster/Akuma/Amaterasu, but I always find myself playing different teams because I love playing with random select!
Do you feel like you would have to make an adjustment to your team in order to perform better in upcoming tournaments like Season’s Beatings?
No, I feel it’s a really same team that has a lot of potential yet to be explored.
Is there anything in particular that you learned from your EVO performance that will help better your game at Season’s Beatings: Ascension?
I learned to stay patient and mix up my game, hopefully these skills will help me at the tournament.
Will there be any other games that you would like to compete in?
Not at the moment, I want to focus on Marvel so I can have a better performance at the tournament and its events. If I was to play something else though, it would be KOF.
If there was anyone you would like to face in a FT10 Exhibition match, who would it be?
Chris G, I really have a strong desire to play him since a while ago, because I didn’t have the chance to play him at EVO and I feel he is a really great player.
EVO-Related:
Was this EVO 2012 the first Evolution tournament event that you’ve attended? If so, how was the experience?
Yes, this was my first EVO. Las Vegas is a beautiful city, interacting with players from around the world is awesome, the tournament has excellent organization, there is hype every match and there is always something fun to do there! It was an incredible experience.
What was going through your head when it was almost time for EVO Top 8 to begin for Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3?
Honestly, I was just thinking about how incredible it was to be there and was really excited to play.
Who was your toughest match in EVO Top 8, win or lose?
Definitely Combofiend, his defense is excellent and he truly is a master of the game and a legend!
Who is the player you most want to run back a match with, either from tournament or side match?
I would love to run it back with Combofiend since he is a great player. I wouldn’t mind playing Marlinpie again at all too. Oh and I would really like to play Justin Wong since I didn’t get a chance to fight him at the tournament.
Personal Background:
How did you come up with the tournament handle ‘Frutsy’?
Not really sure why my friends gave me that name, but that’s what my friends from where I played used to call me for some reason, so I guess you need to ask them. The name just kind of stuck xD.
How long have you been playing fighting games, and which was your first you started competing at seriously?
I have been playing fighting games since 1990 (since I was 5). My first competitive game was MVC2 though.
What’s your favorite food and drink?
Undisputedly, my favorite food is Steak Tacos with Oaxaca cheese on them! As for drinks, if we are talking about alcohol then I like whiskey, if not then there’s nothing like a good old Pepsi, like the one I’m drinking at the moment xD!
What are some other things you enjoy doing other than competitively playing fighting games?
Hang out with friends, go to parties, go out with girls and just relax during my free time (even if I almost have no free time haha). I really enjoy just staying calm and relaxed.
Frutsy concludes:
“Thank you for everything, it really is an honor to be invited for the event as well as being wanted on the team, thanks!”
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State of the Fighting-Game Community
By Chris Hatala “Ghaleon”, Season’s Beatings Director
TLDR; As we run Season’s Beatings: Summer Slam this weekend, instead of asking fans to whore out our hashtag, I wanted to present another option: just tweet #fgc2me to build some positive press about what you love about the fighting-game community. Share SB stories, EVO stories, local stories; whatever you love about our scene!
I don’t speak publicly about Season’s Beatings’ directors’ opinions on the fighting-game community. My business is to attract the world’s best talent to Season’s Beatings and run an event that hundreds compete in and hundreds of thousands will want to watch across the world. Politics, drama and stirring the pot on twitter are not our business.
But I’m taking this opportunity – our first-ever Season’s Beatings blog post in 6 long years – to talk about my disappointment with the media coverage the fighting-game community has received of late.
Why? To reaffirm and rally players around what makes the FGC special: a culture born from Street Fighter II in 1991, that reached unimaginable heights with Marvel vs. Capcom 2 hype and the Daigo/Justin Parry from EVO 2004, and that continues today with the explosion of the Street Fighter IV era.
Calling the FGC a “A Vile, Intimidating Culture” is ignorant and across-the-board inaccurate:
EGM’s writer based his recent negative piece on the FGC on an incident from Capcom’s Cross Assault and one man’s bad experience over a short period of time in 1991, at a single location. He used those to judge 20 years of a culture that has touched millions of people in positive, unique, life-changing ways.
Ironically, it’s actually mainstream gaming which typifies what the author calls a “vile, intimidating culture”. Spending any time online with Call of Duty/Halo or reading YouTube/game news comments exemplifies this. The FGC is the complete opposite, and proving why is simple.
Why do people feel free to spew offensive slurs and cry about their performance and “cheapness” over the Internet? Easy: because they will never meet you or the people they’re offending in real life.
But the FGC is built on in-person communication and interaction, unlike the “more cerebral” competitive games played alone behind a monitor, in an isolated world. Competing in the FGC means you must learn to positively associate with and learn from people of different cultures, races, and backgrounds to fully participate in it.
I learned this from my first days as an arcade goer, with my mom taking me downtown to Cleveland’s main arcade. I started going to arcades when I was an abnormally short, white, 7-year-old kid from the suburbs, with huge glasses to boot. Obviously I got made fun of through grade school for being a videogame nerd.
But at the arcades, teenagers from the ‘hood, preppies, frat boys – at every machine I played on across Ohio and across the country (on family trips), I was treated as an equal among fighting-game players. I always expected teasing or harassment, but it never happened. Because fighting games are a meritocracy. Prove you’re serious; if you can compete, people will respect you.
You need to leave your TV and travel to play fighting games at a high level and compete in national events, still to this day. This inherently makes the FGC a collection of more social, tolerant people, because you learn how to get along with people of completely different upbringings than you — you see them multiple times through the calendar year, and you learn that people really aren’t that different.
Racism, sexism and GLBT remain hot-button issues in today’s society. Regardless of what happened on Cross Assault – the crude acts of individuals – most FGC members should agree that we foster a community of tolerance.
Sexism: How many women do you see competing in other gaming leagues? In professional sports? In our sports-driven culture, it’s men who are pushed from an early age to compete. It’s predominantly men who compete in videogames. We can’t change that. That is NO excuse for the sexist actions as seen on Cross Assault, but sociology alone answers (in my eyes) why we have a lack of females in the FGC.
Discrimination: The FGC is the largest melting pot of socio-economic statuses and personalities a group can possibly be. Unemployed, wealthy, black, white, Asian, Latino, trendy, nerd, Hollywood, cross-dressers, shy, gregarious, skinny, XXXL – this alone describes a small sample of top players alone, let alone the millions drawn to FGC competition across the world. There is no class or race warfare in the FGC; there is “KO” and “You Win”.
Why the videogame media has ignored the FGC, until now:
We don’t have million-dollar pots; we can’t shower writers with prizes or plane tickets to get our events noticed; and most events have barely marketed themselves outside of SRK until now.
I was a paid editor on Ohio State’s daily newspaper, and I’ve written for a public-relations firm. I know that it’s easier to report negative news. It stands out; it gets people talking; people love to condemn others. We look small and disorganized to an outsider comparing us to MLG or StarCraft leagues.
But these negative articles are complete misrepresentations of our community, written by reactionary outsiders who have never been to, know nothing of and care nothing for our community and finest events.
But these guys have a voice, and it’s louder than ours. And now they’re waiting for us to screw up again so they can tell their readership about what unorganized thugs, children, and pigs we are, and we can all sit at home on Xbox Live, shut up and sit and be told how great the next Call of Duty and Madden will be.
Well, I’m not going home. I’m gonna stay on my BLOG — and I’m going to MAJORS — and I’m going to kick this son-of-a-bison negative press so HARD, the next Kotaku intern is gonna feel it. So who wants to go home, and who wants to rep the FGC with ME!
Tweet and tag #fgc2me and post why you participate in the FGC, whether it’s for the last 20 years or the last 2. Show the videogame media what they’ve been ignoring for way too long, and what makes our community special.
Thanks to FGC: I found the career I was born for (special events), learned to achieve and thrive under pressure, and taught me I can find common ground with anyone. #fgc2me