The Flashy Review posted an interview featuring Gootecks and Mike Ross. The interview covers many things including Bill S.978, their recent signing with CompLexity and EVO. Be sure to read the entire thing to catch many of the interesting things that are talked about.
TFR: It seems a lot of strong players have been signed in the past month or so; is that a good sign for the community? Is it indicative of a larger trend in gaming and culture?
MR: Well, it depends. If you read on a headline that “Wolfkrone just got signed to Hood Street Gaming,” you’re going to be a little skeptical of that. Just getting signed doesn’t mean much. Fortunately, the players that have been getting picked up lately have been going to legit companies. fLoE, Momochi, ChocoBlanka – [Evil Geniuses] is really good. We found out that RF and Kindevu got picked up by eLive. You might say, “Well, what is eLive?” Heck, they’re sending them to EVO, so they’re doing a lot more than other companies do for their players.
TFR: So is it fair to say that, with those companies, these players are in arrangements that are going to pay their bills?
MR: We don’t know that, but what we can say is that they’re going to be in a situation where they can get more exposure, travel the world, and go to more tournaments.
G: The sponsorship thing is tricky because right now everybody is just trying to get travel paid for, but travel is only half the battle. You have [other] expenses when you’re traveling, and you have expenses when you’re not traveling. So the fact that everybody is getting sponsored is a good sign, but it’s not everything. What we need is not more players that are signed. We need more players having their bills paid by their talents, period, whether they’re signed or not signed. That’s why the signing thing is one of the indicators of growth, but it’s not the most important. A lot of people put a lot of emphasis on the sponsorship, like “Oh, this makes you legit,” or whatever. But I don’t really think it’s like that at all. Like Mike said, there’s plenty of players who can get sponsored, and then can’t find a way to get to different events. A lot of international players have that problem, where they’re sponsored, but there’s worry as to whether they’re going to get the events they need to go to.
Tip sent in by TheShane.
Why is the Fighting Game scene one of the lowest ranking in terms of fans/players/organizers in the competitive scene?
Cuz fighting games are hard to get into period.
Harder than RTS's, FPS's, MOBA's, and even WOW Pvp.
Also most fighting games are 1-dimensional hence will seem repetative to a lot of people.
Just make fighting games easier to get into, while keeping the hardcore aspects of it as well. That's how the scene will grow. Oh and ofcourse, more marketing and hype matches.
Lol logic, I was about to eat yo P***y out. lol
As far as people paying their bills with it, don't think so. Only the top three players could even get close to doing that. When you actually live on your own, you got car, electricity, phone, internet, water, food, mortgage/property tax, etc. It's a huge amount of money if you really want to survive and I know for most, the scene is just not big enough to sustain anybody but the best player.
Mike Ross isn't black there's a lot of sunlight in LA he's just really tan.
@4: as if more recent games weren't easy enough to get into? Shoryuken shortcuts? Simple mode in MvC3?
"Just make fighting games easier to get into, while keeping the hardcore aspects of it as well."
Capcom has tried to do that but you can only dumb the game down so much.
@6 its more so a swing at who signed up first. Not a company of any sorts with not much to offer. more so of a power play for themselves more than anything else. not saying any bad intentions for wolfkrone either. If who signed him was white you could say redneck gaming if ya wanted. Bottom line its not getting ya too far, "USUALLY".
no set of people can compare to an entire company no matter how good their intentions.
@11
Really? Shoryuken shortcuts?
How about get rid of p-linking? How about show the players hitboxes in the game so that we don't have to research it online? The math aspect of the game? A lot of stuff we still have to figure out on our own or research online. This isnt World of Warcraft.
I like the showing the hitboxes idea and also the VF frame data info. I really think all fighting games should incorporate that.
Congratulation to all that got sponsor. Down a beer to that. Roger dat!