This week’s interview is not about the competitive mindset of a certain player. Rather, it focuses on the directors of a recent major tournament. Next week’s focus will be ThisGuileKillYa, the winner of the contest last week. This week, we meet then men behind Ohio’s Season’s Beatings series, to talk about the past, present, and future of their event.
Justin Wong (left) with Fugee (right) and Ghaleon (bottom) at MoMo2, SBs amazing venue.
Real Name: Fugi La / Robert Marshall
Handle: Fugee
Hometown: NY
Current Residence: Columbus, OH
Age: 30-something
And
Real Name: Chris Hatala
Handle: Ghaleon
Hometown: Cleveland, OH
Current Residence: Cleveland, OH
Age: 26
Keits: Thank you both for taking the time out to talk with me after such a long and difficult weekend. What are your most basic thoughts on how Season’s Beatings 3 went?
Fugee: I felt we delivered on what the promotion promised, but it also spawned a turn out that (caused) a blemish with 2 communities.
Ghaleon: Yeah. Mixed feelings this year. Happy that Capcom went pretty well, but the overall tournament really blew up with big numbers like we wanted, and in some ways our processing of the events lacked some (because) of the numbers.
Fugee: I knew it was gonna be big, but in the last few weeks especially, when pre-reg was coming to end, Soul Calibur 4 and Guilty Gear blew up. But overall, I feel it was fun tournament and that is all I wanted to come out of it.
Keits: Well, before get into the gritty details on these issues, there is a quick topic I’d like to get out of the way. On Alpha-ism Radio, one of the guests said that this year was the last Season’s Beatings. He claimed to hear it straight from Fugee’s mouth. Is any of this true?
Ghaleon laughs and looks to Fugee.
Fugee: That is not true. There will be another one, but it may not be SB4. We may have outgrown MoMos (the tournament venue) and at the same time we are looking into taking it to other states! “Seasons Beatings: New York City!” is a good title.
Keits: So, possibly a name and a venue change? Perhaps even a new state entirely? But another Fugee/Ghaleon production is on the way, correct?
Ghaleon: Fuck yeah. Many more.
Fugee: Definitely. I was already thinking about this when we started this series. Think of it like Friday the 13th. After the 4th installment, it got stupid. So you have to make changes. We are about bigger and better every time. We’ve put Ohio on the map, and what better way to show some love but to highlight another major city? New York has no recognized tournament, (with) it being one of the best cities in the nation; why not let it shine?
Keits: Do you worry that by moving the tournament from its location that you will lose some of your charm? Perhaps alienate some of the Midwest’s mid-level players who cannot travel as far, while taking the tournament directly to a top-player hot spot?
Ghaleon: We aren’t going to abandon MoMo’s if that’s the case. It might not be called SB or be the main event of our year, but we will still have events there. We don’t wanna abandon the Midwest or the venue like that. We’ve already done one mid-year event there. That could be done again.
Fugee: True… we gave the Midwest players back to back tournaments with top West Coast and East Coast players, and some of them have yet to make it to Evo. NO top player ever had any reason to come to Ohio, but we wanted show the community that they are willing to come here and that they are real people and not just names tagged to a video online. It has definitely revived some of the players that fell off to come back to the scene and actually call these players out for money.
Keits: Well, I’m sure a large part of the community will be very relieved that SB isnt over. That said, you are definitely getting a lot of heat from the Soul Calibur and Guilty Gear communities. While the general concensus is “dont blame Fugee or Ghaleon”, can you explain what exactly happened that caused these problems?
Fugee: Ill start with Guilty Gear. We (are) also planning on going on Alpha-ism radio to discuss (this topic). We got started late due to the pool tables not being moved at 8am. The whole tournament depended on them being moved or (it) just wouldn’t be possible to hold that kind of attendance. That set us back 3 hours! The registration system we used also failed due to not having a printer to make master copies of all paid entrants. These 2 issues killed 6 hours.
Sean Howard was the 1st choice to run GG like in the past, but he turned it down due to not knowing if he could attend. FlashMetroid (Peter) offered to create a thread on Dustloop and run the tournament, but when no one signed up on Dustloop, he detoured them to SRK and deleted the thread. Marvel was already huge and I posted that any game that reaches 100 people (would get a pot bonus). Sean then messages me (to say he is) now promoting GG like mad and is planning on attending. GG takes off!
2 weeks before the tournament, Marn (Martin) asked (if he could) run (GG), and I told him he could help Peter. He was cool with that. I gave marn the updated pre-reg and he was all over it… got the tournament maker (software) and had the brackets up within 36 hours! I did not see one post or get one (message) from any respected GG player that I know saying Marn or Peter were not to be trusted with this responsibilty.
So we go on, tournament starts late, megaphones were limited cause we just couldn’t find them anywhere. Ghaleon bought (the last one) at 10am at a brand new Radio Shack.
Ghaleon: Those babies are pricey too.
Fugee: The mics at MoMos are terrible, and I addressed this issue with the owner and it was not taken care of… so eventually we brought in our own when we had access to them (later in the evening). GG seemed to running OK every time i had passed by their area. Not one time did anyone come to me and say matches were being floated or that people are playing double jeopardy or people are playing matches that were already eliminated. Marn did tell me he was calling for people and they weren’t reporting to their matches. I stated if after 3 times they (still) do not come, it is at your discretion to either send them to losers or disqualify them.
Ghaleon: He got me on the megaphone and I called people for him, big chunks at a time.
Fugee: Later on that night, I see Marn sitting at the registration table and he told me that he didn’t want to “do this anymore”. So I asked him where Peter was. I dont think Peter put in as much effort as Marn and he was left to fall. When Marn showed me his bracket, he had all the winners filled out and not one person in the losers.
Keits: There were rumors floating around that there was an attempt at rigging the bracket. Will what was left of the brackets be made available to the public to see?
Fugee: Yeah. Marn claims its the exact bracket that was (posted) online (before the event). Marn was under the impression that I was gonna stop everything for Justin vs Yipes (SB3’s Main Event) due to a conversation we had on Instant Messanger. I was going to take that route because I felt that was the most vulnerable time for peoples equipment to be stolen, so I wanted to put key people in place to watch over the set ups. Once I figured out where I was gonna run the Justin/Yipes match, it was no longer necessary… so the annoucement to stop everything was never made.
Ghaleon: Well we did announce something in the middle of the Justin/Yipes. If I remember right, I said “Man they are calling SC matches and those people are probably right here watching the event.”
Fugee:I only announced not to call people for SC4.
Keits: Yes, the impression that was given was that it was okay to keep playing tournament matches during the main event, but not to DQ anyone during it.
Fugee: Exactly! Now this is one thing i will not excuse for Marn, which I told him personally. He left MoMos to get his money for the Justin/Yipes match, but he may have been under the impression that I was gonna stop everything due to the (online) conversation. Still, he shouldn’t have left. And Peter went with him! I remember seeing Josh Queen running for him earlier in tournament but i honestly do not recall telling Marn to give the brackets to Josh. Once Justin/Yipes finished, a few guys came up to me and said “can we have our money back for GG because Marn is nowhere to be found and someone who we dont even know has the brackets and he doesnt know what hes doing.”
So I go over there and Josh Queen is ready to explode. I get the brackets and there is still no one in the losers side at all. I can see why he was so upset. The guys that initially asked me for the money said that they had a list of people who wanted their money back who were still in the tournament and did not want to continue playing.
Keits: For the record, Josh Queen does know how to run a bracket. I’m sure you know that.
Fugee: Yes, I do. From there I got rushed by every GG player remaining. With no one running the tournament and everyone asking for their money back, I made the decision to cancel because its what the majority of them (if not all of them) wanted. I even gave money back to those who were eliminated hours ago, because it had been unorganized. I do take some blame because I really wanted to give Mmarn the tools and people he needed to run efficiently, but it just didn’t happen.
Keits: If things are spun the wrong way, this could put a big dent in your reputation as directors. What steps have you taken, other than refunds, to ensure that these players want to attend again? In retrospect, what could have been done to avoid this entirely?
Ghaleon: Well, (A.) We need to communicate better with the tourney directors I think. Fugee and I were both in charge of the event, but we are only two people and there was only so much we could tackle at once. I bring a lot of stuff with me every tourney I go to, not just my own. This tourney I brought two laptops, I purchased a megaphone on the day of, and I had a whole bag of shit. But we only have so many resources to go around. We wanted laptops for each game but with what we had on the day, we had mine and Tiggy’s. One of mine was used for registration on GG, but we must have had a miscommunication because it was not used for making brackets. We, up front, will present a set-out list of things we need from people running tournies and what to expect, physically (equipment, etc.) and mentally.
Fugee: I have talked to Kenji and Sean Howard, the previous directors for GG, to ensure it will never happen again. Also, the registration is going to Evo style… no late entrees… that killed us. I’m also going to trash their (MoMo’s) house sound cause it screwed us again this year. We didnt get any complaints about set up counts so we are good in that respect.
Ghaleon: Soul Calibur complained.
Keits: The metal ceilings in MoMo are real trouble for their PA system, and even for Megaphones.
Fugee: It wasn’t the ceilings. Their transmitter is weak.
Keits: Soul Calibur players are reporting they had only two stations for their tournament the entire day, and that they ran untill 5am.
Fugee: Not true.
Keits: The director of that tournament said that he did offer them the opportunity to finish the next day, and no one spoke up in favor of the idea. So, tell our readers about the Soul Calibur tournament.
Fugee: It was originally scheduled for Sunday. I knew Tekken 5: DR would get 64 or more people. But, once again, they wanted it on Saturday and wondered why T5DR got priority over it (citing that it was an older game). Some players could only come for Saturday, so I bent over and gave them what they wanted.
Ghaleon: T5DR’s count was 97 for the record.
Fugee: (I told them that the) only (way) it could happen (on Saturday) was after T5DR. In the threads, people were taking names for all these other unofficial tournaments not realizing how big this was gonna be. I posted several times that nothing unofficial would be guaranteed to happen. Official singles touranments have priority. Even teams events were talked about.
Ps3s are expensive and people are hesitant to bring them, especially after I caught someone stealing one last year. Which I got back, by the way. Otherwise it would have been gone forever. My Ps3 count was 12. That was more then enough for T5DR… however only 6-7 showed up (as expected). I posted that Sc4 would start immediately after Tekken. Up until about 4 weeks before SB3, Soul Calibur was 40+, which is easy to run, but it grew to 80, then 90, then 100 before I knew it! And the schedule was already promised for Saturday for those with limited travel arrangements.
Jinmaster had a lot to do with promoting Sc4, which we appreciate and I do believe thats a big reason why it got so big. So DigimonEmperor ran Sc4 and I didnt get any complaints from anyone during or after the tournament. I know it ran late and MoMos actually let us stay there 2 hours and 45 minutes later than their closing time to make up for the pool table issue. But the damage was already done. I was gonna move Sc4 to Sunday because it was realy late, but I didnt want to break my word so we used up every minute MoMos gave us to finish.
Now I do know that people paid and were left out of the Sc4 bracket, and I did refund their money… its possible Digi left some people off. Just for the record I’d like to apologize to the GG and the SC communities, and we promise to get it right next time if you decide to return. All suggestions are welcomed.
Ghaleon: We’ve been checking the forums for all games, not just SRK, and are working with all communities for future improvements. And also obviously talking to the people we know in each scene personally.
Keits: So, now that we have some of the negative stuff behind us, what were some of your personal highlights for the event?
Fugee: Highlight for me was looking into the pool of people and seeing more smiles then frowns. I was the busied person there…
At this point, Fugee was called away and was unable to return for the rest of the interview.
Ghaleon: Well I’d want to run these things even if I got no positive feedback/recognition/whatever. Obviously if it was only negative, I’d work on what people want from us. But knowing that we had things go wrong, people who were not totally happy with every aspect of the tourney were coming up to me and saying “Great job man, working all day (10-1 a.m. with not much in me but 2 Red Bulls) must have been rough, but you were collected and ran a great tourney”.
Phi, Nagata, Erik Kim and some of the other Canada guys especially had some really nice words. We do this not for money or credit but because we love fighting games and we love getting people together and running something people can really get into and remember. To have people come to me unsolicited and just let us know what these things mean to them is really something. Means so much to me, to have people extend that kindness and gratitude when they don’t need to at all. Phi is a PRO at this stuff and we had a really good converstion about what goes right, what goes wrong, what to focus on, and why it’s worth it. And I know the Canada guys were unhappy with the brackets and they still gave me props on doing 3s and everything, and I got to talk to them more.
Keits: What did they have to say?
Ghaleon: Well this goes back to the problems we had — pen/paper or laptop, most of our tournies had seeding/bracket issues. Registration taking till about 5 p.m. meant I couldn’t properly tweak the bracket as well as I wanted to, once I cross-checked the master list with the 3s list. So when I could, I swapped players based on region in tourney, but with that program some things you could easily write-in on paper weren’t possible. They were seeded by region and skill initially, just not as well as I wanted. But yeah — most players said they had a good time despite problems, and we offered some seriousness for Marvel, so that’s what matters the most. We’re doing a lot already to look at the problems while they’re fresh in our minds though
Keits: With so many new games coming out, how do you plan to adjust your lineup? Will we be saying goodbye to older titles, and if so, which ones are candidates to go?
Ghaleon: OK, If we have a tourney of this size, we might have to trim a game or two here. I know how comments like these get blown out of proportion, so I don’t really want to say it as an ominous thing on any scene, but yes. We have a major here, and the space and time we have has to be used as best we can. Those new games could mean (A.) Our Sunday will be as nuts as our Saturday, or (B.) Some games will have to go. We’ll look at which games have the biggest followings if we need to and decide on cutbacks possibly. Plus if we can’t get the systems we need for X game, that will be a problem too (next-gen titles). Next year will be nuts for us when STHD/SFIV alone come out. The community has a lot of prioritizing to do.
Keits: Considering the current difficulty of getting community members to loan in next gen systems, is sponsorship and SB-owned equipment something that is on your agenda?
Ghaleon: We looked at a couple options this year — we were into it — and it didn’t pan out, unfortunately. We got support from Yo Games, but due to a couple oversights the Playstation 3 was not able to be used for DR/SC4. Yeah, we’ll look at it again. Sad that it couldn’t happen for this year.
Keits: The headline events that you run tend to be MvC2 only. In the future, have you considered making your special events more diverse, or running them at a later timeslot like Evo does?
Ghaleon: YES! We’re looking at options — no solid plans yet obviously, but an event for GG/SC would be great to show how much we value their support. I’ve wanted to do a 3s event but time hasn’t allowed. I had a tentative one this year. If we have a mid-year event especially, where Marvel probably won’t be the centerpiece, this is all the more attainable.
Keits: Thanks again for talking with me. Any closing comments?
Ghaleon: Not much except we love this community — everyone can hopefully tell from our months-of-planning and round-the-clock work on SB3. See you in 2009, wherever the future takes us.
