#and then *that* design got back into Sm4sh with changes

[beardedhandstoadshark]

Fun fact: the Smash Bros Ultimate design for Sheik, despite using the Twilight Princess iteration (that was scrapped for tp and then reused in smash from Brawl onwards to go with tp Zelda), now also incorporates design elements of Hyrule Warriors Sheik, in particular the addition of pieces of armor that weren’t there before on any other version of Sheik either in SSB or LOZ.

[theartofmedia]

Kotaku and the Art of Game Leaks

(Full disclosure: this piece was commissioned by a friend. The topic has changed from the initial pitch, but still. I don’t know how that may or may not affect your view on this piece, but I still feel it’s important for me to be transparent about this.) On May 30th, 2019, Laura Kate Dale announced her departure from Kotaku UK. Dale is a controversial figure among the games journalist community for... multiple reasons (please note the latter link lacks any actual evidence and how she apparently didn’t report this Uber driver for ‘nearly kidnapping her’ despite posting it publicly on Twitter, hence the controversy around it), but that’s not what we’re talking about today. What we’re going to be discussing is what she is known for the most: video game leaks.

LKD is most known for leaking video game information prior to their release, from information about Dark Souls Remastered, to unboxing a PS4 Slim before Sony itself even announced its existence, to Switch software. It got to the point where LKD was blacklisted by Nintendo UK, most likely for leaking so much information.

Now as I was researching LKD, there was something I noticed. A lot of people supported LKD’s leaks, calling it “real journalism,” and commending her for doing her job so well. As shown by the link above, many people mocked Nintendo UK for blacklisting her for “doing her job too well.” People are always scrambling for new leaks, new information, though in many cases, this can lead to fake leaks, misinformation, and confusion among players.

And it got me to think: how do leaks really affect both the devs and the consumers of games?

The conclusion I’ve come to about it is: it does more harm than good on both sides, but especially to the devs.

Here we will be defining four categories of leaks (three of which are explained here by Griffin Vacheron of Game Revolution), though our main focus will be on two.

Accidental leaks are just like they sound: they’re accidents. Something happened, something went wrong, and people got a hold of information before they were supposed to. Like when Capcom put all the pictures of the roster of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on their website when a good portion of the roster hadn’t yet been announced, and the unannounced characters could be found via a small URL change. Or when Walmart’s Canadian site revealed around 40 unannounced titles due to a(n alleged) glitch in their system just weeks before E3 2018. Or when Bethesda accidentally streamed their E3 2015 rehearsal which ended up confirming the existence of Dishonored 2. Yeah.

The main component of accidental leaks is just that--accidental. Someone did something wrong, something in a system went wrong, someone didn’t think through the consequences of what probably seemed like a good idea at the time--it happens! Nothing is perfect, people included, and shit happens. But the key part is that it’s not intentional. Someone may (or, really, will) be reprimanded, punished, or even fired depending on the leak, but there was never any intention to reveal this information.

Company leaks are... not entirely proven, from my research. This is the idea that the developers themselves leak information in order to draw attention to their game and hype it up. Often, this will be the other determination of certain leaks--was it an accident, or a PR stunt? There’s no real definitive proof and seems to simply be rumor, but the possibility still exists, as there’s no real way to disprove it, either.

Ethic leaks are generally the exception, not the rule. These are leaks of working conditions, such as an employee from NetherRealm talking about the toxic work environment, or Rockstar employees opening up about how they were mistreated and underpaid and burned to ashes, or Blizzard’s layoff of 800 employees. (Further reading here on the abuse of game devs, as well as what can be done about it.) These are things that need to be talked about, because these relate to the treatment of actual, real people. These aren’t issues then of game content or development, it’s an issue of ethics in the workplace. Same with the leak of this document that details how AI can be used to encourage microtransactions, though that is an issue related to the consumer rather than the workers. Shady tactics and the maltreatment of workers is something that needs to be shown and discussed and talked about, because these things affect the actual workers, as well as the quality of a product and the company’s integrity in relation to the consumer. (Basically, if you intentionally make your game in such a way that players have to use microtransactions to make any significant progress, you’ve ruined your integrity as a company by trying to drain your player base of more money, regardless of the base price they paid for the game anyway. It’s a scummy business practice, and that kind of thing should be revealed to the public that you’re going to try to bleed dry.)

Intentional leaks are just as they sound: they’re the intentional leak of information. This is when people outside the company hack in and reveal secrets, or when people inside the company reveal information (whether directly or indirectly via being sources for journalists) before they are to be officially announced. The information given is given with the knowledge that yes, someone is going to reveal it to the public.

So let’s talk about the ramifications of intentional leaks on game devs.

Remember Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle? The cover image had been leaked before the team had a chance to actually showcase the game. Nobody knew anything about the game other than the cover, and universal reception at the time was: “This is going to be terrible.” Because of a leaked image, the public already had a strong negative opinion about it. However, the showcase that showed off actual gameplay was well-received, and the Metacritic score is 85. So the game itself was pretty damn good, according to the critics. An unlikely crossover turned out well! But the initial reaction was incredibly demoralizing to the team. It’s one thing to have criticism given to a game based on a trailer or gameplay showcase; it’s another to get criticism based on a single image and the concept alone with no other information given. As the director and music composer explain, the dev team was very worried and stressed not just about the game reception but about the showcase, as they were afraid that the reception to the showcase was going to be bad due to the already-negative opinion on the game.

Let’s also talk about how CD Projekt Red had demo gameplay and audio of Cyberpunk 2077 leaked by a journalist (who later complained about not being credited, about how his relationship with CD Projekt Red and the PR person he was friends with) after being asked not to. The company had their trust in the journalists--someone who they had a fifteen year relationship with--used and abused, leading to secrets being leaked. The devs had politely asked the journalists not to do so, but one did, and apparently saw nothing wrong with leaking private information and posting it to the public.

Or let’s talk about how, way back in the day, the entire source code for Half-Life 2 was revealed to the public and Valve (allegedly) lost $250 million dollars. The article actually states some of the effects of the leaked source code: “Meanwhile, the team at Valve, which had been in crunch mode for months, was left reeling by the leak. The game was costing the company $1 million a month to build and the end was still far from sight. The leak had not only caused financial damage but had demotivated a tired team. One young designer asked Newell, "Is this going to destroy the company?" (found under the heading “A Red Letter Day”).

Or we can talk about the Sm4sh leaks back in 2014 and how it led to an employee (allegedly) being fired and sued due to leaking this information. Now, this can very easily be viewed as justice being served to the leaker, and I would agree. But what is the issue here can be summed up by PlatinumGames producer JP Kellams:

The people working for years and years on a project suddenly have parts of their project--that they wanted to surprise players with, this particular instance being the Sm4sh roster--given out to the public before they wanted it to be. Imagine working for years on your life on a project, and then having someone reveal your work to the internet without your knowledge or permission. I know I would feel dejected, exhausted, hopeless, hurt, regardless of any positive reception to what was revealed. You, as someone who has worked so incredibly hard--and, in many cases in the game industry, been thoroughly abused--apparently don’t have the right to reveal the thing you’ve been working on the way you want.

I want to make this clear: I am not talking about “the Big Corporation” here. I don’t care about the higher-ups who put the pressure on the workers. I care about the workers, the little people that are being trampled on and forced to work in abusive, toxic conditions in order to meet a deadline and the outrageous demands of the higher-ups. They are the ones suffering.

Case in point: the Blufever leaks for Final Fantasy XIV. The details are a bit murky, as is with most leaks, but the story as I understand it is: user Blufever is/was an employee at Square Enix who leaked massive amounts of information on upcoming expansions/patches for FFXIV. Then, their account went dark, as they apparently feared for being found out by Square Enix. Vergeben, a known reputable leaker within the Smash community, had this to say about the situation:

Now, of course, there is no way to truly verify these claims. However, due to Vergeben’s reputation as an accurate leaker (and the fact that he was right about one of the upcoming DLC characters being from Square Enix) leads me to believe him. Assuming that his claims are true, someone leaking all of this information to the public put a lot of innocent people in the line of fire--and it’s very possible that these

So, what does this have to do with Kotaku?

Here’s something interesting.

When known E3 leaker WabiSabi was given a cease & desist warning from Nintendo for leaking information, take a look at some of the top replies. (Note that a lot of them are ninja gifs, here’s a sample so I don’t have to do it for every one.)

Not all of the replies are against WabiSabi, however, though a majority seem to be:

(About the above: I can’t really find anything suggesting that LKD was leaking things for “customer advocacy,” other than confirming that the next gen console (now known as the Switch) was not using the Wii branding like its predecessor did, thus easing some fears because of the bombing of the Wii U. Other tweets about that are here, but don’t really sway me in terms of “consumer advocacy.”)

As shown, the replies seem to be pretty divisive on whether or not it was a good or bad thing that WabiSabi got hit with a cease & desist.

However, let’s have a look at some of the replies to LKD’s tweet about how she was blacklisted by Nintendo.

And again, not all are supportive of her:

I actually had to look quite a bit to find any negative comments. Many were supportive of her.

(I would like to take this moment to get unprofessional for a second and unleash my full opinion of this: NO FUCKING SHIT YOU GOT BLACKLISTED, SHERLOCK. THEY TRUST YOU WITH THEIR SECRETS AND THEN YOU DISRESPECT THEM BY REVEALING THEM BEFORE THEY DID. I DO NOT FUCKING UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE WOULD SAY IT’S A COMPANY BEING “SHADY” WHEN IT’S JUST INFORMATION ABOUT UPCOMING PRODUCTS. NOTHING ABOUT ETHICS OR CONSUMER TRUST OR PRODUCT QUALITY. anyway,)

Now, you can say, “But Sakra! That’s a three-year difference!” And I rebuke with: people still support her to this day in spite of this. Kotaku UK kept her on though all of this and then some. It wasn’t until a kerfuffle happened in April with the “Persona 5 OST Has A Disability Slur” thing happened, and soon after, LKD left. It seems that the immense backlash with that was what fully pushed her off. (Now whether she was forced to resign or legitimately wanted to leave, that’s something only Kotaku UK and she know for sure.) The point is, her departure from Kotaku UK seems to have been completely unrelated to her leaks.

And why would it when Kotaku themselves--not just the UK chapter--are clearly very supportive of video game leaks of this nature?

Just have a look at their recent posts. All I did was put “leaks” in the search box. You may say “they’re just reporting the news of leaks!” But they put some of the leaked information IN the articles. The one on Watch Dogs Legion even confirmed the leaks. “Kotaku can confirm that this one’s real, as we’ve heard the name from several sources plugged into the company.”

Oh, and let’s not forget this lovely fucking article from 2015 where a Kotaku writer apparently speaks for the site and basically victimizes themselves for being blacklisted by Ubisoft and Bethesda. In fact, we’re going to dissect it, just because there is so much bullshit in here from the author, who is clearly speaking for Kotaku as a whole!

Buckle up, kids, your local Sakra is about to get fucking pissed.

The author describes how the Bethesda blackout came after “we reported insiders’ accounts of the troubled development of the still unreleased fourth major Doom game. In May of that year, we reported that Arkane Austin, the Bethesda-owned studio behind Dishonored, would be working on a new version of the long missing-in-action Prey 2 and that some at the studio were not pleased about that. When top people at Bethesda started making statements casting doubt on our reporting, we published a leaked internal e-mail confirming that those statements had misled gamers and that Arkane had indeed been working on a version of Prey 2.”

However, Kotaku at that time had also posted “our December 2013 report detailing the existence of the then-secret Fallout 4.” Reporting on troubled development isn’t an issue. Leaking emails just to confirm a game when Bethesda was desperately trying to preserve their secrecy that you had broken (probably not first, but Kotaku has a lot of mainstream reach) is an issue. I don’t like Bethesda, don’t get me wrong, but they were trying to salvage the secrecy of a project. Do I think trying to lie to the audience in order to keep the existence of a project secret is okay? No, not really. But I understand what they were trying to do. And whether you agree with their choices or not--no shit you would be blacklisted, especially if you have insiders as described here! You can’t go crying victim and martyr yourselves when you do this kind of shit. Especially if you were reporting on Fallout 4, a major fucking entry in a popular franchise!

As for the Ubisoft blackout...

“The current Ubisoft blackout is actually the second in as many years. The company tried a similar approach in the spring of 2014 after we published early images of the then-unannounced Assassin’s Creed Unity—images that had been leaked to us by an independent source. That article confirmed news about the company’s extraordinary plans to release two entirely different AC games in the fall of that year, one for new consoles and one for old. Ubisoft had warmed back to Kotaku by the summer of 2014, several months after the Unity report, but has cold-shouldered us since the Victory story one year ago. It’s possible other articles angered them, too. But that Victory piece is a safe bet.”

Ubisoft actually gave Kotaku another chance after leaking Unity, and the Victory (now Syndicate) story was, guess what, more leaks. You broke Ubisoft’s trust once, then you broke it again. Frankly, it’s fucking disgusting, knowing about how these leaks really affect devs, that Kotaku would dare to turn itself into a “journalism martyr,” as it were, because they were ignored by the devs whose trust they broke.

Now, you can say that maybe they didn’t know the information of how it affects devs--but a) the Sm4sh leaks and the fallout had already happened by then (it was 2014) and the Half-Life 2 source code fiasco had happened in the previous decade. Also, if they had insiders, wouldn’t they know just how serious leaking this information was and how it puts their sources and other devs at risk? Maybe Ubisoft and Bethesda aren’t as strict on their leak policies as Square Enix and Nintendo are--we don’t know. But I can’t imagine that they like it at all.

“I’m sure some people will sympathize with Bethesda and Ubisoft. Some will cheer these companies and hope others follow suit. They will see this kind of reporting as upsetting, as ruining surprises and frustrating creative people. They will claim we are “hurting video games,” and, as so many do, mistake the job of entertainment reporting for the mandate to hype entertainment products.

“We serve our readers, not game companies, and will always do so to the best of our ability, no matter who in the gaming world is or isn’t angry with us at the moment. In some ways, the blacklist has even been instructive—cut off from press access and pre-release review copies, we have doubled down on our post-release “embedding” approach to games coverage. We’ve experienced some of the year’s biggest games from street level, at the same time and in the same way as our readers.”

No.

It isn’t just about “spoilers” and “ruining the surprise.” In some cases, yes, a lot of people don’t like or actively avoid leaks because they do want to be surprised. But that’s not the only thing.

By “serving your readers” and trying to dig for this information, you’re putting devs at risk. You’re putting your “sources” at risk. Now, if you were reporting on development or shady tactics or awful work environments or specific negative incidents behind the scenes or things that should be talked about, I would absolutely agree with you that you should continue digging deeper. But that’s not it. The companies trust you not to reveal something until a certain time, and you go and do it anyway.

By claiming victim and demonizing the “big bad corporation” for blacklisting you, you minimize the actual stress and hardships it put on the smaller guys in the company that the entire company is built on. You completely brush it aside and paint the entire company as irrational. You completely neglect the plight of the actual people working on it, and disrespect them by revealing their information before they do, when they have worked for SO LONG on whatever project it is. Like JP Kellams said, devs earn the right to talk about their product because they worked on it for so long. You haven’t.

And then... this paragraph.

“Too many big game publishers cling to an irrational expectation of secrecy and are rankled when the press shows them how unrealistic they’re being. There will always be a clash between independent reporters and those seek to control information, but many of these companies appear to believe that it is actually possible in 2015 for hundreds of people to work dozens of months on a video game and for no information about the project to seep out. They appear to believe that the general public will not find out about these games until their marketing plans say it’s time. They operate with the assumption that the press will not upend these plans, and should the press defy their assumption, they bring down the hammer. We make our own judgments about what information best serves the news value of a story, and what our readers would prefer not to know—which is why, for example, we omitted key plot details from the Fallout 4 scripts that were leaked to us. We keep covering these companies’ games, of course. Readers expect that. Millions of people still read our stories about them. The companies just leave themselves a little more out of the equation.”

I never thought I’d see the day when video game companies were being victim-blamed.

Frankly, by leaking information, it ruins the relationship between the companies and the journalist, because then the company will start to make generalizations about journalists and not trust them, thinking that they will reveal whatever information they give them, which makes journalists like this press harder for information, and can you see where I’m going with this? It’s a cycle of mistrust, perpetuated by journalists like these who go against the wishes of a company that just wants to keep something a surprise until a certain date.

And then this motherfucker has the audacity to frame companies blacklisting reporters that leak information as bad! “They operate with the assumption that the press will not upend these plans, and should the press defy their assumption, they bring down the hammer.” Why are companies wrong for trusting journalists? Are you implying that all games journalists are untrustworthy, because they won’t respect the wishes of a company that gives them the information in good faith that they won’t leak it? You do say that “it is nearly unfathomable to me that a reporter would sit on true information about what’s really happening in gaming, that we would refrain from telling our readers something because it would mess with a company’s marketing plan,” so I don’t know, maybe you DO think that all games journalists should immediately report on confidential information that the game companies are going to eventually reveal anyway and while only really receiving clout in return. Oh, whoops, got a little bitter there.

“They appear to believe that the general public will not find out about these games until their marketing plans say it’s time.”

Maybe because people like YOU are the ones who leak it! You can just as easily, you know, not fucking do that! This feels more like an excuse to not accept responsibility/deflect criticism, because ‘the companies shouldn’t have expected us to stay quiet!!!’ This is just straight-up victim blaming. Like it’s actually kind of scary.

It’s this ideology that Kotaku seems to stand by, as LKD once stated that higher-ups look over the written articles to approve them, and to my knowledge, Kotaku hasn’t redacted any of these statements, so I’m assuming that they still stand by it. Them spreading this ideology is what perpetuates the idea of game leaks (of the non-accidental, non-ethics-related kind) being “good journalism,” and with how much reach Kotaku has, it has the power to be legitimately damaging.

“They have done so in apparent retaliation for the fact that we did our jobs as reporters and as critics. We told the truth about their games, sometimes in ways that disrupted a marketing plan, other times in ways that shone an unflattering light on their products and company practices. Both publishers’ actions demonstrate contempt for us and, by extension, the whole of the gaming press. They would hamper independent reporting in pursuit of a status quo in which video game journalists are little more than malleable, servile arms of a corporate sales apparatus. It is a state of affairs that we reject.”

And here it is: Kotaku was just the humble, underdog reporter just doing their job, and the publishers show off contempt for the entire industry (rather than just Kotaku itself, I guess blacklisting one site means you hate all of games journalism) for Kotaku simply doing their jobs!

No, you ignorant twat, you broke their trust, so they don’t want to talk to you anymore. You don’t get to play victim when YOU were the one who blew the whistle.

Now, I cannot stress this enough: I am only talking about leaks related to game announcements, content details, etc. that are deliberately leaked to the public from an inside source. I am not talking about leaks related to ethical violations or troubled development or other negative things within companies. Those are things that should be reported on. But that kind of thing isn’t primarily what Kotaku is talking about and promoting; they are promoting the reveal of information because it’s “just good journalism.”

Except, as shown above, it has some very dire, very real consequences for the people you don’t see, and maybe that’s why Kotaku is so adamant about defending themselves in this regard. Maybe they don’t see the living, breathing people who get affected by their leaks, and so they think they’re fighting against the Big Bad Corporation when, in reality, it’s much more complicated than that. It doesn’t feel real to them. Or, maybe they do and they just don’t care. I genuinely cannot say so one way or the other.

I really, truly hope that by reading this, you the reader have a new perspective on how leaks of that kind affect the industry, and the little people whose backs the companies are built on.

As for the article and Kotaku as a whole...

“Kotaku readers always deserve the truth. You deserve our best work. It doesn’t matter which company is mad at us today, or which companies get mad at us in the future. You’ll continue to get it.”

Fuck yourselves.

[photos-from-alola]

My Favourite Pokémon of each type - Generation IV - 8/16

Links to other parts

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16

Gen 4 part 2! A lot of the images here are rather dark and glow-y...

Flying - Gliscor: I’ve always loved Gliscor - I even used to have a little key charm of it. Also - bat scorpion. I know Gligar is the same but with Gliscor you really feel the threatening aspects of it 😈 Also one of the Pokémon I used in my all shiny USUM playthrough! She was incredible and kind of felt like the mother of the team since I could always fall back on her. Sadly I made the dumb mistake of EV training her later in the game with competitive stats in mind so she really lost a lot of power, and thanks to refresh kept expelling the poison from toxic orb she was holding... a lesson learned there.

Psychic - Cresselia: Definitely has one of the best shinies, something I’m hoping to hunt for someday. Very elegant design that I think easily gets across what she symbolises!

Bug - Vespiquen: Hell yeah more bee Pokémon Vespiquen is such a great design and idea, and pretty fun to use! Queen bees are always a fun concept for characters and creatures and I think they got it perfectly for a Pokémon. I love her equally to Beedrill!

Rock - Rampardos: I don’t really have much to say for Rampardos - the rock types of gen 4 are all great but I just don’t favour them all too much. Rampardos has the best design in my opinion of them though and I really love their shiny. 

Ghost - Spiritomb: Spiritomb is one of the few Pokémon that genuinely seems to be evil. Great expressions, colours for both standard and shiny are superb and it’s origins are interesting. While tedious, it was definitely an interesting Pokémon to try and obtain back in Sinnoh - I look forward to seeing how it works with the eventual remakes!

Dragon - Giratina: I love Giratina’s design and concept - especially their origin form (which I forgot to take a picture of, whoops). I love how it tied into the story of Platinum and exploring the distortion world. Great legendary, great shiny... we need more scary ghost dragons.

Dark - Darkrai: Previously my favourite legendary/mythical overall, but still one of the tops along with Arceus and Lunala 🖤 The Darkrai movie was actually the first thing of the Pokémon anime I watched (I was banned from watching it as a kid but took my chances one day after seeing it on tv and had a friend trying to get me into the franchise 😓) and I just loved Darkrai so much.

Steel - Lucario: Lucario is great - I’ve always been into Egyptian history and such growing up and seeing Lucario probably helped drag me into Pokémon more. Was also one of my top picks in Brawl, and I still like playing them a lot in Sm4sh! Not so much a fan of the mega though.

Fairy - Togekiss: Togekiss is really great - great design going back to the egg-theme of Togepi, the change to being a fairy type and that good para-flinching. Really fun in battles - but not when you’re against them.

[goldenapexwrites-blog]

Event Organizer Spotlight: KOYOBI LLC

Name: Yoel Nathaniel Kidd

Handle: KYB|DD|EPICxHERO

Name of Series(es): Clash At Koyobi, Koyobi X Hotshots, Rushdown

Type of Event: Free Gaming Sessions, Fighting Game Tournaments

Founded In: January 2016

Games You Currently Host: Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, Dragonball Fighter Z, Under Night, Blazblue X Tag Battle, Super Smash Bros.(Sm4sh and Melee)

Location of Event: Hotshots Sports Bar & Grill, Taco Mac

City and State: Concord/Charlotte, North Carolina

Frequency of Event: Weekly/Monthly

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/koyobi

Link to Organization Page: https://www.facebook.com/KoyobiLLC/

Tell us more about yourself. What got you into fighting games in the first place?

Fighting games and I go way back. If I’m not mistaken my first experience playing fighting games was on the original SNES version of Street Fighter II back in 1995. 

In Winston-Salem, NC we didn’t have the luxury of an arcade to hang out and play. Celebration Station(Greensboro, NC) was an option, but we only really went there for special occasions such as birthdays. My oldest brother Josh and even my dad would always demolish me with any character they chose. Whether it was Dee Jay, Ryu, Fei Long, or my dad’s favorite Dhalsim; they would usually rough me up pretty good. The first character I ever picked up and played was Zangief, but I couldn’t pull off any of his moves back in the good ol’ days of the 90’s. 

Fighting games were just side games for me growing up until high school, but for my friends and family, they were a sort of medium that brought the motley crews together. It was like we’re all speaking the same language. There have been plenty of laughs, salt, and tears over the years. And in a lot of ways, the fighting games still have that special connection in all of our hearts. 

Although we’ve all chosen different career paths in life we can still chat and play fighting games together just like the old days. “Everything stays, but it still changes.” 

I have my dad and older brother to thank for getting me into fighting games, but I also have to shout out my other older brother, Hillel and college buddy Davon Sanders for integrating me into the fighting game community. Those four gentlemen are the real epic heroes of this tale.   

What prompted you to create your own event series?

I think what inspired me to create a series was Rock’em Sock’em when I started going there in 2010. I liked a lot of things that they did and it was my very first official local tournament. Made a lot of lasting friendships after going there for years as well as learning a great deal about the rules and how to run a monthly. When Street Fighter V first came out, I began holding bi-monthly tournaments/sessions. In some ways to help make ends meet since my family was struggling at the time and in some ways to give people a place to train and practice before a local or major began. But all of that would come to an end once we moved in September of 2016. But after this is when Koyobi would come into play.   Originally we started off wanting to pursue designing apparel for the fighting game and anime community. However, since we weren’t established at all this was going to be very difficult to do. That’s when we came up with the idea that, “Hey, we all play fighting games and know a bunch of people in the local fighting game community, correct? Why don’t we start hosting tournaments to help get our name out there?.”

Plus with fighting games being more popular than they ever have been we wanted to be a part of an ever-growing community.   It’s a been a bit of a crazy ride with its fair share of ups and downs, but we’re always finding ways to move forward. We have a lot planned for the latter half of this year and the next [year], but we want it to be a surprise. We hope that everyone looks forward to Koyobi’s future.

What are your goals and expectations for your event?

For our free events, our goal is to provide a safe and fun environment for the community to come together and play and possibly try out new games.

For our tournaments, our goal is to provide a safe, fun, and competitive environment for local players, traveling players, spectators, and visitors from all over.

Koyobi is also working on improving our infrastructure and build our inventory. We strive to provide free entertainment, including other activities for the community and charitable organizations. Our goal is to become the eSports franchised facilitator for casual and competitive audiences.       What are some of the challenges you face as a tournament organizer? 

One of my biggest challenges as a tournament organizer is trying to buy every new fighting game when it comes out. There are so many great fighting games amongst us now and there are more to come still. But I feel as though there’s only a scene for a handful of them in North Carolina which is kind of sad to think about. A thought that goes through my mind is, ”GAME A is very fun, but will anyone actually play it?”

Single players games are an exception to the rule however since I still make time for them, but if a competitive game comes out and I buy it and no one in the area plays it for fun or even competitively than that may have been money that could have been spent on an additional monitor or another game that the community will take seriously. But I would like to add that I’m going to support Soul Calibur IV and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate wholeheartedly. I believe that both of those titles have bright futures ahead of them. 

One other challenge is being a tournament organizer, graphic designer, and full-time worker at the same time as trying to remain a competitive player.  I have much more responsibilities now than I did two years ago so all of this has been becoming gradually difficult to balance. But I’m working hard for a community that I’m passionate about, so despite all of the stress, it’s been a rewarding experience.      

What do you like the most about hosting and organizing events? The thing that I like most is the people. More specifically, seeing the players come through, have a good time, and give us feedback to improve on future events. It’s always awesome to see players/friends that you haven’t seen in years just swing on by and dominate everyone in a tournament. And then, of course, to hear “I’ve still got it,” at the very end. As well as the hype moments.     What is one thing you wish players would know or keep in mind about hosting and running an event? 

BUY EQUIPMENT FIRST! Cannot stress that enough. That’s one mistake I see smaller events constantly make(ourselves included at first.)

Just take a year to buy games, monitors, controllers etc. Build your inventory and everything else should fall into place. In terms of venues try to avoid bars/hotels if you can. 

There are quite a few limitations and stipulations in terms of space, internet, and power that many of them have. You have to be careful and smart. Network with other experienced TO’s; don’t be afraid to ask for advice or suggestions from them. 

And as always SUPPORT YOUR LOCALS! Keep up with appearances, share events, and learn to utilize twitter. Just some tips from your friendly neighborhood EPICxHERO.

Finally, what is one advice you'd give for any newcomers as well as for anyone looking to organize their own event?

Gather brave souls to help you organize the event. 4 hands are better than two. 6 hands are better than 4. There are many people that are passionate about fighting games so find some people that are willing to help you set everything up so that the event can run as smoothly as possible. That and everything I mentioned in the previous question.      Look forward to these future events from us and other event organizers coming your way very soon! 

Follow EPICxHERO: Twitter: https://twitter.com/EpiXhero Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EpicXherO/ Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lraxstart

Follow Koyobi: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KoyobiLLC/ Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/koyobi Twitter: https://twitter.com/KOYOBI16

Future Events:

KOYOBI X HOTSHOTS:https://www.facebook.com/events/2124105321164034/

POTIONS& PIXELS: https://www.facebook.com/events/205099780364568/

RUSHDOWN - The Koyobi Battle Center: https://www.facebook.com/events/215536262654452/

TIERLESS HEROES: CAROLINA CLASH REBIRTH EPISODE 21 https://www.facebook.com/events/1959907157401418/

[hellotvv]

Life Update

It’s been a while since I’ve last posted. The last time I posted was the first day of this semester, and now it’s basically two weeks in. Have things changed a lot? I’d say, not really. But life has been good definitely.

Today is a rainy day, so I’m in a mood to finally write and idk vent some feelings. Today, I’ve slept in for a while. I ate lunch and then showered and met up with Rebecca. The reason why I met up with Rebecca is because she’s auditioning for Mulan and needs photos of her. She asked if I could take photos of her and I was like sure. So I got over to her place at like 3:30 and it was a pretty cloudy cold day. We walked around to the beach near Manzanita (one of the 2nd year dorms), it’s a meh beach. I took photos of her, asked her about her classes, winter break, and etc. Since although we have math together this quarter, I haven’t really seen her. But she’s Kai’s ochem lab partner this quarter tho. It was nice talking to her. She asked if there’s any new gossip going on with my life, and I was like haha nah. Apparently I have pretty friends tho, so my next gf has to be pretty since I must have high standards according to her. I was like nah, I’m pretty chill tbh in terms of looks. I’m definitely more of a personality person. I asked her if anything is new with her love life, and she says she likes being single a lot. She asked about Stefanie actually, and I told her I haven’t really talked to Stefanie since August. Apparently Rebecca heard gossip about Stefanie o.o I was like oh and told me some stuff? I wonder who told her such gossip o.o. She asked if I met Helen before, since she’s good friends with Helen. I told her that I met Helen once at a USC party lol. Then Rebecca treated me to a starbucks frap and drove me to my house, which was nice of her. Since her place is a bit far (walking wise at least) from my place. Then I chilled, ate dinner with my friend Bryan, made some plans with him, and yeah. He asked if I was going to Bharat’s party tonight, but I honestly wasn’t feeling it today. I know I didn’t go out Friday, but idk this week is like one of those weeks where I just wanna stay in my room and be by myself. I’ve been pretty good about hanging out with my SB friends and there’s like a groupme with all 12 of us in it now lol. On Friday, they went to watch a horror movie, but I wasn’t feeling like going. I actually thought about just going to the movie theaters by myself and watching La La Land by myself. I never watched a movie by myself, but it feels like it could be a nice thing just going and watching by myself. Idk I heard La La Land is good and I really wanna watch it. So yeah, today, I just kinda chilled in doors and had a good day at home. Idk I just enjoy those lazy rainy days indoors and cuddling up in bed. Also I played some Overwatch with my friend Ann (from back home) and it was cool. Also Rebecca + Lindsay (her housemate) both recently said we should hang out more, and I agreed we should haha. 

As for general updates overall... School’s been going good, nothing to complain about yet. I got a new lab partner in ochem, but she’s like idk the most unsocial lab partner yet? Like she doesn’t make any small talk like oh how’s your day, what classes are u taking, etc etc. Idk I’ve had some cool lab partners like my MCDB1C lab partner last year :( and my lab partner last quarter is pretty cool. I see him at parties sometime still haha and we say hi and what’s up and stuff. But yeah, can’t complain about classes yet. Going to be studying for them tomorrow! As for friends, idk if I’ve made new friends exactly just yet. I still keep in touch with Hope and Fyona. Fyona and I text pretty much every day and facetime fairly often just for fun. We’re like best friends and it’s cool. Catherine, I still snapchat every now and then, but haven’t really talked to her. Kristy is taking ochem lab and I see her now and then with Jessica. We all ate ramen with Brent, Bharat, Henry, and Bryan just like last week! Idk there’s so much to update, even tho it’s just been a bit. Uhm... School okay, maybe stressed about future when it gets to like 4th year and stuff. But I guess just gotta take life one step at a time sometimes. I’ve became decent friends with one of my models Cindy! We made plans to shoot sometime in the future. My photography ig has been doing some good growth :D it’s at nearly 800 followers~ and I still get hit up by models randomly asking to shoot with me still, which is cool. Outside of the shoot with Rebecca today, I haven’t really shot lately. But I might in February with Sabrina in Fyona, maybe a future shoot with Cindy again, uhh random models potentially, and this one photographer that wants to link up and he works near SB. Idk photography going well! As for sm4sh, there’s no tournaments recently. But this week was the Arcadian on Thursday, which is a tournie where no PR players can play in. I’m legit ranked 3 in SB, so I can’t play haha. But Brent played and I went to support him + gave him some coaching. He ended up getting top 8, which is really good. It had like 70 ppl!! Uhh, I still keep up with my friend Jia. Kai and I are doing fine, she liked her expensive xmas gift that she chose. She’s getting a roommate still, and she hasn’t really been home this entire week. The roommate is prob gonna be some random, idk who or when they’ll move in. But I’ll miss having the house to myself T_T ahhh. Hopefully they won’t be a bad housemate D:  I play overwatch with my boi Alan still now and then. I haven’t really bought clothes in a while, so no progress there. As for clothing brand, it’s made some progress. Henry is a lagger with vectorizing the designs ahhh. Since we have one good design :( and just want it already done. But we got 3 samples of a pretty basic shirt that says, “No Sleep”. It’s to be like edgy and fit our sad boy theme. Like you can interpret it in a lot of ways. Like oh no sleep, since we’re up late crying or thinking. Or if you wear it to the gym, it’ll be hardcore like damn this guy going hard, no sleep!! But yeah :3 I did the designs for that and we got 3 samples being shipped to me. If it’s good, then we’ll do an order for a couple more to sell to friends. Mostly waiting for Henry to finish the graphic design for our first real tee. Then maybe we’ll have a launch party + make a website + ig. Then once we have another design done, then we’ll start to advertise it I guess lol. So clothing brand going okie. These past two weeks, I did go to friend parties, ate dinner/lunch with friends, go to the gym and etc. Oh right. So I’ve been really really good about my diet this week. I’ve tracked my calories and ate reallly well in terms of eating at a calorie deficit. Last week I was pretty good too, but this week damn I’ve been really good. It’s hard a bit, but life style change yo. I’ve been hitting the gym occasionally too, so that should help! Just wait 1-2 more months yo :D gonna be way more fit and super happy with my appearance. My skin has been good lately, so that’s going for me! But yeah been improving fitness wise ever since I got back to school. I guess I don’t really have much to complain about. I have good friends that invite me to things, so I have the option to decide whether or not go out haha. I have buddies for lunch/dinner if I want. I have gym buddies like Brent/Bharat/Shannie/Brooke. Been doing good progress on every aspect I guess of my life, and nothing bad happened at all lately. So I guess I gotta appreciate more when things are just content or good. But yeah, brief summary I guess about how I’m doing, there’s probably a bunch more stuff that I haven’t thought of. I think I’m going home next week for Lunar New Years :O I also have midterms next week .-. 

As for my love life.. Hmhm, that’s a bit more tricky in some ways. I guess similar to Rebecca. I think I finally got to a point where I’m definitely okay and fine being single. I legit have made 0 attempts on looking for a gf, and been mostly focused on myself for once. I definitely think I’m making some progress on myself and working even more on improving myself in mental/physical/etc aspects. I have gained back more confidence in myself as well. I definitely think I could be a great SO as well. Like I’d like to think that I’m fairly knowledgeable about relationships. I’ve done some reflecting and learned from mistakes on what to do/not to do and I hink I’ve improved in how I treat ppl/myself/etc as well! But hey, I’m the type of dude that would drive hours just to see a SO for an hour or even 30 minutes. I’m the type of guy that would genuinely cherish them, try to keep interest by flirting with them, show them love/affection through words + actions, give small gifts now and then, treat them to every meal if possible, drive them around, try to find new places for adventures, make plans with them, make sacrifices for them, try to get into their hobbies, pull all nighters for them, try to give amazing gifts, try to plan/throw great life milestone events, and etc. So I guess I’m confident in my ability on being a good SO, so I’m not shying away from relationships. But I’m not necessarily going out of my way to look for one. I’m trying for once to focus on myself and improve myself, be happy on my own, and become an even better person for myself and I guess maybe future SO as well. But yeah, not in the place in my life, where I can’t be vulnerable anymore. Definitely at a good place, where I could take risks and be vulnerable and open my heart again, if I wanted to. But no real big motivation to go out of my way to look for a SO or anything rn. If it happens, it happens. I guess semi-related to my love life, is that my ex Kristy randomly followed my theo.centric ig account o: we haven’t talked in maybe almost a year? So I’m surprised she followed me, but I followed back since whateverz. Nothing came out of it tho, still haven’t talked, and it’s been a while since uh she followed me (maybe a week)? As for Stefanie. Honestly, I miss her still a bit to this day. I guess I’m fine being single and would be open to dating other people. Yet for whatever reason, I still miss her deep down in my heart... I guess I just went through so much and spent so much time with her and was so used to having her in my life, that it’s hard without her sometimes. I guess I shouldn’t in some ways, since sigh some of the things she did to me... But idk... :( I can’t help it... I guess even tho I’ve ‘moved on’, the way things were/things ended just never sat well with me to this day like closure was kinda reached but not really... I guess in an ideal world, maybe she would have loved me more and looked only at me.. Oh well, life. Idk I guess it’s late and just in an eh mood. Idk it’s crazy, since I’ve broken up with Kristy/broke off short things with so and so, but I guess I never think about them this long after a break up... Idk why it’s like this with Stetefanie now... She was so mean to me too :( sigh. Maybe one last emotional update later. A bit sleepy now and I guess that’s all for now. I’m good, maybe sad a bit sometimes at night, improved myself, working on all my hobbies + school, and yeah.