1Up.com translated an interview Famitsu magazine conducted with Daigo "The Beast" Umehara. He discusses his past, present and future in the fighting game community and when all is said and done, it's probably his best interview to date.Now Daigo's back in business, coming off a victory at the 2009 Evolution Championship Series' SFIV tournament. He doesn't regret the hiatus, though. "During the years I was away from fighting games, I started to look at myself more impartially, to keep my eyes on the big picture," he said. "It made me realize that fighting games aren't just about the players -- there's the developers, the media, the event promoters, all kinds of people that make the games what they are. That's what allows me to feel like I'm someone special in this field. I really owed all of them a major debt, and when I thought about how I should repay it, I realized that I needed to get more players into the genre, to show how much fun this is to more people. That's why I'm getting more active with the media now. Partly, I want people to look at me and say 'Man, look how much cred he's getting now that he's turned pro; I wish I could be like that.' The more players we can get, and the more developers we can get enthused for the genre, the better it'll be for fighting games."
The way Daigo puts it, there's nothing he'd like better than for someone else to follow in his footsteps. "Games get a lot more negative attention than sports or studying," he said. "Lots of people actively try to keep you away from them. If you really like gaming, though, then I think you need to keep going with it, even if it means having to convince your friends or family that it's worth it. If you keep worrying about what people think, then it'll feel terrible if you wind up failing at the end, right? But if you take pride in it and go all-out, then even if you fail, you'll have fun along the way and there's still something you'll get from it in the end."
I think Daigo is telling the truth. People can play Poker and everyone is happy about it, and sports, and everything else but often shy away from gaming. Even though gaming keeps your reactions fast, and keeps your mind strong because of all the learning and thinking that is involved with fighting games. I think playing games is 10X better than watching television, I think it just gets a bad rep.
And I am not a pro gamer, but I would like to be and part of me not achieving that is often I feel discouraged because of friends/family saying I invest a lot of time into it for nothing. But, I am glad people are getting sponsored and gaming is becoming as big as it is. Maybe one day I can be good and people will support me for it.
The fact Daigo also has a family is even more proof that you can game really hard and still live a successful life and not be a "basement nerd" as a lot of people say, even Chris Wendell Fata1ity showed this. So, I'm happy. Thanks Daigo.
Video game is bad for you. I remembered as a top tier students I was, I failed 6 out of 10 subjects once I was introduced to "Street Fighter I" during my final exam week. The rest is history.
BTW, Daigo don't have a family. Daigo lives with his family aka his parents.
They should have put "Winner don't play videogames" in all arcade games, instead of the drug things. :)
@#5:
Uh, no. The NFL/NBA/MLB/NHL etc. is the cream of the crop. Even if they are the worst player in the league, they got picked out of the thousands and thousands of college players/minor league players who aspire to go pro.
And not all pro sports players get paid millons. Only the best get paid millions.
maybe he just option select. He got dumped by gf, then he went back to SF4.
i got to meet the dude at big box and he owned me...best own of my life
Hi!!! I i´m training en SSFIV but i m little disappoint ´cuse i would be part of a club or something of SSFIV, i m form El Salvador and i have PS3, if u have PS3 too, please give ur name to add u in my friend list.
Great article. Daigo now needs to encourage American pros that getting a real job is a healthy spice of life alongside pro gaming. JWong is an awesome player but I wish more people admit that pro-gamer is the same as pro-gambler. Not a bad thing but its partial truth.
@12 Yes he is. #6 is just rambling off of sh*t he knows nothing about.
The fighting game community needs more people like Daigo. There are so many gamer haters out there, EVEN PEOPLE IN THIS COMMUNITY, when Daigo is living proof you can be a pro gamer.
If you believe you can't do something, it's self-fulling prophecy, you won't ever achieve it, but if you believe in yourself and never give up you can achieve great things, just look at Daigo.
Daigo is still balanced too because he's a trained nurse, but now that his gaming career has taken off he's able to do what he loves. This is how to live.