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esports
Fight Club: Meet India's Street Fighter Community
Though small, India is home to a passionate fighting game community. Street Fighter reigns supreme but other games are on the rise too.
For some of us, it started as early as school with the usual Sports Day. For others, basketball, billiards, and cricket were their competitive poison of choice. Many gamers in India would turn to Counter-Strike, from the 1.6 days to Global Offensive, and Dota 2 for their fix. However, for a small subset of players in the country – and for that matter, across the world – fighting games were their true calling. Remember that time you played Tekken 3 at a gaming parlour with your friends? Believe it or not but many players partake in fighting games for sport. The biggest franchise of them all is arguably Capcom's Street Fighter series.
With tournaments like the Street Fighter World Championship and EVO, Street Fighter has proven to be one of the most successful competitive fighting games of all time. There's something about the systems at play, the delicate art of countering, feinting and combo-canceling that keeps drawing players in. It's interesting to note the enthusiasm that many players like Daigo Umehara, Justin Wong, Kayane and a few others (read more about these guys here) have shown for the franchise. After all, for many of us, Street Fighter was one of the very first games we ever played.
How the FGC scene in India came to be
In India, the fighting game community born from the likes of Street Fighter has been low-key. It is a strong community that craves competition. Karthick Gopal, who works as a product and design evangelist at Apple, has played Street Fighter since Street Fighter 2 and then Turbo released. He is also one of the admins for the Indian Fighting Game Community on Facebook, the foremost group for fighting game players in India. When Karthick is not working with developers for creating solutions in design and tech for Apple's platforms, he somewhat jokingly acts as a “true titan in the eyes of noobs that wake up in the fear of being owned. Which I mercilessly do.” Only somewhat jokingly though.
Karthick Gopal
© Karthick Gopal
Regarding India's fighting game community, Karthick says, “It's tight-knit but being a single player game it's really small and a lot of people are egoistical in a good way. The FGC or Fighting Game Community has always been a small movement. You have some of the stalwarts like Gautam Sriram aka shadoken and laxlight that keep it going and some newer people that want to merge it into esports.”
While many gamers in India are familiar with Street Fighter, the most important destinations for fighting games can be broken down into three cities – Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai. Karthick does believe they are rather disparate in terms of game choice though. “I am hoping Injustice 2 and Street Fighter 5 will grow to form a big enough movement. There's a strong regional pride that propagates along these lines that I personally like to see.”
Enter Adhithya Mahesh
Karthick provided his choices for the top Street Fighter players in India. Several names were mentioned but Adhithya Mahesh was the top choice. “Number 1 by far. Adi's a perfectionist. He won't leave something until he gets it right. Combine that with an intuitive high-level understanding of the game and you got him ahead by everyone in India by far.”
Hailing from Chennai, Adhithya is an interesting player and not just because he plays on a gamepad and not an arcade stick. He first started out with games like Tekken, playing with his neighbour and brother at a young age. It was not long before Adhithya spent an inordinate amount of time playing fighting games. Naturally, he decided to step up his game.
“I started with Street Fighter 3 but at that time, I didn't know much about 2D fighting games. Street Fighter 3 started out as a platform and the original Street Fighter games were really really difficult to get into. It was a slow learning process but it started to make me understand the depth of 2D fighting games. By the time Street Fighter 4 was announced, I was ready to make that transition," says Adhithya.
When Adhithya finished up with Street Fighter 4, his fighting game ambitions became even more serious. Even though he was in college at the time, he spent a lot of time to honing his craft. After meeting other players at the launch tournament for Street Fighter 4, Adhithya took to meeting them every weekend. At the time, the competitive scene was the handful of players in Chennai and one particular player, Himmat “Brandy” Singh, in Delhi. Adhithya recounts the huge influx of players that occurred when Super Street Fighter 4 came to PC and thus players from Bangalore, Delhi and many other cities emerged.
However, the face-to-face aspect of the fighting game community cannot be emphasised enough. “It's very, very difficult to keep up if you don't have other people to play with online. That's the reason why Chennai and Delhi have had the edge when it comes to fighting games. It also helps that they have a very similar energy," Adhithya explains.
Devraj Pandey's story
Devraj Pandey is one of India's west coast players. His tryst with the Street Fighter franchise dates back to 1992. A regular visitor at the local arcades in Mumbai, a young Devraj recalls playing the game then for a minuscule pot that all players put together. "Back then, no one had an idea of esports! We would put together small sums of money such as five rupees or less, but here only the losers had to pool in the money. If you didn't lose, you didn't have to put in anything," he adds with a chuckle. As the years passed by, Devraj's affection towards the brawler game did not fade. However, now he insists that the game has become very technical in nature and victory does not rest on the player's skill alone.
Devraj (centre right) at a Street Fighter 5 event.
© Games The Shop
Devraj recalls the time he visited Chennai in 1997. "I remember visiting the arcades there and I was blown away. The quality and variety of games available there were not found very easily in the country. The availability of such resources may have gone a long way to building the recognition the city has today." However, Devraj did not fail to mention that nowadays, with the increased internet connectivity and better infrastructure. "There is a high chance that many cities now already possess a hidden community of dedicated fighters! A few top players also hail from states such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and not necessarily from the metropolitan cities."
Raghavendran Ravi's tryst with the scene
Raghavendran Ravi who is based in Bangalore is also a close friend of Devraj. Together with the help of a few more friends, they run a YouTube channel known as "Way of the Scrub". Here, they post relevant game tutorials and information not limited to Street Fighter but also to other games such as Injustice 2, For Honor, Dark Souls and much more. However, Raghavendran's venture into the fighting game genre had begun with Mortal Kombat, but in 2010 he transitioned to the CAPCOM game. "It was the depth that Street Fighter V possessed which attracted me to the game. I found it intellectually stimulating!"
Raghavendran also mentions the "strong gaming cafe culture" present in cities such as Chennai and Delhi. These cafes have helped these cities take a lead when it comes to Street Fighter. But the option to play online has enabled a multitude of players to pick up their controllers and invest their time in learning this game. Raghavendran mentions that the biggest problem plaguing the community in India is the player attitudes. "Unlike team games like Dota 2 and CS:GO, it is possible to blame a loss on the members. But, in fighting games, it all boils down to the individual. Often, a lot of players get rubbed the wrong way when they lose and eventually give up on their competitive careers before it even takes off."
Know about Mayank Prajapati
When talking about the Delhi scene, it is important to know about players like Mayank “MiKeYROG” Prajapati. Having “accidentally” got into Street Fighter in 2009, Mayank would spend 5 to 8 hours per day practising. Eventually, Mayank met other players and started partaking in offline battles. “I met new friends by playing this game.” It also didn't hurt that more recent titles like Street Fighter 5 allow you to search for Indian players specifically, offering a thousand or so combatants to face." Unfortunately, there is no way to actually talk to them but pages like the Indian FGC have been a boon for players like Mayank.
Community-wise, while it is not difficult for new players to get into Street Fighter, it does pose a steep learning curve. This may limit the number of potentially new players. “It's not like any other game where you can get good in just a few days. You can play other games very casually but for this, you need to be at least good even after a few weeks of play. When you get online, you lose badly if you don't know the basic fundamentals of this game. The learning curve is steep and that's why we don't see many players.”
Even if one does spend the time getting the fundamentals down, Mayank shares the belief that players should fight face-to-face to improve. “Few players have the mindset of only playing offline. They don't want to get into offline meets and have no time to grow the community. I knew a few people who just stay at home and they don't want to indulge in offline play.” Mayank says that the communities in Delhi and Chennai are among the strongest thanks to players hosting regular weekly tournaments and offline meets.
Mayank at the India Gaming Show 2017
© NODWIN Gaming
What a vibrant FGC needs
While online tournaments do help players measure their status in the world, it is also about representing the community and building a solid base. This, in turn, would attract interest from publishers like Capcom. But what are other factors required to help build up the country as a formidable contender in the world of fighting game esports?
Karthick listed a wide range of requirements, starting with the acceptance of gaming as a viable pursuit for kids. “It would also help to let people organise communities and foster them around gaming. A dedicated reach out channel to buy or rent games for cheap would also be good. Year-long promotions, a master league to encourage gamers to compete and international exposure for Indian players to know how far behind they are would be the icing on the cake.”
Of course, dedicated practice and coaching time, constant streaming exposure and access to the right equipment (arcade sticks aren't exactly easy to come by in India) would not hurt either. “If we make this a science like we do the other educations and professions, then we have no reason NOT to perform,” says Karthick.
That being said, seeing how far India has to go to compete with the rest of the world, the progress made thus far is nothing to scoff at. Karthick works as a tournament organizer and caster in his free time and enjoys seeing players battle it out. “I love showcasing the things I notice. I don't think I get enough time to play as much as these guys but they are all my friends (even the ones I had fights with). I wish we could grow this community to be larger. They are some of the smartest guys I know in gaming.”
While everyone knows everyone in the community and while it's far from “just happy”, Karthick does note that “Everyone is smart, driven and easy to banter with. We have a strong North India vs South India undercurrent that I find really interesting. Unfortunately, we haven't dedicated enough time to building that story up. At the end of the day everyone's friends with each other, but if you had to nominate a regional defender and the king of India who would it be? It's very hard to tell when something that big is on the line.”
Even if that time is ways off, who knows? India could very well have its own Daigo or Kayane some day. But the fact that these legendary players emerged from dedicated communities that got together and had fun should at least indicate that India is on the right track.
