VSFight XII + MD FGC

I really should've taken more photos at VSF.

Hey all! Somewhere along the line I decided I wanted to communicate more about what’s going on and some of my thoughts behind Meltdown, Fightlab and what we do. Maybe aiming for once a month will be what I settle on, but this will likely be a decidedly regular irregular thing. 

Having just arrived back home from Electronic Dojo’s VSFighting XII about ten minutes ago when writing this, this particular post will reflect more on the FGC and that’s role in both my personal and work life (honestly, the two don’t often separate) along with what we want to see in the future and immediate present for these games.

First off thank you to Justin Xavier, AKA Mr VSFighting himself, for once again delivering one of the best tournament experiences in Europe. Wandering the venue and seeing that almost every game with an active scene represented was wonderful, along with seeing people from all over the UK coming out to take part. Thank you too to all the staff at the event and the venue for their hard work. It’s a big event and there’s a lot to manage, but it’s hard to fault how it was run. I wouldn’t know where to begin coordinating a venue that size, I’m kind of blessed to have my single room on this back street of London.

I’m lucky enough that over ten years of FGC has given me a lot of people I want to see do well; from Brighton I got to watch JEWELBOX get 4th with Elena in Third Strike and Boroshin place 7th in KOF. Congratulations to those two for well deserved medals.

Then from the Meltdown GG:Strive scene we saw a long overdue 1st place for Tiger_Pop in Strive (I’m not claiming him just yet, but he comes along enough that I’m very very happy for him), along with a CLASSIC 13TH PLACE FINISH for Kelvin. There were also strong placements from NagoriLukey, Argalia, Tatami Galaxy and a whole load more; I know it was a tough bracket but I reckon they all could’ve gone just a little further. Having said that, it’s been 3+ years of Strive now and that game is getting more and more competitive, definitely an incredibly tough tournament!

Meanwhile we had Hurricane with 2nd place in SF6 along with Shakz in 4th place. I think in Top 96 for Street Fighter we had around 22 players from Meltdown, representing almost a quarter of the bracket, which is just testament to how that community helps each other level up and just how strong the general level of play is. Some of those players who placed really high have also been taking Street Fighter seriously for a very short time, so don’t let that level of play discourage you from coming along to your local! Everyone’s there to improve and the community is great.

In Tekken 8 we saw NeonKay grab 9th, Naim Raeb and Arsenegbenga with 33rd and quite a few other names in that top 96. The London Tekken scene has a lot of people pushing for its success, so I know that it’ll just get stronger and stronger as time goes forward.

Overall, you guys have a lot more talent than me. No, don’t check where I placed. I just hope that Meltdown has been somewhere that’s helped you on the way to your goals, or given you friends and a community that you can lean on when you need it. I often get thanked for what we do at Meltdown and my usual reply is that I’m just a guy who gives you a room to play videogames in. The community is what brings value, the community that makes these events worthwhile, and it’s the community which actually supports us. Anytime I see someone new, or someone come back, just know I’m grateful that you’ve taken the time out of your day to come down for our events. Everyone is so madly busy, I’m thankful you take time out of your schedule and other obligations to our slightly sketch venue. 

Now some dates for you:

Saturday 31st August - Street Fighter 6 Monthly

Saturday 7th September - Guilty Gear Strive Monthly

Sunday 8th September - Tekken 8 Monthly

All three of these have doors open midday, check-in from 1PM, tournament start 1:30PM. We’ll be moving to start gg for these monthlies (some of these pending…), but payment is still on the day at check-in and still £10. As always, if you see the twitter post go up, likes and retweets are appreciated!

Why are Tekken and Guilty Gear sharing a weekend? Well the week after I’ll be in Paris for UFA. See some of you there hopefully!

I’ll be doing my best to schedule dates with more notice in the future, so people can plan a bit more. Scheduling was never my strong suit. I’m trying to improve, I swear.

With these monthlies our aim is to give offline events to those who maybe can’t make the weekly, whether it’s work obligations, family or just inconvenient travel. With Guilty Gear we have people traveling in from across the country, and we want to see the same across all these games. With our recent upgrade to 10 PCs, we can offer more casual play, faster brackets, and just a better experience overall. Every setup also has audio and headsets, so we like to think it’s a pretty great experience overall! Sometimes PCs lag, I’m sorry, but still! So yeah, not to self promote on my own website (the audacity), but if you want a great day out with a humble £10 buy-in, come down to a monthly!

With our weeklies we were busy enough that the upgrade to ten PCs was justifiable for the venue. Even when improving the audio, that was a big cost for us, but by upping the quality we really do think it’s the best thing for Meltdown as a business. Hopefully in the future we can keep improving the experience and keep these scenes flourishing. We’ll also be supporting more traditional esports, such as CSGO, DOTA, LoL with these PCs, so it really just made sense! But the scenes that will benefit most are these FGC titles which we’ll keep supporting for as long as we can. At a time where a lot of esports bars are reducing the amount of PCs, we’ve gone the other direction. I firmly believe that we can carve this niche further and make it work. As people who are active in these scenes, playing in tournaments and cheering for you from the crowd, I hope that authenticity shines through. I’ve been within this scene since the original founders of Fight Lab were hosting events at Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar in Brighton in 2012 or so and I’m honored to be continuing in that same spirit at Meltdown London.

So yes, this is basically just one big thank you post. Thank you to everyone who keeps the UK scene moving; every individual is important in making this community work.

Whether you’re someone who comes in and always places top 3, someone who goes 0-2 then starts getting the rounds in at the bar, a commentator, someone who just always RT’s our promos, or another TO providing events in other places, it’s great to see that add up to the slow and steady growth of the FGC in the UK and Europe. For Meltdown we’ve seen 4 months this year of 40+ entrant Strive monthlies, the average attendance for SF6 and T8 slowly crawl up, and the culture within those scenes just keep improving. I hope we can encourage a welcoming atmosphere that keeps people coming back again and again. I know these events can seem a little insular at time from the outside looking in, but generally everyone has that common passion and everyone wants to see the scene grow.

A big thank you too to Vic and Mahesh who do everything that’s actually technical for Fightlab. They maintain the seeding and ranking system (yes, there is one), they manage the stream, snipe the bots in chat, and keep the tech behind the scenes up to date. A lot of the time they aren’t on commentary or the camera, so they don’t get the thanks they deserve. Neither were at VSF this year but I’m hoping we’ll all make an appearance in 2025.

Lastly, an apology from me; there were so many people I didn’t speak to at VSF and a lot of people I should’ve introduced myself too. It’s very easy for me to be socially open when I’m behind the bar or calling matches; that’s when I’m in my element. But at heart I’m a bit of an awkward introvert and worry about bothering people or how to open a conversation. Maybe it’s the social media brain rot, I don’t know. But if I didn’t say hello to you at VSFighting please know it’s not from a place of malice or elitism but I’m just socially incompetent. I don’t think anyone was accusing me of that, but just wanted to clarify. Luckily James from the bar is a lot more forward and had some of those conversations for me; so if you had Jamdar tell you to come along to Meltdown one day, please do!

I’m not sure how many people will read this all the way through, but again thank you everyone for not only a great weekend, but what’s been a great year overall for the FGC at Meltdown. I’m looking forward to seeing some more sick placements across the season. I’ll see some of you next year at VSF, and for some of you it’ll be the SF6 weekly on Tuesday. See you there!