Arturo 'NYCFurby' Sanchez fighting game veteran let go by Matcherino and Team Spooky
Arturo "NYCFurby" Sanchez has been released from both Matcherino and Team Spooky this week following accusations that he had mishandled prize pool funds for tournaments within the fighting game community (FGC). Sanchez has been both a tournament organizer and competitor within the fighting game community for over 10 years now, formerly acting as one of Matcherino's community representatives.
Matcherino released a statement detailing the split, saying that Sanchez "has broken [their] Terms of Service and betrayed the trust of the players by mishandling prize pool funds."
— Matcherino (@matcherino) December 30, 2022
In response to this happening, Sanchez released an initial statement declaring that all of this was a "massive misunderstanding," but acknowledged that Matcherino had been paid back in full. Payments to the players were stated to be late citing family health issues and that his response was delayed due to being at the hospital over a span of time resulting in him not checking Twitter as these accusations occurred.
During this initial message, Sanchez promised to release a full statement regarding the situation "with receipts." Sanchez claimed that he was looking forward to Matcherino absolving his name and confirming his statement.
Just wanted to update everyone on the @matcherino situation. It’s not what people think it is. pic.twitter.com/WbfEry0rDy
— bc 480hz Reactions Sabin (@nycfurby) December 31, 2022
Just last night, Sanchez announced that he would host a stream where he'd explain the situation and give his side of the story. The stream has since been removed from Twitch's archive.
Following the live stream, Team Spooky announced via Twitter that Sanchez was being removed from the team. In the Tweet, Spooky stated that he "wish[ed] him luck in his future endeavors."
I am releasing Arturo 'Nycfurby' Sanchez from Team Spooky. I wish him luck in his future endeavors.
— Team Spooky (@teamspooky) January 4, 2023
Within the stream, Sanchez addressed some of the complaints levied at him by community members, including that he was late for events. Sanchez stated that his "work ethic hasn't been too on par for the last year or so," and that he does "have a reputation for being late." Sanchez also stated that he "bit off more than [he] could chew," in regards to streaming and running parts of Next Level Battle Circuit, a weekly fighting game tournament series.
It was alleged by Matcherino that Sanchez mishandled player funds. Allegations also sprung up in the community that players hadn't been paid over a period of months for tournaments they'd placed in, where they were due prize money.
"The reason why the payouts were late, I 100% take responsibility for this. I've had so many things going on, not only in my personal life, streams and PC optimization for fighting games, that I did get overwhelmed," said Sanchez during the stream.
Both Matcherino and Sanchez have stated that all players have been paid out as of the time that this story was published.
Further statements may come to light in the future, as Sanchez said that Matcherino is still doing an audit to ensure that everything is how it should be.
Contributions to this story were made by Justin 'AdaptiveTrigger' Gordon, Steven 'Dream King' Chavez, Jon 'Catalyst' Grey, and Dakota 'DarkHorse' Hills.
