Street Fighter 6 explodes in Japan, and the 2XKO vs. Marvel Tokon showdown | Extra Trashy - Trash Talk

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Extra trashy time. What's going on?
Everybody listen, I have one question and one question only.
Adam, Are you ready to learn Japanese, buddy, Are you ready?
You know, I know a little bit ofJapanese, been there.
You know, I know I got the Arigatos, I got the Zion.
You know, I have to, I have to say thank you to, you know,
getting some food in Japan. But I am ready because I am

(00:23):
super excited to watch Street Fighter League Japan now.
Are you actually going to be watching Street Fighter League
Japan? Because a lot of people are.
I well, there's so many people in Japan are, I remember Doguru
got fined for saying, you know, I'm trying to watch it Street
Fighter League Japan because allI see is Bison and Akuma.
But you know, hopefully Street Fighter League Japan is going to

(00:46):
be different this year. But you know, I know a lot of
people in Japan have been just watching Street Fighter League
in general because their numbersjust keep going up.
Yeah. So we're bringing this up
because we have been seeing the evolution of the Street Fighter
shakes influence in the Japanesecommunity.
And by evolution, I mean the continuous growth St. for League
Japan just recently had its debut for this season and it was

(01:11):
getting numbers of over 150 K combined viewers on all the
different platforms, which includes YouTube, Twitch, and
then of course all the differentwatch parties.
Yes, the watch parties where we were all memeing on them because
Capcom put out those official recommendations where the only
thing you can include in your restream is the little timer of
the game. You could have that little

(01:32):
square area available from the original broadcast.
You couldn't have any audio. Nothing else would be on the
timer. But that would allow you to
synchronize your viewing experience with other people
watching the main broadcast. Everyone was memeing on them.
But apparently this works. Apparently for Capcom, it works.
And people were tuning in in crazy numbers for that debut.

(01:52):
And on top of that, we just started getting in the
registrants for the first World Warrior for Japan.
And you know, Japan was always way ahead of the pack in terms
of popularity for Street Fighter.
And ever since Street Fighter Six, we already saw this
explosion and popularity amongstdifferent sub communities in
Japan. And the World Warriors are doing

(02:15):
really well, right? They were cracking like 700
entrance per World Warrior events.
The very first World Warrior forthis season is not 700 people.
It's not 800 people. There's over 1600 players
registered for the Japan World warrior #1 which will begin at
the time of this recording next weekend, which is absurd.

(02:40):
Maybe one of the largest all my tournaments ever for the world
of Street Fighter. It might be the the largest I I
don't have the official numbers on that to back that up.
Hey Brian F in post here. It's been 24 hours since the
podcast was recorded and it is now September 1st Monday.
And since that time, the registration for the Japan World
Warrior number one event has officially closed and it has
also gained over 800 new entrance bringing the total up

(03:03):
to 2357 entrance. Fubar Duck here points out that
this has more entrance in the Street Fighter 4 series ever got
at an Evo. And the largest EVO for Street
Fighter 4 was the final one 2015for Ultra Street Fighter four
with 2227 entrance. And Incross here points out that
this is officially the largest ever singles bracket in the FGC

(03:27):
period. Takes over that title from Evo
2021 online North America for Guilty Grist Stride which had
2262 entrance. So this has nearly 100 more
players participating in this event.
The two largest brackets were 5V5 team tournaments, the
Topanga Charity Cup 13 and 14. So those were 5V5.
So you would cut the bracket by 5 divided by that potion to get

(03:50):
the number of raw entrance. But for singles, this tournament
has officially made history, being the largest ever for the
FGC. OK, back to the conversation.
Just that scale of people is ridiculous.
But it's not just that to me. What I'm looking at here is
we're in Year 3. This is the the third season of
competitive Street Fighter Six and at this point in time the

(04:13):
number of entrance has doubled. What is going on in Japan to
have this continuous growth thislate into the game's lifespan?
That's what we're going to dig into a little bit here on this
podcast. But do you did you have any
initial reactions item when you saw that?
Because I was just like, wait a minute, how?
I'm not really too surprised I the Evo Japan numbers keep going

(04:34):
up. I know a lot of people were
saying this year it only went upbecause Evo Japan was acpt, but
you know they love the game overthere.
When I was in Japan for Capcom Co, I'm walking through the the
subways, the train stations and I see Street Fighter six posters
and I see like, Hey, that's Ryu.That's Ryu from the streets on
like random subway. Like when I walk around in, you

(04:56):
know, New York and there's some I go into the subway, you know,
I'll see like random ad for likea movie, you know, a John Wick
movie. Oh, go watch John Wick.
It's different over there because I'm seeing Ryu and John
Lee and other character even during I think during Capcom
cup, I think there was even Fatal Fury posters as well.
But I guess they're gaming over there is so much more different

(05:19):
than it is over here. Yeah, I mean, in general what
you bring up is true. Like I think even before Street
Fighter Six, the the cultural influence of gaming and anime
and entertainment products is like very different.
Like, you know, it's just normalto see merchandise and
references to long and storied IPS like Street Fighter in

(05:40):
Japan. You do see the merch randomly
where you go, right? And I think that was also true
pre Street Fighter Six. Like, were you telling me
whatever the, the, the world Warriors, they were just a part
of the the zeitgeist of culture there in Japan and that
continued to grow into Street Fighter six.
I mean, we used to see this in Street Fighter 5 all the time.
The most random collaborations for merchandise would happen

(06:04):
even in late Street Fighter fivewhen, you know, the game wasn't
really doing as hot, especially over in the States.
And I felt like the game was like clawing its way back to
relevancy after COVID because, you know, the bubble of E sports
had pops. COVID slowed things down and
they were slowly like ramping the game up to be a good
product, which I think they did achieve.

(06:24):
Like I personally like Street Fighter 5 was really good
starting in like 2020-2021. I really enjoyed those later
seasons. And so they were kind of getting
back their St. cred in the US inthe later seasons of Street
Fighter Five. But then you would see in Street
Fighter in Japan, you would see like random watch collabs,
random drink collabs. They just license that IP out to
anybody in Japan. So there's always this like

(06:47):
constant stream of strange collaborations in merch coming
in the Japanese audience and seeing.
So that's normal to see. But then come Street Fighter
Six, it like started to translate into people actually
entering the tournaments and, and, and being becoming part of
the scene. And he brought up a good point
about the, the tournaments, right?
So I, we have some stats about the largest tournaments for

(07:07):
Street Fighter Six. Of course, number one is Evo
Vegas 2023 / 7000. People enter that tournament.
And that makes sense. The most common trajectory for a
lot of competitive games in the the FGC is the first year's the
biggest, right? It's it's the most hype, the
most excitement. A lot of people register before
the game is even out, right? Like, I registered for Fatal

(07:28):
Fury at Evo this year. I didn't make it to my pools.
I had, I had some scheduling conflicts or whatever, but you
know what I'm saying? Right, I see what you mean.
I, I, I get it. I get it.
It happens every even even even games like DBFZ.
Man, I remember final round, thefirst final round after DBFZ
released, I got through my poolsand winners playing one match.
That pool had at least 30 peoplein it.

(07:48):
None of them showed up. They all.
It got dequeued because they allregistered when they're hype and
it doesn't always translate the people showing up to play.
So that's to be expected. But then we see that for this
year, EVO 2024, if we follow that trajectory actually.
So EVO 20237000, EVO 2024, Vegas5279 EVO 20254000233A steady

(08:12):
decline in entrance for EVO Vegas.
Obviously, this is paired with like a lot of geopolitical
situation at the economics. There's a lot of stuff happening
in the world that could influence those numbers as well.
But in general, this is a trend you see for every fighting game.
Evo Japan However Evo Japan 2024the first Evo Japan for Street
Fighter 65000 entrance still behind Evo 2024 Vegas.

(08:35):
So that year Evo Vegas still hadmore entrance.
Evo Japan 2025 had 6661 entrance.
It increased by 1600 players. The numbers went up and it
actually had more entrance by a factor of 2400 than Evo 20/20/25
Vegas. If this keeps up, I mean, we're

(08:59):
seeing it in the World Warriors,we're seeing it in Evo Japan.
Evo is a, a cultural cornerstoneof the FTC.
For decades it's been about Evo Vegas, right?
They added Evo Japan in 2018 andit was slowly trying to build
that prestige, even though you could argue the competition's
probably on average much higher in, in Japan.
But the level of international talent travelling there was

(09:20):
usually a little bit less. It was it was more of the the
local talent, which is the majority of the best players on
the planet, of course, But man, it's it's it's it's starting to
replace evil Vegas for sure. I mean the entrance are there,
the numbers are going up and up and you're seeing the organic
growth within Japan itself in those numbers as well.
So that's kind of crazy to me. Like I don't know if you expect

(09:42):
this to go up another thousand next year.
I personally think maybe by the time SF6 keeps growing like
this, Evo Japan could possibly hit 10 Ki think it could might
be the first 10K entered Street Fighter tournament.
But I, I'm, I'm very curious to see because not just talking

(10:03):
about Evo Japan, I want to see the evo France numbers because
that is actually coming up fairly soon.
So I'm curious to see how other parts of the world are kind of,
you know, putting into the, you know, Street Fighter six basket
because from, from my opinion, or at least just my experience,
I don't know how you feel about this.
I saw, I think Harado was talking about there's more

(10:24):
Tekken player in EU than there is Street Fighter player.
But you know, if you go from, ifyou go to other countries, I
think there's more Street Fighter players in Japan than
Tekken player, obviously. So I I want to know if it's like
a a cultural different game. Like oh man, you know EU doesn't

(10:45):
like Street Fighter but you knowthey love Tekken over there for
some reason. Interesting.
Maybe Tekken Tekken might have more entrance than Street
Fighter at evo. EUI mean Evo France, not Evo.
I never considered that. Has there been an EVO where
Tekken had more entrance than Street Fighter was?

(11:05):
Maybe like a Evo Japan for in the Street Fighter late Street
Fighter five era? Did Tekken 7 crack more
entrance? I want to say.
I want to say no, I don't. I think so.
Maybe early, early on, or maybe one of the latest Street Fighter
five years, but I I'm actually unsure.
But. Yeah, I think I think for it's

(11:28):
so much cultural things and likeI said, Japan has been trying
to. I think it's also like a lot of
the Japanese pro players have been just trying to get, you
know, newer players into the game, which is kind of helping
the scene grow. Like I don't think everything
they do over there is necessarily competitive.
So whether you're a pro player or like old, you're still going
to be invested in trying to learn and get into the game in

(11:51):
general. So I think that's kind of
helping a lot. They don't have, you know, super
serious tournaments. That's why stuff like say, Jam
Slam over here is super important because it's getting
people into the game that I don't want to say you don't have
to be good, but you don't have to be like, you know, top .1% of
the player base, you know, trying to, you know, fight for
scraps and you know, get throughit at EVO because he got beat up

(12:14):
by some Chilean kid, you know, first looks for it.
Yeah, no, I actually 100% agree.I think the big analysis here
from people looking at the cultural phenomena of that
street part chicks has become because it's broken containment,
to be quite clear, just to, to break it down, this is no longer
a niche subculture even within Japan.
And even in Japan, of course, itwas always bigger than it was in

(12:35):
America, right? Except for in the 90s, like
Street Fighter two in the 90s broke containment.
It became a cultural phenomena. At that time, everybody knew
what Street Fighter was. It was in every laundromat,
every pizza parlor, right? The arcade cabs were everywhere.
Street Fighter 2 was just a partof these cultural zeitgeist of
that era. Street Fighter Six has become

(12:55):
that again in Japan and it's dueto, I believe two factors,
modern controls and V tubers, right, sort of, sort of like
what you're saying about the Sagem slams, right, because they
the the community in Japan has heavily capitalized on community

(13:15):
driven events. So like we have Sagem slam in
the the state side and Japan, they have several slammed style
events, right? There's crazy Raccoon Cup,
there's legend disc, there's a reject Fight Night, which they
even did the Sagem Slam versus reject Fight Night championship
in Japan at one point to like have a crossover between the
different regions communities. And these events involve a lot

(13:38):
of like really popular streamersand content creators in the
Japanese sphere. And from some of the discussions
I've had, like I've made YouTubecomment content about this and
discussed it on stream. And I get comments actually from
Japanese natives who like leave comments in Japanese and they
they describe their perspective on this and they say yeah.
And Japan, like streaming culture is very, very popular in

(14:01):
Japan from from what these comments and, and people have
informed me of, and it's very common to just watch your
favorite V tuber, watch your favorite streamer and to be that
influencer culture of being influenced by your streamer to
partake in a certain hobby or game is extremely prevalent,
right? And, and, and it's leading to a
lot of people picking up the game for the first time.

(14:23):
So modern controls was lowering that barrier to entry to get
people to easily start picking up the game and dabbling and it
to some degree. And then there's the
partnerships between the popularstreamers and pro players.
They were able to organize theseevents to involve these very
influential figures in the streaming space that gets more
people invested into the game and it's working like it's

(14:46):
really, really working. And these events, these streamer
influencer events, they also crack 150K, almost 200 K
viewership. They start bringing in bringing
in more numbers than EVO pools, right?
Like maybe EVO grand finals is bringing in more numbers, but
these streamer influencer eventsare huge in Japan.

(15:07):
It just it destroys what we're able to accomplish here in
America. And I think save Jim Slam is the
closest thing we have. And I would argue that Satan
slam is also very successful, right.
I think some people like kind ofraise their nose to this whole
concept because fighting games are supposed to be cool and and
niche, but it. Works.

(15:29):
I I think it's just like, I don't know for, I think in a lot
of America, it's like I want to see the best players play.
And the fact that this event is so popular and it's not the best
of the best players, I think that's kind of what's throwing
people for a loop. But I don't think either or is
bad. Like I think there's a time and
place for everything. Like you want to watch the best

(15:51):
of the best. You know, you can watch evil,
you can watch a Capcom Cup. But if for other stuff is, you
know, this event is cool becausenow people who aren't the best
of the best are playing and, youknow, they're having fun.
You know, they're laughing. I I don't think I've ever seen
somebody laugh at, you know, andevil grand finals, They're
stressing the fuck. Yeah, they're stressing out up
there. So you got to show, you know,

(16:12):
there's fun to this. It's all sort of fun.
And when they do laugh, people get pissed off like I've seen so
many comments getting mad about blas laughing.
He plays. I thought that that was so
strange. I I've had so many comments and
I've seen so many Twitter posts about people upset that Blas is
laughing at E sports World Cup right.
It's it's very strange, but you bring up a good point.

(16:33):
And I think those comments, if Iwere to, to guess, are coming
from long standing members of the FGC.
They're already in like they're like as as core as you can get,
right? They're they're, they're in it,
they're in the thick of it. They're playing all the time.
They're embedded in the scene. They're not on the fringes of
casual fans. They're hardcore fans of
fighting games. So of course what they care

(16:54):
about is the high level play. They they're, they are investing
themselves and practicing, learning and becoming high level
players. And they want to watch high
level player, right? That makes sense.
But that's a a percent of a percent of a percent of the
audience of fighting games. And I would probably argue that
they're also older, right? Like there's a whole age gap
cultural divide in the Internet era for younger generations.

(17:18):
Their entertainment comes often through the form of influencers,
like it or not. I think people like to turn
their nose up to that and to saythis is bad and it's stupid and
it's silly, but that works. People want to see their
favorite influencer play a game and have fun with it, and that
influences them to consider trying it out themselves.
I think it's not necessarily agething.

(17:39):
We have a lot of young players in the FGC.
Enzo DOMA, I think he's pretty young.
He just won the World Warrior. W Blas.
Obviously there's a lot of youngpeople who do want to be the
best, but I, I disagree with the, you know, young people are
just, you know, playing to try to, you know, see something
funny. Like for the memes.

(17:59):
I I guess I would say like they're just trying.
To well, I'm not trying to say that that's all that exists.
I'm just trying to say that the people who are saying that they
don't care about the influencer or care about watching these
influencer type of events, I would argue that they're
probably a little bit older on average.
That's what I'm saying. I do agree that a lot of people
who are younger or serious hardcore, we're seeing them now.
But who are who is the audience for these types of events?

(18:22):
Is it the FGC guy who used to play Street Fighter Two back in
the day in the arcades trying towatch, you know, their favorite
V tuber participated in a team tournament led by a coach?
Not usually that that's my argument.
I would argue that generally it tends to a more younger
audience, which is a good thing.Is, is is my point here.
And I think a lot of the dissenting voices would often

(18:44):
come from people who are less removed from influencer culture.
And to me, there's an age gap there.
People who grew up free Internetdon't understand or don't
gravitate towards this influencer all mind streamer
culture, right? I think that's just natural
because you didn't grow up with it.
Whereas younger people, that's what they that's the primary
form of entertainment. You don't have late night show

(19:06):
hosts, you have your favorite streamer and you want to see
what they're playing. So that that's my perspective on
that. I don't have data to objectively
back that up, but I I feel like that's.
Kind of common sense I guess forme I, I will also say one thing
I think that the reason SFL Japan and maybe this stuff is

(19:26):
growing bigger over there and I,I've advocated for this a lot
and I've know people are always saying I'm kind of wrong.
I still think to this day SFLUS should be online and let all the
streamers stream their their point of view because I think
it'll get more people kind of engaged and just watching the
streamer and then like you can, you know, stream hop.

(19:48):
Oh, this guy's playing, let me go to his stream.
This guy's playing, let me go totheir stream.
Because I think stuff like that's kind of better.
That's why I think Japan kind ofhelps because even when you
know, they're playing Bon Chan play his match on stream.
Oh, everyone jump to Bon Chan stream to go watch Bon Chan's
point of view or whoever Bon Chan's playing.
So I think that helps a lot. I don't know why.
In America or EU? I know EU just had the Street

(20:10):
Fighter League live kind of experiment, which I thought was
pretty cool. But I will say one problem with
that is what they did it like a whole week straight or was it 9
days or something? Yeah, it was a marathon.
It didn't feel like it felt likethere was.
I watched like the first three days and then I was like, OK, I
got to watch the Fighter League again and then I was kind of

(20:31):
like tuned out until like Grand Final.
But I think if it's like weekly and online and like, maybe, you
know, make don't make the playernot have to leave their houses
or anything and don't say they can't go to tournament.
But if you could be like every Wednesday at, you know, 8 P 8:00
PM clock in right now or be ready to turn your stream on at

(20:54):
this time, I think that'll help a lot in America.
Yeah, absolutely. It's called the league.
It doesn't make any sense. So first of all, the, the way
that America has done it is theyyes, they did have this weekly
event to tune into, but it's prerecorded.
They they under the hood, they did the marathon.
So EU did Street Fighter League USA was serialized entertainment

(21:14):
over the course of a season, couple months where they every
week they put out an episode of Street Fighter League US Street
Fighter the EU split the difference and said, Hey, we're
going to just do it all live. This is actually under the hood.
What Street Fighter the USA is they do this marathon of filming
multiple episodes a day. Sometimes they film two to three
episodes a day and they split that up over the course of three
weeks. EU decided all at once.

(21:35):
And I think that was a little bit better because when it's not
live, you just don't care. It immediately.
I, I think this I've seen so many chat comments where like
they're watching and they go, isthis live?
And someone goes, no, they go, OK, peace.
Because that's just how people operate.
Like it just it deflates the stakes of the moment.
Like you, you, if you already know it's not live, even if it's

(21:55):
the first time it's premiering, a lot of people just go.
I'd rather just watch a recap orI'd rather just get the summary
after the point. I don't feel involved in the
tension of the moment. And for EU, like you mentioned,
it was a marathon. It doesn't feel like a league.
A league has a season. You have a season.
Imagine if in the NFLNBA, whatever, they're playing five

(22:17):
games a day over the course of one week and that's it, It's
over. Like it doesn't make sense.
The whole point is that you havethe, the, the peaks of
excitement like you mentioned, the weekly event where everyone
tunes in. And then you have the, the
period of time after to digest, to reflect, to be like, man,
what is what? How are they going to adapt next

(22:38):
week? What is the strategy they're
going to do? I want to follow along with the
journey of my favorite team and favorite players and see how
they progress through the seasonthere.
There's time to digest these moments and time to, to follow
along with your favorite team and to actually care about their
performance. And the marathon is too short.
You, you get overwhelmed, You stop caring with the, the USA
format. You don't care from the

(22:59):
beginning because it's prerecorded.
And even then with with Strip ofthe USA, there was so much beef
going on and so much like drama associated with it, with all the
personalities there with like Punk and Noah the Prodigy and
they were, they were holding their tweets for months under
NDA to start talking. The players would then tweet at
each other about their beefs months after they recorded it,

(23:21):
like the Noah crisp beef and allthat.
There were so many silly momentswhere finally the episode would
air where they had like a littleshowdown, stare down or whatever
during the episode, and only then were they allowed to
publicly talk about it. And they would talk about it
months later and it just felt silly, silly.
I, I think, I mean, that's kind of just our Street Fighter

(23:41):
league, though. I feel like our Street Fighter
league kind of leads into the drama a bit more.
But like you were saying, I think I personally think that
would be better. But I think the reason they
don't do that is because they feel like they'll be conflicted
or somebody would, you know, saysomething on stream and be like,
oh man, this guy sucks because he's carried by my or something.

(24:02):
And then like it that looks kindof ugly.
And then they like they can't really can't edit it.
Yeah, they can't edit it or, youknow, take the take anything
out. So I think that's why they
prefer not to do it that way. But I personally think, you
know, it'll be better for just Street Fighter League in
general. And also I will say the the

(24:23):
Twitch collab streams are amazing.
I feel like some of my best streams are when me and comedy
are just, you know, chilling, talking shit, just, you know,
shooting the shit talking. So I think that kind of stuff is
what really gets viewers engagedand, you know, helps grow the
scene and just the the people, the players in general.
Yeah, I agree. I, I think that's what's missing
with our current format in, in USA entirely is that sense of

(24:45):
collaboration and like people just don't care about true for
the league USA, it's not working.
And I, I think 100% of us onlinewould be better on top of the
brand risk factors of American players going off the rails and
then not being able to censor itor not.
Because you want to have, you want to have them miked up and
your broadcast, but then you gotto be ready to, to mute them

(25:06):
even though they lead into the drama.
There's a limit, right? Like, but on top of that,
there's logistical factors. America's big netcode is great.
I think you could do cross country, but also St. part of
the USA is really St. part of the world.
They haven't solved that issue. You got to get them.
Just get them an Airbnb or something.
They'll be all right. They're going to live here for

(25:26):
how? How many months?
Oh, wait. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right.
You're right, You're right. Yeah.
It would have to be, it would have to be months, right?
St. really, Japan works because they're salaried.
They're all living in Japan. This is your job for X number of
months to do this. But if you, I mean, you could
also think about it like this, if you cut the cost of, you
know, they paid for travelling and yeah, they paid for

(25:47):
travelling to go to undisclosed location of where Street Fighter
League is filmed. They pay for, you know, planes
and food and catering and all that stuff.
So you're cutting all those costs if you think about it,
because you know, the players will be at home transportation.
That's true. There is.
There's still money to be playedwith.

(26:08):
Yeah, I think it's just a different cultural expectation.
There's a bit of old media, a mentality I think surrounding
America and I think Japan has really embraced like the
influencer culture and engage with that.
And on top of that, even within Sriper to leave Japan, like
bridging the gap between the influencer LED events, which I
think have gotten a huge amount of players into the game and

(26:30):
have actually gotten them into entering tournaments, which
which to, to credit the culturaldifference there, say JM slam, I
think did is the best we have and is, is very effective and is
successful in America for getting people to the game.
I wonder how many of people who were watching those events ended

(26:50):
up entering the tournaments. I I still think there's like a
it hasn't completed the loop of tying people into the
competitive scene completely. Whereas I feel like in Japan we
have we have actual examples of this because one of the big
storylines from the premier of street fighting Japan is Takagi.
I I apologize if I'm pronouncinghis name wrong.

(27:12):
Takagi. He is a popular originally
variety streamer from Japan who got into late game Street
Fighter Five who was gifted to him.
He was on the tiebreaker match for his team that he ended up
winning. So he went from being a variety
streamer who picked up Street Fighter five initially just on a
whim and worked his way up grinded his way up assisted by

(27:34):
coaching those collaboration streams from top players in
Japan who were coaching him as well.
Like every step of his journey was documented as a streamer
from complete beginner to all the way competing in Street
Fighter League Japan. He ended up winning his his
clutch tiebreaker and that set because you have to have now the
4th place player go up for the tiebreaker no matter what.
So you can't be benched right tochange the rules a little bit.

(27:56):
So it was his time to shine fromcomplete beginner a couple years
before to all the way in street for the league Japan, which is
huge. That's a huge progression in
that amount of time and he won the match.
Huge pop off emotional pop up there.
Everyone who followed with his journey for this these past
couple of years was very emotionally involved.
Like it felt like people were along for the journey documented

(28:18):
bit by bit by bit that completedthe loop, right?
Like the the influencer turned to professional player winning
his open match to clutch the setfor his team, right?
The loop has been closed. Like there's, there's no,
there's no difference. The the influencer event became
the professional player like so I think there's this gap that

(28:40):
has been completely bridged between the the influencer
events getting players into the competitive scene.
It's 1:00 to 1:00 where I still feel like in the West, it's not
like that. Like we had the influencer event
with Sagem Slam. And there's also like the AT&T
tournament, which I think also helps a bit with that.
You know, like I I got to work with like Ludwig and squeaks a
little bit. For example, Tyler one was there

(29:02):
and he started doing events as well.
So there's a little bit of that gapping bridge and Tyler one did
that modern tournament had punk and Chris Gina, other people in
it, right? So like it's it's bridging that
gap a bit. But I still feel like the loop
isn't fully closed where we haveinfluencers who are 100% like
aware of the pro scene and really getting their audience to

(29:23):
then pick up the game, but then to also enter the tournaments.
That final step hasn't been closed in the West.
And I think if we keep investingin the Sagem Slams and those
types of events, it's possible we can start growing in that
direction too. But only Japan has completed
that right now. I think Tyler one entered his
modern only. Well, he was supposed to enter
his modern only tournament, but then he he like backed out.

(29:46):
I think he like, could she take his spot or something?
But the thing that sucked is like kind of what you're saying,
if Tyler One entered his modern tournament and then beat someone
like a really notable player, that would have been cool.
Would that have happened? Probably not.
But I think if he beat, you know, somebody really good that
could have been, you know, that's kind of the loop you're
kind of looking for. I know in Japan, Shaka, he used

(30:09):
to he plays a lot of FPS games, but he's been playing a lot of
Street Fighter six. I I know because he plays Manon
and he was kind of like following following me around a
lot of EVO this year. But yeah, he's like super
invested. He like watches all the Manon.
He studies a lot of the Manon players.
He only telling me he was telling me like he watches me
and Akutagawa a lot. So like, that kind of stuff is

(30:30):
cool, but like it's kind of justlike a big influencer getting
invested, whether it's because there's a character that this
guy means and this guy means andlike I want to get invested or I
want to learn more about the character.
Or maybe you just think the influence is a cool guy and then
you get, you know, invested too,too.
So I think they do it. They do a lot of good stuff over

(30:51):
there in America. I mean, we have a lot of top
players, but we don't have like the influencer.
I guess Max would be that kind of, but Max barely plays 6.
But even Max, all respect to Max, right?
Even Max is not, he's not quite closing that loop with the
competitive scene, you know whatI mean?

(31:12):
And to be fair to him, you can'treally do that across multiple
pro scene, you know what I mean?You have to eventually cut your
focus. And I think in the West, it's
always about the next trend, which is, which is what I've
read is also very common in in Japan, it's still about the next
trend, like whatever's the next trending game, whatever.
So somehow Street Fighter Six has broken through to be stable,

(31:32):
like Shaka, huge content creatorand him investing solely in
Street Fighter Six. That's often usually like a
brand risk because you're going to start losing your audience if
you're not doing something new or moving on.
But it it it's working. So I don't know if that's a
cultural difference for like, even if you're a really famous
influencer is niching down into one specific gaming sphere, like

(31:54):
the audience is that dedicated that they'll follow and grow
with them. Or if Street Fighter Six just
has that X Factor where more andmore people are getting into it
like it's it's it's just growingbeyond the individual
influencers. I'm not sure, but I would argue
that in the West, take a big streamer, if they started solely
focusing on Street Fighter six and or one competitive game,
they would slowly bleed their audience because it the variety

(32:16):
is what gets people going. It's not just their the
influencer themselves. It's also the social interaction
going along with different trends, right?
Like you have to hop on the new Mario Kart when it comes out.
You got to play the new friend slop game was, as they call it.
You got to play peak, right? Yeah, that's the latest one,
right? And they're funny games and I
get why it works. It's it's a vehicle for for
having the streamers engage and show their their comedic shops

(32:39):
and personalities through the the medium of the game.
So like, I get why you do that, but if if one of them after the
stage M slam only did Street Fighter forever, would it work?
I don't know. So I think we need to keep doing
the Sagem Slam type things and keep working on that.
And I think we've seen success. Capcom for sure has like they've
invested in Sagem Slam, they've officially partnered.

(33:02):
They're not doing those stickersand in game promotions for no
reason. I think they're seeing objective
return on investment for that small collaboration like Sage
him does all the work and his team, they put a little
promotion and game throw stickerin there.
Their sales numbers go up. There's for sure benefits like
Capcom understands that this is working as well and they're
trying to make this grow in the West.
I just, I just wonder if we can keep working in that direction

(33:26):
and make it really pay off and eventually see our tournament
numbers grow because that's the final loop.
And it's crazy that they have 1600 players in World Warrior on
year 3 doubling more than doubling their entrance from the
previous World Warrior. I also guess it's just like, I
don't want to say there's not a lot of fighting games, but I
guess in Japan, like their otherfighting game numbers aren't

(33:48):
like the hottest compared to ours because like I know Strive
is way more popular in the West and in Japan same thing.
I don't know about Tekken, but Iwould have to guess Tekken's
more popular over. Here, maybe, yeah, the Tekken,
the Tekken Japan, even Japan Tekken numbers are like way
lower than EVO USA. It's significantly lower.

(34:09):
So I think it's fair to say thatTekken has not.
Tekken 8 has not been doing thathot in Japan.
So maybe it's just like kind of you got the one game to play.
I've always said that's kind of one.
That's one thing with gaming in general, like you could like
Call of Duty and I could like Battlefield and like we're,
we're at odds, but if there's only one game to play and just

(34:30):
say, oh, we should all be playing Fortnite, everyone's
going to be on the one game. So that might Street Fighter
might be there. Fortnite.
That's true, yeah. There's only so much attention
people can give to any game at one time and.
And so the success of Street Fighter, does that necessitate
the abandonment of other games in the genre?

(34:52):
Maybe, Right. Like, yeah, it's an interesting
concept. And like I said, bring up the
Maximilian point again. Maximilian plays everything,
right? Not even just fighting games
anymore. He's a general gamer guy.
And so he couldn't for the way his brand is set up, he could
not focus on one game. He could not, right?
It just doesn't work. He he is the general fighting
game guy, but also kind of the Capcom guy, kind of like the

(35:13):
retro guy, kind of like he's a general gaming influencer.
And he really blew up when he became a general gaming
influencer, discussing all aspects of the gaming industry
and upcoming games. I fun fact actually one of the
first Max videos I watched was him getting an AC130 of Modern
Warfare too. So it's actually kind of funny
that that's it. It's so much different because I

(35:35):
didn't even know Max played fighting games.
I I saw his Modern Warfare 2 video.
Max, the Modern Warfare 2 guy. Oh man, he plays.
He plays some marvel. OK, that's crazy.
He he man, he wrote the book on on assist me.
Yeah, no, but I was playing Callof Duty.
Modern Warfare 2 came out beforebefore Marvel.

(35:56):
True. OK, I'm getting my timelines
mixed up. Yeah, that makes sense.
OK, so where you also like, oh, he knows, he knows Ball with
this is speaking. Yeah, I was like, oh, he plays
fighting games, too. That's cool.
Like, I didn't know that. I thought he was just.
I thought he was a Call of Duty guy.
Yeah, it it really does work that way in the West.
I feel like you have to kind of ride the waves of the IPS that
are really popular. It's it's very hard to gain a

(36:18):
huge following from one niche, especially in the Street Fighter
scene, but we'll see if that changes in time.
Here's my take though, or here'smy the interesting question I
have is, are we going to continue to try to replicate
this kind of success in other regions like America for us?

(36:39):
Or does Japan just slowly consolidate all the focus for
Street Fighter 6E sports and content creation?
Because another point I didn't bring up like if you look at the
content creators for Street Fighter Six in the pro scene,
you look at a Kiwano Taquito, whatever Kiwano is getting on

(37:00):
his stream highlight videos minimum 150 K thousand, but
usually quarter mil to half a mil to 1,000,000 views on every
single upload and they are edited stream highlights.
You know like some subtitles of Japanese text popping up in the
stream. A ranked game him discussing 1
little technique or like I ran into X player on ranked and he's

(37:22):
getting nearly 1,000,000 views. He's getting more average
viewership than Maximilian purely Street Fighter six stream
highlights. If if you guys are not familiar
with the level of popularity these guys have now, you should
check it out. Casanoke was another one Haitani
right? They have become influencers
themselves. They are making bank on YouTube
and from easy content, just stream and then some guy edits

(37:45):
it and then cuts it down to a stream highlight and they're
making bank. And I'm looking at that like,
man, that is not going to happenfor an American audience.
It's just not it's and so for me, my gears are turning.
It's like I got to make a video for the Japanese audience.
I got to break into, you know what I mean?
Like that's literally where my mind is going.
It's like, it's almost like I'm spin.

(38:05):
You're spinning your wheels, nottrying to partake or capture the
Japanese audience. And then, even with the
competitive scene itself directly we had and the birds
picked up by team reject, right,that's the the street for the
league Japanese esports org. And by the way, their their St.
for the league team is like it'scrazy.

(38:25):
Tokido Lashar Daigo Futo that islike you could argue maybe not
the most stacked team, I would say probably still is, but the
star. Power.
That's crazy. That is NBA, Any NBA fan
viewership that is, that is a 2004 Lakers team because that is
a whole bunch of old dudes and the one young guy who's just

(38:47):
going to try to carry. So that's all.
That's all that is. No, no Futo Futo.
I mean, if I had to do power rankings, Lashar and futo Tokido
Daiga, right? If I had to do power rankings,
all respect to all the all the legend of the team but the star
power is crazy. Yeah, that's no problem.
See. That is crazy.
So the birds got picked up by that team.
I almost suspected at one point I was I do they might just be on

(39:09):
street, but leave Japan who the birds next year?
That's what I thought too. That's what I thought too.
So they're not now that they announced the teams and
everything. So I I suspect they're going to
be back at EU, but I can see a future where hey, come to Japan.
Like MENA Rd. practically already has a second citizenship
over there in Japan. You're right.
He's over there training all thetime and winning all their evos.

(39:30):
Why doesn't he just live there? I almost feel like if you're in
this space you are trolling yourself, not just focusing on
Japan in some way. So that's why I open this like
time to learn Japanese item. Hey man, when's it time to start
going to Japan to to make content to connect to the
Japanese audience in some way? You're probably way more famous

(39:52):
in Japan than you are in America.
I would say well, thank you, butI would also say is the one
thing that's also cool about their Street Fighter league.
Their Street Fighter league got bigger.
There's more teams than usual. Like they've added extra teams
to kind of let let more players in.
I'm curious if I I think the problem would be just taking

(40:15):
from Street Fighter league US and EU but they could easily
take both the the best players from America, make an American
team in Street Fighter league Japan and same with the EU, the
EU's best players and make a Street Fighter league.
EU team in Japan, because that'skind of one problem I feel, I
don't know if you felt like thiswhen you were watching Street
Fighter League EU last year. The team that was going to win

(40:37):
was a foregone conclusion. It was kind of over.
Yeah. So, so I think that's not
healthy for a league. But if you can send the team
like the Birds Phenom and all them over to like a Street
Fighter League Japan, that'll take from the maybe European
viewership. But I think more people would be

(40:59):
invested to see how A-Team like that would do against some of
Japanese Beth. Yeah, I that's, that's a big
problem right now because Japan is the only region that can
really support that scale of a league and divvy up the teams
and make it feel competitive, right.
Whereas like, and, and for the EU, the team that won was Ninjas
in Pajamas. And that's Phenom, Beggy, Big

(41:19):
Bird, Angry Bird. It's like brother like.
Yeah, there's no, there's no chance, no chance of the EU
player, no offense of the EU play.
There could have potentially been a chance if with the the
the five other teams they combined the absolute.
Best. Person from each team, but when
you start trying to create balanced teams, you're really
unfortunately like the level of play falls off in most other

(41:41):
regions after the the first handful of players and and and
USAI would argue like maybe like10.
If you have like 10, the top tenin the USA, you can make a
couple good teams from the top ten right, but then like even in
the USAI feel like it starts falling off pretty at top 15 top
20 like once at the 20 it's likeyou're starting to it's starting
to have a steep decline. So that's fine within the one

(42:03):
individual league, for the most part, I think it works.
But then when you do the format of the world's, it's like then
you throw the Japanese team versus the the USA team.
Truthfully, the USA team was pretty stacked with, you know,
with the CCH. The MENA team was great too as
well. In 2023, there's a couple of
superstar teams that emerge, butin general you're hamstringing

(42:25):
the other regions. Whereas Japan is like, hey, we
any combination of four or five players we put together is going
to be really good because we have that many players.
But in the other regions, it's like, yeah, maybe the top 2 are
like significantly better than the bottom two of the team, even
though they're strong. It's like you're purposely not
making the superstar team from each region, right?
Like just just by the nature of the format.

(42:46):
So I find that combination at the end of a season a little
misrepresentative of each region, rather than just saying,
here's the best four players from USA, the best four players
from EU, and the best four players from Japan.
It's like whatever hodgepodge they managed to put together in
USA and EU versus no matter whatteam from Japan goes through,
it's a superstar team, you know.So I find that a little

(43:08):
difficult to to reconcile as well.
And but you bring up a good point about having more spots
and everything which allows morepeople to enter, allows more
full time professional players. USA and EU is a lot smaller.
And I I think I think US added one team this year.
I think it's 7, which is a weirdnumber, but I think there is 7

(43:29):
teams this year for the US instead of interesting.
OK, but but EUI think it's still6.
But I think EU has a South African team this year, so
that's new, but OK. Yeah, I think it's still 6 for
EU job. VM going to cook.
Yeah, Job, VM and yeah, others from South Africa.

(43:51):
But yeah, America's growing slowly.
I think Japan has 12 teams now. I want to say like 12 or I, I
think it went from 8:00 to 12:00this year.
So I'm not too sure, but they'redefinitely growing way more than
the other region. Yeah, I'm hoping they try to
find a way to provide more stepping stones for players
because I, I, I think the big problem is how top heavy we are

(44:15):
in other regions. And like you mentioned before,
there's not the the influencer events provide the ways for the
not .01% players to have goals to strive for and stepping
stones to go through. And I, I, I think with the way
things are operating in other regions it's like either you're

(44:35):
a punk or MENA or like why bother almost yeah and I even
for for the viewers as well and for the players as well, it kind
of feels that way. It's like, why bother if you're
not already of that level because there's not like this
even distribution of players along every level.
It's like all the opportunities are so concentrated at the top

(44:56):
1-2 and there's not there's no stepping stones to go through.
So I'm hoping we lead more into like the influencer events a
little bit here. I'm hoping we find more ways to
distribute opportunities becauseI feel like it's possible.
It's possible to replicate what's going on, or we all are
Japanese you. Gotta you gotta start making the

(45:18):
videos, but you gotta have the Japanese subtitles.
You just gotta dub everything inJapanese.
Well, I think that already workslike there's there's it already
auto dubs to a degree, but I think you have to also do the
thumbnail which has about like 5000 Japanese characters on the
thumbnail. And from my understanding,
you're able to cram a lot more information into less text in,

(45:41):
in Japanese, their Japanese kanji and all that.
So it's like cheating. Like they, they write full
essays in the thumbnails and they love that.
And then even during the videos you have to have, you have to
have all the sound effects when the, when the extra context and
subtitles pop up. So I don't think you can just
auto dub an English video and put in Japanese and get the get
the Japanese audience to be interested and engage.

(46:02):
You got to do a little bit more.So I'm, I'm really, that's where
my gears are turning. And maybe someone else will
capitalize on this first, but I feel like the first like
American fighting game content creator to like bridge that gap
is going to blow up. I honestly feel like it might be
hard to get the Japanese audience to care.
Like why do I care about we haveKawano making videos everyday,

(46:22):
Kai Sunoco, and my favorite V tuber.
Why would I care about this random dude from America?
But I feel like it's possible. So if it's if it's not going to
be me, it should be you. If it's not us, it's going to be
someone else much smarter than us making this happen.
But we'll see how big Street Fighter Six can really get.
And Japanese Japan is the test bed for all this.
But we do have other things to talk about, other things to

(46:44):
touch on. Because my other anxiety aside
from Japan taking over the world, the Street Fighter and
all of us just fading to irrelevancy is am I going to get
into that Marvel Tokon beta or not?
Man, what's going on? The the beta open September 5th,
which would be next week at the time of this recording.
You, you guys will probably get this right before the beta is
going live and maybe emails are sent out, but I don't know if

(47:07):
I'm in in it or not. Man, I I want to play some
Marvel Tokon. That game felt like crack.
I played 10 games of evil. I need more.
I need it. I unfortunately did not get an
e-mail as well. You know, what are we doing?
You know, I thought I was, I wasa good noodle.
But I've got my e-mail. Yeah.
I I praise nothing but Arx's games, except for that, that one
game that I think came out in 2022.

(47:28):
I think that, you know what, we're not even going to talk
about it. But the.
For me, I really want to play Tokon just because, you know,
Star Lord is one of the more cool characters I played in a
fighting game. I thought Star Lord was pretty,
pretty unique in that sense. I thought Star Lord had like so
many ways to kind of change their combo structures with like

(47:51):
the elemental bullets and stuff,so I thought that stuff was
really cool. I didn't get into Star Lord that
much. I got to play a handful of games
at EVO and all I did was like Captain America ABC launcher.
You know, I did I once I figuredout that the combo structure had
like that DNA of DB of Z in it, like at the very basic core, I

(48:14):
was like, OK, I'm going to do a basic, the, the world's most
basic DB of Z combos plus assist.
And then maybe I did a couple ofIron Man Tri jumps.
I, I couldn't remember how to tag into my third character.
You know what I mean? Like.
Yeah, yeah. I I didn't get enough time to
even figure out the the main mechanics, but it would just
felt good, like even just doing baby DBFZ style combos, ABC

(48:37):
launcher, AB double jump ABS heavy to knock him down.
I'll think, Yep, I'm feeling it.It looks great.
And then you had the the different special move systems
where you could do crazy off thewall specials.
Iron Man is is throwing and pingponging his shield all over the
screen. Right.
So I was like, Oh, there's enough here for the chaos to

(48:58):
ensue that you want from a, a Marvel game, even with a kind of
more familiar combo structure and not necessarily requiring a
huge, like rotating cast of characters like you would from a
traditional Marvel title. So I was instantly hooked.
Like normally it takes me a few games and some time in training

(49:18):
mode to like really start feeling the vibe of a game.
I I don't like mashing without knowing what I'm doing that
much. I don't find it that satisfying,
right? So usually I have to like warm
up to a game instantly. From the moment I saw the
loading screens, the the character select screen, I was
like, this game got the sauce. It just has it passed the

(49:39):
eyeball test instantly. And as soon as we got to finish
that play test, you know you have a limited time with the
game for the kick you off so thethousands of other people in
line can play. They announced the beta
announcement. They say, hey, a beta is going
live. You got to sign up to the
PlayStation website on my phone.Thank goodness I had my
PlayStation password saved on myphone.
I would, I've never logged into the PlayStation website ever.

(49:59):
You have to go through the, the PlayStation beta program.
So it's not being directly run through the developer because
otherwise maybe Arcsis, you know, you got some top player
privilege, maybe someone would hook it up.
You know, this is run through the the PlayStation beta
program. You sign up, you get an e-mail
confirming that you're in the general beta program.
But what about I don't care about these other betas.

(50:20):
I don't I don't give a damn about any other game here.
I just want to get into Marvel token.
So I feel very uneasy if I'll beable to play or not.
I'm I'm fiending. So I did get the e-mail
confirming that. But if I don't get into this
beta item, I'm going to be so depressed.
I'm going to be so depressed if I don't get in.
I don't know what I'm going to do for those couple days.

(50:43):
Oh well, in a few days after scales.
No one cares about the two XKO beta.
I want to play Marvel Tokon. Marvel Tokon.
But yeah, for Marvel Tokon, likeI said, I I'm super excited.
I I don't know, I like, I like interesting character.

(51:03):
I think for me, I've played so many fighting games, the thing
that gets me involved in fighting games is an interesting
character. That's all I need.
And for me, Star Lord passed that eye test and even Captain
America, because even with the shield stuff was kind of cool
because when I was playing, I was pick what I, I was Star
Lord, Doctor Doom, Captain America and Iron Man Doom had

(51:27):
some cool stuff with the shield,but I, I was still trying to do
foot dive like it was Marvel 3. But yeah, Star Lord had some
interesting stuff with the guns because like I said, the
elemental bullets was really cool.
And caps shield is kind of it felt like I was playing Marvel
rivals with, you know, bouncing the shield off of surfaces to
try to hit people or try to angle the Shields kind of

(51:48):
correctly to kind of hit your opponent.
So I'm very, I'm curious what like people would do with
Captain America when the game actually does come out.
I can imagine some, you know, she'll take you out the corner
kind of push out mix ups cuz that's always fun.
Okay, yeah, I'm very curious to see the depth that the
characters actually have becauselike I said, that's my selling

(52:11):
point for any fighting it. That's why I really like Guilty
Gear. I really like Marvel.
The the characters got to do it for me.
The interesting stuff you can dowith the character.
Yeah, they definitely went and made the characters very unique
in their toolkits because like Imentioned before, I think they
struck a good balance of having a very intuitive and easy to
pick up core. And they also have a lot of odd
combos and things of that nature.

(52:32):
But on top of that, they have a whole dedicated assist button or
not assist button, sorry, special move button with
different set of special moves, which are like the more crazy
ones, which you can clearly see there's going to be a lot of
depth involved in mastering them.
So just from that initial impression, I think they might
have nailed that balance. Can't say for sure, of course,
but there's always like the concern with more modern

(52:54):
fighting games about managing accessibility and how do you not
overwhelm players. But at the same time, how do you
have the the depth and crazinessthat people crave to keep a game
having a lot of longevity and people exploring it?
And I think I feel like Marvel Three also is the game that
nailed that. Marvel 3 is the best fighting
game. People are still inventing tech

(53:14):
still to this day. I I've just seen Hayden come out
with a Doctor Strange Infinite on in the corner on certain
characters and it's not ATAC Infinite.
The game's still evolving. That's how exactly the game is.
And, and people loved it casually, right?
That was the, the fighting game that I knew that I had my, my
non FGC friends from regular life.
They they brought that game up to me and I was like, what you

(53:36):
guys are playing this and they're into it and they started
learning real combos eventually.And and so I think Marvel Three
kind of nailed that. Funny you bring that up for me,
even when I was in a lot of my high school friends, their
favorite game I've I've always tried to get them to play the
fighting games I've played. But like you said, Marvel 3 was
that game. Like I think the two games they

(53:56):
played the most, like the most fighting games they've got into
was probably Marvel 3 and DragonBall.
They were Dragon Ball fans before, but those two games are
the ones that kind of always getpeople into the.
FTC right the popular IPS dragonDBFCI think was another one as
well a deep popular IP and also like a simple enough core.

(54:17):
I I mean DBFC had auto combos like crazy.
I think they did the auto combosa little wrong though.
Like that to me was too much thethe auto tracking and auto
correcting of the auto combos. It would they would phase
underneath you and then turn around and hit you like the auto
combos itself matching auto combo.
What became like a really high level thing like you had to do
it because some of the auto combos were just insane.

(54:38):
So I'm kind of hoping Marvel token doesn't have that problem
where the auto combos are not just like a vehicle for people
to feel engaged and like get their hits and convert and they
end up being like, this is the high level thing you mash
because it's just so absurdly good with the tracking and the
hitbox interactions. Yeah, they they, they kind of

(55:01):
managed to bridge that gap. So once again, we have another
popular IP. We're back on marvel.
It looks beautiful. It has, I think enough of an
ease of entry with the differentsystems that's presenting, but
also the potential for depth. I think we might have a banger
on our hands. I, I'm, I'm usually very
tentative about getting excitingabout a new game.

(55:23):
I, I, I don't get excited for Christmas, you know what I mean?
Like I'm always kind of the guy like until I have my hands on
the game, until it's that, that moment.
I'm not on the hype train. Never have been.
It's been one of the things I get critiqued about the most.
Even Street Fighter Six. I was like, hmm, the entire time
until I had my hands on it. I've always been that way.
This is the first time I'm getting a little give my hopes

(55:45):
up, get a little excited, which it makes me nervous man, You
can't don't, don't break my heart, Marvel Tokon, don't don't
get my hopes up here and let me into that beta.
That's what I'm saying because you're, you're not wrong.
If I don't get in, all I have is2 XKO after that and for some
reason no one seems excited for two XKO anymore.

(56:07):
I I am a huge fan of Blitzcrank.I think Blitzcrank's got to be
sick. I I like Blitzcrank just
because. He looks like he, he has
Spencer. He's Spencer from marvel three.
I know the comparison's kind of weird, but he, he's a robot.
He has an arm. He can extend his arm and grab
people. So like that's it's a cool

(56:27):
character. I'm I'm assuming he's going to
be able to like traverse the screen with his his arm.
I would, I would hope so, but yeah, I, I thought blitz crank
was cool. I know a lot of people were
getting mad like, oh man, this game has three big body
characters now. What are we doing?
There's too many big body characters.
There's only 10 characters in the game but I I don't know.
I like Blitz Crank and I didn't get to try Viad EVO so I do want

(56:50):
to try her and the beta as well.I I think you hit the source of
the problem though, there's only10 characters, 10 characters
that are going to be there on release, right?
So what's happening with two XKOis the permanent close beta
begins on the September 9th, which is set to be the
continuously running beta until release.
That release date hasn't been confirmed, but I think the buzz,

(57:11):
the general consensus was it'll be within the next in months.
That was the unit of measurementthat was given is that it won't
be years, it won't be year, It should be less than 12 months.
Will they nail that target? Who knows, man.
It's been too long. And I think the interesting take
away here is QXKO hit that critical mass where I think all

(57:35):
of the goodwill starting around EVO this year, any goodwill that
was given to this game. Because initially you have to
remember 2 XKO was I think originally announced or hinted
at around 2019 pre COVID. This is when 2 XKO became a
thing in the minds of the FGC. Now it's a long time ago man.
And since then it's been promoted, it's been president at

(57:59):
Evo, people have played through two betas of it at home, we've
seen developer footage, we've seen the evolution of the game
and it hasn't progressed that much in six years.
And then come release this, they're aiming for only 10
characters and this that the third.
And then slowly it went from this initial insane hype cycle

(58:23):
where people like 2 XKO is goingto save the FGC, Riots going to
come in here and revolutionize the FGC.
It's going to be free to play. There's going to be millions of
concurrent players every day. It's going to take E sports to a
level we've never seen before. We could not even comprehend.
And then to slowly like, yeah, two XKO.
It's been taking a while, but it's going to be worth it, man.
It's going to be hype when it comes out.
It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be super popular.

(58:44):
And then now I think with this evo and with them still not
having a set release date and still only having 10 characters
and all these other factors building up against it over
time, it reached that critical mass where it became the cool
thing to dunk on. It went from having being in the
graces of good graces of the FTCto being like literally, if you

(59:06):
want to meme on something on Twitter and get a bunch like
100, like 10s of thousands of likes were just ragging on
something, dunking on something.The target became 2 XKO.
It it literally became that. And then of course there was the
whole Chipotle ad with two XKO. Like there was Chipotle gate
with say jam and Sherry doing the two V2 Chipotle ad with two

(59:28):
XKO. And it just like was a recipe
with all of the negativity surrounding it where people are
just ragging on this game because it has never released.
And it feels like it's it's all this build up to nothing.
So I don't know if this beta is going to help it or not.
I, I think overall it should be good.
I mean, like I said, I think if you play the game, you'll have a

(59:50):
good sense of like how the game works.
I don't know from what I've played because like I got into
the, I think it was a close alpha with Jinx.
I thought Jinx was pretty cool, but not really my kind of style
of character to play. So I think for the most part,
because I've tried a lot of the characters in the game, like I
think Ari's sick allow is one ofmy more.

(01:00:11):
You know, one of my cooler fighting game characters I've
got to play. I think there's a lot of cool
characters in like there's a lotof depth to the game that kind
of helps. I don't know whether that's
going to be good or bad because I feel like everyone every, I
don't want to say casual play, but every newcomer is kind of
scared of tag fighters. I know they have a whole like

(01:00:31):
scary tag Fighter is kind of tooscary for me, but I, I hope 2
SKO does well. I don't like that it's kind of
in the thing to kind of dunk on because it reminds me of kind of
like Street Fighter 5 Marvel Infinite DNF duel.
But yeah, I, I hope it's I, I hope people just try it and just

(01:00:52):
have fun with it. Find a character they like
because like I said, I really enjoyed it.
I thought it was. It was pretty cool.
Yeah, public perception's a really fickle thing once you
cross that barrier. Like people are always just
looking for something that they can be not only allowed to but
rewarded for making fun of. That's how the Internet

(01:01:13):
operates. And I think a lot of people
maliciously get into that. And I think you should, maybe
should reevaluate yourself. I think it's OK.
It's harmless when it's a product like that.
I mean, it's whatever. It's not a person.
But in general, there's that kind of like mentality of like,
oh, this is now the thing to make fun of.
And I want to join in on that bandwagon because it feels good
to make fun of external things. Like I said, if it's a product,

(01:01:36):
it's not a big deal, But sometimes it's people, Sometimes
it's like, sometimes it's a little like inhumane.
I feel like what how these, these, these trends form.
And unfortunately for two XKO, for the the the product team and
for people who are fans of the game, it's become two XKO.
It really has. I think it's starting to slow
down a bit. We'll see if that picks back up.
But no matter what announcement was made, no matter what story

(01:02:00):
was trending about the game since EVO, it's only been
negative. I've only, I heard about
Blitzcrank being announced only through the negative reactions.
It's like no matter what they dofrom here on out, it's the the
big buzz around the game. Is this a a big stink about
this, this game not being what it was hyped up or perceived to
eventually be? So I wonder if they're going to

(01:02:22):
be able to steer the ship around.
And I wonder if this this is just a bubble of Twitter,
because of course it is, right? I don't expect the actual
general perception to be this negative, but I it makes me
really wonder how this game is going to launch.
Like it's it's success used to be all but guaranteed and now I
don't know. I don't know where the future

(01:02:43):
lies for 2X KO. I also just think is it's an
abundance attack fighter. This is kind of like I was
saying with Street Fighter 6 is like we there's, there's
competition. So the problem is now I don't
have to buy your tag fighter because if I don't like your tag
fighter, Tokon's right here to play.
So I think it's kind of just competition.
And like I said, I I know I've done this with my friends and

(01:03:06):
we've all had arguments. Oh, don't buy this game.
Let's just get this one and saidthis one's better.
So it's it's hard to really balance it like hell, invincible
might come out. It might be the best tag fighter
of the three and then all the friends will be like, yo, get
invincible and now what? I took sales from Tokon it well,
two SKO's free, 2 SKO's free, man.

(01:03:27):
Yeah. What does that work for them?
Yeah, I I guess so. But even then, it's still don't
play 2 SKO Invincibles. Yeah, I don't know.
Combat's just 10 times better and then nobody plays two SKO.
That's kind of the problem, justhaving competition.
It's better for us as consumer, but it's kind of maybe a bit
worse for the the people making their product.
Yeah, I got to imagine the 2X KOteam is like sweating like crazy

(01:03:50):
right now considering all the competition in the space out of
nowhere because they had the head start.
If they had just finished and released ahead of time, they
would have been capitalizing on this market, but they they
couldn't. I I don't know, it just it, it
didn't come together. It might be a super small team,
might be other issues, but it feels like this should have
released two years ago. This should have been out two
years ago and they missed that wave of their initial hype cycle

(01:04:14):
and it's just, it's morphed intoa negative hype cycle.
Like it's the opposite. Everything is just negativity
surrounding it. So I'm hoping that the beta
helps get the audience that wants this game engaged and that
there's some positive reception around it.
Like I'd rather this game succeed than not.
But I will say that between the two, I played 2X scale and I

(01:04:37):
played Marvel Tocon. I instantly preferred Marvel
Tocon instantly. I I my concern with 2X KO is
that they're preaching this freedom aspect and to me I think
unchecked freedom in A tag fighter is also a problem.
You have the MBCI. Issue I I, I know I know what
you mean there's a lot of games like that MBCI Power Rangers is

(01:04:58):
also another obvious one where too much freedom is not really a
good thing. There's a lot of games actually.
I I think SF Six kind of bridgesinto that problem a bit too.
But I get what you're saying. Yeah.
To me, it's more about like active tag.
I think it depends on how you doit.
But active tag can be dangerous,I think.

(01:05:20):
I think giving people too, I think too many options.
I think people want a hectic game, but I also think too many
options starts getting hectic and then starts getting like
kind of annoying a bit a little bit, but I don't know.
Yeah, no, I agree there. There's a balance to find.
You want you want freedom, But if freedom results in obvious
degenerative strategies where like, yeah, there there's an

(01:05:40):
infinite set of options you could choose from.
But because the the system allowed for this immersion
gameplay to occur, they didn't check for these other corner
scenarios. And these corner scenarios are
so powerful that it ends up making every other approach
irrelevant. That's often what you see
happening in these kind of systems, in my opinion.
You end up going for the infinite combo.

(01:06:00):
You end up going for whatever broken, mixed up, which is
completely unstoppable like that.
It often ends up in that kind ofway.
Whereas I feel like like a Marvel three.
Yeah, there were some scenarios like that.
I think like, you know, more Doom was kind of in that kind of
broken in that aspect. There's still counter play.
I'm just trying to find the samecounter play.

(01:06:22):
Zero May Cry 0, May Cry is kind to me, that one.
Yeah. Yeah.
So like, there's a few scenarioslike that, but it still ended up
overall being one of the best balances of freedom versus
death, right. It didn't end up feeling dumb to
watch her play. Whereas with MBCI, I kind of
felt like it felt a little dumb to watch it.
It felt a little like you did a really a move that had a long

(01:06:46):
lockout animation, you active tagged and then you did a
three-way mix up or a combo while your one character still
beating them up and it got very repetitive.
It got so stale to watch. As a as a fan of fighting games,
I was like, dude, I'm I feel like I'm watching the same thing
over and over. On top of the other issues of it
looking like a, you know, APS 2 game.

(01:07:07):
Yeah, it was there's other issues with that as well, but
that's my concern with two XKO alittle bit.
And even even then they mentioned that they nerfed some
aspect of how the handshake. Yeah, there's kind of a high,
low mix that they nerfed, right.Do you know the details of that?
It was like it was, it was kind of the handshake, but it was
kind of the same issue that Marvel Infinite had where like

(01:07:28):
you would do something and then this character's here, this
character's here, but I tagged so you blocked the wrong way
because I switched sides on you and it was getting kind of kind
of obnoxious. So it's kind of like, oh, well,
there's cross up protection so you don't have to deal with
that. It's kind of I praised the Tokon
though, and I was telling them the one thing I like that Tokon
did is when you tag like that, the little like soul, I don't

(01:07:51):
know what it's called the littlelike orange thing, you know, the
little. Orange dot soul tag.
I think it's the soul, yeah. Yeah, it, it kind of slows down
the game so you can see. So like that's kind of stuff
doesn't work. But stuff like that was very
prevalent in Marvel Infinite. So I, I kind of, I, I was like,
this is good because that, that stuff is just kind of a bit
silly to me. And I think they, they, I don't

(01:08:12):
know if it's just the handshake mix up you're referring to.
I think it was also a high low mix for a similar strategy where
you would just, you would do a low move and then tag and hit
high or low, almost the same frame.
And they nerfed that recently. I saw some post about that from
the devs. So this late in the game,
they're like, wait a minute, let's add some protection for
these super D Gen. mix UPS because otherwise you're just

(01:08:34):
kind of rinse and repeating the same thing over and over.
And like it was like, my understanding was the mix was so
powerful that it was one of those ones where even the person
applying the mix doesn't know which way it's hitting.
It's just like a, it's just likean instant high, low.
Either way, they don't know the timing of it.
And it's just you got to hold that.
So they nerve that. And I'm like, dude, the the

(01:08:55):
close beta is starting in a couple days and the game is set
to release in a couple months. And you're, you're adding
fundamental defensive protections related to the core
of the flow of the gameplay because you allowed a system
that had too much freedom. And it's tagging, which always
happens like this. It always goes this way.
And I'm like, that makes me nervous.
I'm like. You're.
You're discovering this now. I think every game who's has

(01:09:18):
been like that BB tag, Marvel Infinite, I was in Marvel
Infinite. My team was actually the one
doing the same thing. It was the same Dante dorm DJ
mixed up and jump over and then low with Dante.
And then it's just like, oh, hold that and it feels like
you're doing kind of rinse and repeat.
But that kind of stuff is I don't know, I don't make
fighting games and I don't know how to I don't know how you fix

(01:09:40):
that in a game like that becauseyou're giving people too much
freedom and like more 1V1 games like a like a Street Fighter or
guilty gear. Obviously stopping that's much
easier, but I don't know if I even were to make a fighting
game, I wouldn't make A tag game.
That sounds like a lot of work. Yeah, no, it's hard.
I'm facetiously discussing theseproblems.
It's a very difficult thing to solve.

(01:10:01):
And how do you make a fun, chaotic game without going into
those territories? And that's my concern with two
XKO. And I feel like, like you
mentioned with Marvel Tokon, they they, they're bridging that
gap because it's A tag game thatdoesn't require you to tag
necessarily because it's a shared health bar.
Like there's not, there's not a required incentive to tag.
And then there's also like the slow down on the active tag.

(01:10:23):
Like there's, there's ways wherethey're like, yeah, let's not
let this be so crazy that it doesn't, that it breaks
everything. And then Marvel three like it
just don't have active tag. To me, active tag is just such a
risky mechanic. They're all doing active tag
Marvel three. You called the badass sis, you
died, and then you couldn't justrandomly swap to the other
character as you called them out, You know what I mean?
Just active tag feels cool on paper, but I feel like every

(01:10:46):
implementation we've seen, it makes me, as a not hardcore tag
game player, not want to play the game instantly.
I'd rather play a DBOZ. I'd rather play a Marvel 3 or
rather play a Marvel 2 because as soon as you start adding
active tag, I think it just generates chaos, but like sloppy
chaos like I, I it doesn't it doesn't appeal to me in that

(01:11:08):
sense. So that's my personal opinion on
those mechanics. So 2 XKO, I'm still going to
play it for sure. I'm going to try it out.
I'm going to play all these games.
I'm really hoping to play some Marvel talk on dude.
That is the game I'm for sure fading right now.
I'm really hoping to get into that, but I think we just have a
lot of choice now. I guess for consumers, at the
end of the day, it's a it's a good time.

(01:11:29):
Right. That that's always kind of like
it's there's so many fighting games to play like it is kind of
it for I don't know about you. If somebody were probably to ask
me what fighting game they should get now you know you we
would probably both say Street Fighter six, but just having the
the options and just if somebodywere to describe to me what they

(01:11:50):
want in a fighting game, there'sso many different options to
choose from. You got like the guilt strives,
the what else? BB tags, the unis, the I don't
know, the Mortal Kombats, the DNF.
There's so many options. So I think that helps a lot.
You're gonna, you're gonna startheading up DNF before you even
drop a Tekken. Listen, I know Tekken 8 had the

(01:12:13):
man. You're scraping the bottom of
the barrel there. All all I've ever heard you do
is rag on DNF and then you you recommend DNF dual before
Tekken? I can recommend somebody,
somebody out there who probably would have really liked DNF.
Dude, I think everyone would like DNF as long as you play it
casually and no one knows how toget good at it.
That is one of the, that is one of the best popcorn or bubble

(01:12:34):
gum fighting games of all time in my opinion.
Just don't chew on it for too long, you know what I mean?
Like get all your friends in there and get out and then
you're going to have a great time.
So I I definitely, I actually fully recommend DNF Duel for
that. I think it's a gorgeous game,
banging soundtrack. So for a casual game, pretty
good, pretty good. Just just avert your eyes, don't

(01:12:54):
open your eyes to the depths of hell that it can unleash.
So good time for fighting any players.
Lots of options out there beforewe wrap this up item.
It's time to go dumpster diving.We went to the the Brian F
Patreon page, patreon.com/brian under score F to ask you guys.
Do you have any questions for us?
And we got a couple of questionsfrom the the Patreon members.

(01:13:17):
So first one we have up here from Key Ganners, how do you
tackle the work life balance when it comes to content
creation and competing? Is it stable enough to do them
full time or is some other income source necessary even at
both of your levels of popularity?
So getting into like the the economics of being in this space

(01:13:37):
and it's it's a very complex question because I think it
depends a lot. But I think the easy answer is,
yeah, you need some other money,man.
Being a full time pro. If you're trying to actually be
a full time competitor, which I'm not, right, Maybe Idam, you
could speak to this. You're you're working on your
content creation, but what's it like being a full time pro?

(01:13:58):
For me, to me, it's just a lot of I don't even look at
competing because competing is so shaky.
Obviously all these tournaments have such huge prize pools now,
but even for me, it's like getting the content out for
YouTube Even just like random sponsors are like random.
Let me not say random sponsors, but sponsors hitting you out

(01:14:18):
like, hey, do a raid shadow legends are like a Nord, like
people, people meme on that kindof stuff, but that stuff
actually helps a lot. And like they'll give you, you
know, good money to promote their kind of products and
stuff. So just sponsorships help
helping out and even just you know, but when I was on exit,
the the money from exit kind of helped a lot to kind of like

(01:14:40):
propel or just do other stuff totry to keep me having the work
and life balance together. And you know, just streaming in
general, streaming helps a lot too.
You know, good money from streaming.
Right. But what about competing right?
It's it's not the the biggest source of income.
Competing is good if you're if you're waiting.

(01:15:01):
I mean, I guess they're in the Street Fighter five times it, it
helped a lot. But for for six, it's it's good
if you're on a Street Fighter league or I guess winning way
more. I got top 8 at Cream City last
year. There's no CPT event.
I think I got $100. Don't don't compete.

(01:15:22):
Yeah. What about?
What about second on ECT though?You got second on.
ECT. I think I got AI, think I got a
decent. I think I got like 34K maybe I
want to say. OK, so you actually made a
return. Yeah, but, but I drove there.
I don't, I didn't even have the.I had no problem.
I had no problem getting there. I drove there.
Yeah, I mean, the the reality ofit is that unless you're like

(01:15:45):
literally MENA Rd. or Xiao Ha, you know what I mean?
You have to be the .001% and also among the .001% the person
winning the big prize pools. Because punk, even punk, he got
21,000 for Evo, right? MENA Rd. or MENA Rd. as well.
You're getting like 20K or even less.
I think you got 16 K. Like that I got more EVO, I got

(01:16:09):
more for getting second at East Coast through on the year I got
second at EVO. Actually I think the year I got
second at EVO like 2500. Wow.
Yeah, it is very so much so Evenwhen you reach the peaks of
competitive success, it depends on which tournament that is and
who's backing it. So getting money from
tournaments is always generally the least consistent and the

(01:16:32):
lowest option unless you like place at an esports World Cup or
Captain Cup. So those are the only events
that are just throwing money into the furnace to give to the
players. But that's only like 3 players
per six players a year, you knowwhat I mean?
Like that doesn't support an entire ecosystem or an entire
industry. So in general, I think
especially in the West, you haveto be doing content creation or

(01:16:53):
something on the side because I think streaming is for content
creators, the number one place where you monetize your
audience. YouTube is required because that
actually builds your audience. It advertises to you and then
like doing well competitively and being on these big
platforms, Captain Fighters, whatever will build your brand
as well and help build your stream.
So basically you're having the funnels of strong performances

(01:17:16):
on large platforms and YouTube content, which actually has
algorithms recommending your content out to a lot of people
and that funnels your audience to Twitch.
YouTube does generate revenue aswell, but sometimes you got to
pay editors, you got to invest in it.
So sometimes you don't. You can lose money on YouTube
trying to grow that. But I think the strong upside is
funneling people to your Twitch where the the hardcore fans

(01:17:39):
might support you. There's a Twitch Prime, you
write free subscription with Amazon Prime.
The ad revenue is pretty good there as well.
And so I think that's the the platform where people monetize
the most in this space. Then of course, there's a
handful of players who are stillfull time sponsored, but that is
increasingly rare these days. Except for E Sports World Cup,
which is all the fake funny money from Saudi.
There's a gold rush from all theorgs to pick up players to be in

(01:18:02):
those events 'cause they want toget E Sports World Cup points
for the cup, the club championships, which gives out
millions of dollars for no reason.
And then also even Saudi sometimes foots the bill for
these teams to pick up the players like they pay the teams
to participate. Like it's just all Saudi money
head to toe for them doing this kind of like gold rush with
these orgs. So you might get picked up short

(01:18:23):
term for that, but it's not a sustainable sort of venture.
So I, I, I just feel like in general, unless you're in Japan
right now and are on Street Fighter league becoming a full
time pro, I think it's a very unstable system.
It's very not good, I would say in the West for being a full
time competitive player player. That's that's my perspective at
least. Yeah, I, I, I would probably say

(01:18:45):
it a little bit more of the samething.
But even like I said, just like I would say putting stuff on
even TikTok or whatever or whatever, you know, all that
stuff kind of helps as well. And it's just like, it may not
be like, you know, I can surviveoff a TikTok with like the
random TikTok video that might get like 1,000,000 views
actually off the lot too. Yeah, So content creation is
basically the focus there, right, Because the the other

(01:19:07):
part of this question is how do you tackle work life balance
when it comes to content creation and competing?
So I'm I'm assuming the questionis about like working a regular
job. And the answer to there is you
don't. That's that's my perspective.
I don't know. How about you item?
How's the post office going? You still?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I, I when I used to
work at post office and at GameStop, actually, no, I didn't

(01:19:31):
really like I, I didn't stream during those times.
I was just playing the game myself.
I was just playing kind of offering, so I wasn't really
doing too much content creation.Yeah, content creation takes a
lot of time. I don't think people understand
how much time it really occupies.
So it's very difficult and there's not much return.
I would say this whole thing, the whole industry, especially

(01:19:52):
in the West, is supported by hopes and dreams.
Like, I don't think there's actually that much money to be
made unless you're like I said, the .0001% of top players and
also the .0001% of content creators.
Like look at like a Maximilian, right?
Like it's just, it's just not, there's not that many people
eating like that. And Japan, it's different.

(01:20:13):
What we talked about earlier in this this podcast.
I think they've broken that barrier and there's a lot of
sustainability to be found in the pro scene and content
creation space. Not really saltier in the West.
So don't expect balance if you're trying to do.
Full time job, constant creationand competing and you need to
diversify your sources of income.

(01:20:34):
And I would say primarily even for people doing the competing
thing, a lot of the money unlessthey are full time sponsored,
which is still just a tiny, tinyfraction of even your favorite
players, it's going to become from content creation.
So that's the reality of it. It's really not a lucrative
career unless you're of the elite, elite, elite and also hot

(01:20:55):
that year at the right event at the right time.
You know, like there's so many factors that go into play.
Just throw away your social life.
I think that's it, right? That's the answer I can tell
you. Oh, facts.
Yeah, that's required. Yeah, absolutely.
We got another question here from Chandarin, who said I've
been grinding for an Interstate major recently.
Any tips for a healthy ranked drilling life balance and tips

(01:21:16):
for grinding in general. So prepping for a big
tournament, any tips for that? I would say personally, like the
main thing to remember is I feellike a tournament is sort of
like this is that's your exam. You can cram a little bit for
your exam, but for the most partit's did you follow along with

(01:21:38):
the lesson material for the semester?
Right. It's, it's going to reflect your
preparation for the long term upuntil that moment.
I, I feel like I hear this perspective from a lot of people
getting into the competitive scene where they act like, oh, I
got to lock in for this one event and that's going to solve
my fundamental issues. And I just view it as more of
like their touchstones along a very long journey and reflect

(01:22:01):
where you currently are. So yeah, you can grind a little
bit leading up to an event to prepare for specific things, but
I view it more as this is a reflection of your, your effort
compounding over days, months, weeks, years, right?
I don't really view it as much of A grinding for one, sort of
events that can help for sure a little bit.

(01:22:21):
But it's still, it's not going to cover up if you haven't
haven't played the game at all for three years and then you try
to cram for a week or two, right?
It's it's not going to make up for that.
So that's kind of my perspectiveon that.
Concept I, I would say probably,I think kind of what you said is
you're playing like doses. I would say you don't want to

(01:22:41):
forget anything like you don't want to, you know, show up to
the tournament and be like, you know, who's this character?
But I would say definitely you play, just remember your, your
SIM, your offense. Try to think of, because when I
play in tournaments, I always think you're on layer one.
When you sit down, you don't know what the opponent knows.
You're on layer one. But I also say you got to be
ready for the, the little curveball questions, like if

(01:23:03):
you're studying for a math test and then you know, you know all
the math, you know all the math questions, but then for some
reason there's a random science question on the test.
You just got to be ready for that kind of stuff too.
But I, I would say even if you're not ready for the one
science question, you kind of goback at your past work and maybe
the answers kind of hidden somewhere in the math questions

(01:23:25):
that you can use for the sciencequestion.
That sounded very, very great. Analogy.
No, it's. It's true though.
No, it's true though, because ifyou're playing against like
Marissa and you know, you play Marissa all the time and then
you got to play a Lily, you can use the, the information you
know about Marissa and kind of apply it to Lily as well.

(01:23:46):
So you're kind of taking the Ant, you're taking the, the
questions from the old. I mean, you're taking the answer
from the old question and applying to the new one that you
don't know the answer for. I don't I think it makes
different your brain just. Different.
It makes sense. It makes.
Sense How about this? How about this?
Do you ever really at, at this stage do comparison like from

(01:24:09):
when you were first starting to compete at a really high level
like back in like I'm thinking 2017 Street Fighter 5 is when
the first notable like large scale big wins you had versus
now. Is there ever a point where you
really feel like a heavy grind building up to an event was
beneficial? Or do you feel like it was more
just a continuous like like I I mentioned before, like the

(01:24:31):
result of a lot of effort over asustained period of time?
I feel like cramming is actuallybad and I feel like as a
sustainable grind is probably you're going to want to play at
your own pace and kind of just digest your information over

(01:24:52):
time. I will say from personal
experience, I, I definitely crammed for the Red Bull Kumite
in New York because I didn't, I was not, I was not playing the
game for a while and then I was like, oh wait, kumite is coming
up. So I played a lot.
I tried to play a lot and I feltlike I did really bad in that
tournament. So I actually think cramming is
pretty bad for you. Yeah.

(01:25:13):
That was your worst kumite. Yeah, that was that was the one
versus nephew, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You unfortunately got cooked butthat one.
So the the events you did the best at, do you feel like you
didn't cram? It it was a steady.
Diet of just playing like, you know, my 30 minutes hour, maybe
a couple of hours not let me tryto play 8 hours today and try to

(01:25:34):
get everything ready. Yeah, yeah, that's how I feel.
I feel generally if you're cramming before the exam, it's
already too late, right? Like the, the, the tournament to
me always reflects what you, your current level.
And I do think that you can rampup.
Like for me, like before some events I've ramped up and played
more aggressively. And I did think that helped with

(01:25:54):
like being more aware for like combo conversions, having a
little bit of better awareness on certain things.
I think that did help just getting more reps in, but it
probably would have been better if I just had a more consistent
training regimen before that instead of cramming.
It's like I did patch it up a little bit I think by upping the
hours like 2 weeks before events, but it would have been
better if I just done that over sustained period of time.

(01:26:16):
I would have been more steps ahead in the journey and
progression with whatever I'm doing.
So in general, I feel like your goal out of tournament is not
necessarily to cramp and try to try to win the whole thing.
It's to go in comfortable with your level of play and your game
plan and to feel like you playedlike yourself.

(01:26:36):
That to me is always the most important thing, win or lose.
If you feel like you kind of youmade the decisions you wanted to
make and and it wasn't a result of panic or frustration or you
know what I mean? Like as long as you even if you
lost, if you like. Yeah, I decided to make go for
this play because I felt it would have worked and it didn't.
That to me is a win, right? You can learn from that
experience and reevaluate. You don't want to go through a

(01:26:58):
tournament match and feel like you just panicked or you were
unsure of what you were doing orwhy you were doing it, or you
were frustrated or tilted that. Those are the things you want to
avoid. If you go in with a more clear
mind and clear objective game plan, you can always take
feedback from it. And I think you just feel better
about it afterwards. So, so that would be my
recommendation. So I just have a steady regimen

(01:27:21):
for practicing. Don't overdo it before the
events and just remember that the tournament is just there
will be another tournament. There will always be another
tournament, even if this is not the one where you win or perform
your best. Don't don't cram like it's the
end of the world like because itisn't.
It feels that way at the time. I know it feels like when you
get that loss, it feels like what am I doing with my life?

(01:27:42):
I got the whole flight or or ride home.
I got to think about this for hours.
It feels like it, but it's not. There will always be another
tournament and there will alwaysbe time to train up and improve
your level play or the next one.Well, that's it.
That's I think we're that's a good place to close it out.
Any any final thoughts for the people item?
Any words of wisdom? Any more analogies you want to

(01:28:02):
break down between math and science from the mind of the
grappler player here? What do you got for a side on?
Nothing. Nothing really to end on, just
looking for my e-mail arcsis where is it?
We got to ask Sony, man, maybe if it was Arcsis we could pull
some some TPP, get some top player privilege, but I don't
think Sony gives a damn. So we're going to be gambling

(01:28:23):
with the rest of you guys, hoping and mashing refresh on
our e-mail to see if we can get into that beta.
And that's about it guys. Thanks for tuning in to Extra
Trashy and we'll catch you in the next one.
Peace.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Street Fighter 6 explodes in Japan, and the 2XKO vs. Marvel Tokon showdown | Extra Trashy