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Casuals: Spooky, the Hard-Boiled Streamer
Team Spooky's Victor "Spooky" Fontanez talks building an FGC empire on the East Coast.
Team Spooky's Victor 'Spooky' Fontanez
© Robert Paul / http://rmpaul.com
My first interaction with Spooky was at Tokyo Game Show 2015. All the fighting game community’s biggest names gathered at the Mad Catz booth in the cavernous Makuhari Messe, a sprawling convention center just outside of Tokyo. I had never met Zhi “Zhieeep” Liang Chew in person before so I wanted to say hi. He was getting ready to do commentary with long-time Street Fighter competitor and Capcom Pro Talk host Mike Ross. As I called out to Zhi, Spooky standing nearby said, “Don’t bother them. They’re working.” That’s Spooky for you. No nonsense.
Spooky playing matches between stream duties
© Robert Paul / http://rmpaul.com
Escaping Reality
Born and raised in Brooklyn, Victor “Spooky” Fontanez, 35, came from a rather poor home and had a rough childhood. Video games provided an escape for Spooky. Like many kids of his generation, he played games on Atari 2600, NES, Genesis, and Super Nintendo, but Street Fighter II played a big role in Spooky’s childhood.
“I never wanted to be home, so I stayed at the arcade all day and played. My mom came looking for me because ‘Victor didn’t come home again today.’ She beat my ass and I would go to the arcade the next day because I didn’t give a crap,” Spooky said.
Spooky wasn’t the kid who grew up to become a top Street Fighter player on the East Coast. In fact, he didn’t particularly care to compete, but he spent a lot of time at the old New York arcade Chinatown Fair. He knew a bunch of competitive people, rattling off a list of names of regulars like Henry Cen, Arturo Sanchez, and Flash G.
“They didn’t really know who I was because I was a random guy who went every now and then,” he said.
Spooky just doing everything, business as usual
© Robert Paul / http://rmpaul.com
Career Shift
Spooky stayed on the East Coast, spending a little time in New Jersey and Virginia, where he attended the University of Virginia for a short time. He didn’t finish school, but he ended up working in IT. As the fighting game community and its events expanded into broadcasting and live streaming, Spooky saw a chance to do something more interesting than the bland IT work he was used to.
“I was shitty. I hated a lot of the people. They had money, but they were scumbags because they had money and I was never really comfortable working there,” Spooky said. “That was a weird time because 3S was out on console and the Daigo 2004 thing (Evo Moment #37) happened. Around the time, I wasn’t feeling my job anymore.”
During that time, Spooky got into anime fighters like Melty Blood. It was a time when Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike still ruled the competitive scene in the early 2000s. Melty Blood was the first game he made a name off of - he would win tournaments and money matches, and eventually became more known in the fighting game scene.
Good as he was, there wasn’t much of a career in being a full-time professional Melty Blood player, so Spooky looked into other options related to broadcasting in the FGC. He befriended Arturo Sanchez around the time Street Fighter IV launched. Spooky wanted to take the dive into live streaming Super Street Fighter IV so he approached Sanchez about playing an early version of the game. They ended up running a 24 hour stream together. They started their stream on Justin.tv, the precursor to Twitch, before switching to Ustream for technical reasons. Back in the early days of Justin.tv, international viewers couldn’t watch the streams if they exceeded 1,000 viewers. Spooky said they ran the game for a week on Ustream and it was a hit. Team Spooky was born.
Team Spooky may be important to the history of the FGC, but its influence in streaming expands far past that. Soon after the formation of Team Spooky, Justin.tv turned into Twitch. Twitch COO Kevin Lin approached Spooky about what would bring him back to Justin.tv, Spooky cited the issue with the viewer count locking out international viewers and it hurting Team Spooky’s numbers, which was the impetus for resolving the block. When Justin.tv resolved the issue, Team Spooky went back to the platform - and influenced the direction of Twitch forever. Arturo Sanchez ended up partnering with Spooky as well, handling streaming duties and top-tier salty suites at events.
Victor "Spooky" Fontanez on commentary at Evo
© Robert Paul / http://rmpaul.com
Developing a Marketable Product
Team Spooky has gone on to broadcast the weekly Next Level Battle Circuit events at Next Level in Brooklyn and high profile tournaments around the country like CEO, Combo Breaker, and Final Round. On top of that, Spooky has been involved in some of the biggest productions in fighting games like Evo and, of course, Tokyo Game Show.
The key to Spooky’s success has been his ability to adapt. Like Arturo Sanchez, being a jack of all trades helps make the productions more authentic.
“I’m not going to win any majors but I can play games. I can broadcast. I can do commentary. I can talk to TOs and organize events. I have a unique knowledge of all the elements it takes to run a fighting game event from beginning to end,” Spooky said.
Not everything runs smoothly at these events especially when productions are at the whim of the locations’ internet connections. It doesn’t happen often but if a stream goes down, the first thing you’ll see in Twitch chat is “Spooky plz!” It's not just on Spooky’s streams either - It’s become an inside joke throughout the community. It's a joke that's lost on him, however. Twitch might be a video game cultural phenomenon but one thing has always baffled Spooky: Twitch chat.
“The Kappa face. I don’t get it. I love that stuff and I love people can communicate with each other. These guys love this stuff. That’s one thing Twitch has definitely gotten right,” Spooky said.
Spooky runs a tight ship when the show is live but watching him work reveals how much he enjoys his work. Getting a chance to spend a non-stressful moment with him, like at the recent Wizard World event in Portland, revealed he’s just another guy with a love for fighting games and he wants to share it with as many people as possible. It helps he has the professional perspective to go with the passion.
“The hardest part is getting people who don’t understand competitive games to understand our product,” he said.
Keep It Simple
Sometimes Spooky has to take matters into his own hands and jump on the microphone to commentate, one of Spooky’s underrated skills. He doesn’t delve into fighting games’ most technical aspects and it isn’t for a lack of knowledge; though, he’s certainly not averse to learning more. Spooky takes a laid back approach to his commentary that’s entertaining enough for his fans and easy enough to understand for those people new to the competitive scene and streams.
“I try to be helpful. I try to get everyone else to understand. If something isn’t cool why the hell am I broadcasting it in the first place? That attitude makes it easier to present it to others,” Spooky said.
Despite his high profile work overseas and the recent Lupe Fiasco versus Daigo Umehara exhibition, Spooky’s favorite events are the East Coast Eric “Big E” Small tournaments like NEC, Summer Jam, and Winter Brawl, which you may have just seen one of the best Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 Grand Finals in recent memory, featuring Kane Blue River and FilipinoChamp.
“From one day to the next, I’m doing eSports like Evo or a regular tournament like Summer Jam without the fancy effects. I’m perfectly fine with doing either of those things. In fact, sometimes I prefer a less fancy, more gritty and raw style,” he said.
“For me, the most important part is the match. If I’ve got a camera on two players about to kick each other’s ass in game and we’re recording, I’m satisfied. Other people want more and I understand that. We’ll add it little by little but I’m not the type to put glitter on poo.”
Victor “Spooky” Fontanez started the Team Spooky empire with a desire to get out of his crappy day job and do something he loves for a living. Few people get a chance to do that. He helped define the production values for FGC events on the East Coast, has taken his production global, and he sits on the verge of eSport going mainstream. He’s all business when he’s on the clock but he couldn’t be more gracious and humble when you catch him on a break which is rare at an event.
“All my life people around me have been happy with my work. I feel validated about what I’m doing. Sometimes it’s not the most popular thing, and sometimes there are bad days. But it makes me feel like I’m doing the right thing. I’m never really sure because this is such a new industry. I must be doing something right if so many people care about all the beautiful things we’re doing,” Spooky said.
Check back next Thursday for another installment of Casuals and follow @RedBullESPORTS on Twitter for more Street Fighter coverage.
