FGC History: Finding Tech In The Old Days

[@banja_]

James Chen had to walk up hill both ways to the arcade, the cabinet was missing 3 buttons and the joystick was a DIY made out of two toilet paper rolls taped together. He had to wear a bulletproof west to the arcade and got shot twice for tick throwing.

[@SaviorGabriel]

And we were THANKFUL!

[@UltraChenTV]

How did you know?!? O_o

[@KillahManjaro]

Here in Toronto throwing was forbidden.

[@smoothhoops3739]

As a new age FGC fan. Id love to hear more OG stories. The history is what got us to this point.

[@Galaredon]

James, I love your passion and your dedication. I'm 39 years old. I didn't take part of the arcade culture in the 90ies since we didn't have an arcade in my town, so I missed all of that. I mostly played Street Fighter on the SNES. So all of your stories are super interesting to me. Please, continue educating me about the things I missed. You're awesome man. Thank you James.

[@Karn0010]

Man the 90s were such a great time for this stuff. When I move to New Jersey I knew how to do Sonic Booms. The area I moved to, no one knew how to play lol. Yeah I was that guy. I also would let people try to figure out what was happening. As more people moved to the area, more people had access to the console versions and it became more fun. Being a little shit head with quarters is a fond memory. Once games became more accessible it was a lot more fun to play people and finding out the wild stuff. I miss that somewhat. It was cool figuring out stuff. Modern day is great too but that feeling only lasts a few hours before the internet has it all.

[@IParkerLewis]

When I was a kid, one Saturday, I spent my whole week's wage from my paper round on Street Fighter 2. I earned £7 per week and the arcade was 10p for 1 credit.

[@OldManSin]

It really is hard to convey the excitement of walking into an arcade/game room/whatever and seeing a cabinet you had no clue existed. MK2, MK3, MK4 (many wouldn't BELIEVE how advanced MK4 looked, especially if your only comparison at the time was OG Virtua Fighter), but nothing will beat the first time I saw Champion's Edition and got to pick M. Bison and Psycho Crush my way through every fight. Alpha was a close second because the anime aesthetic was still really novel over here and this was one of the first fighting games that really seemed to embrace it, with the cutaways, freeze-frames, etc... Man, nostalgia is a killer.

[@Xelae93]

This is very refreshing. My sub feed has been nothing but reactions and breakdowns for a while now, so this was definitely what I needed. It's really interesting to hear more about how the FGC was back then.

[@destinationskyline07]

I love listening to the old stories James. Would also love to hear about tournament stories if you ever wanna share any highlights.

[@LuksFrikiMaster]

i LOVE the old days stories, i always ask an older friend about the 90s and how it was to play darkstalkers and sf here in latin america. thank you for everything james, much respect!!!

[@erickubli]

I love stuff like this! I'd love to hear some more specifics about rival arcades and the tactics that came from certain people/places. We always hear about West Coast Rushdown vs East Coast Turtling, but were there different styles between Norcal and Socal? Or East Coast scenes outside of New York City?

[@coryharris1939]

My best friend and I would write down moves and combos from game mags and then walk to the arcade and let each other practice and take notes. Learning in the early 90’s am I right 🤷‍♂️. Love the channel, appreciate the hard work.

[@IllmatikRebelTV]

When I first seen The X Men Children of the atom Cabinet, I thought it was another cool Beat em Up! I Was in Shock When I looked at it and Seen two kids playing and I seen Wolverine Do a crazy combo on Omega Red. Ever since than I was hooked!

[@jpVari]

Amazing thumbnail I love gaming history stuff of all kinds. When I first got into competitive gaming (via starcraft/starcraft 2 in 2010 at the age of 24) part of what sucked me in was their incredible level of respect for their own history. If you won three tournaments you were basically a living God. I bought a fan made 'Bible' that told the history of competitive brood war as though it was about mythological kings and giants. In the modern day, videos like Summoning salts or Karl jobst make each second lost on a speed run like a battle in an epic, unending war. I'd listen to you talk about memories and developments in the fgc for hours and hours. Upon the hours I already have lol. I get to learn the history, feel nostalgic even though I wasn't there, and you are also very fun to watch when you care so much about the topic at hand. I vote for as much of this as you can! Edit 2 - when you realized 'neutral state' was your own terminology I got chills.

[@nakananokaoi]

Loving this James, please share more! And if possible maybe share any pictures and vids, it would be great to see some of our history too.

[@cyxceven]

Lucky. Back in my day, local arcades around me were full of bullies who would boot people off of the machines. Being able to play SF2 and MKII at home was a godsend for learning the mechanics.

[@IllmatikRebelTV]

I remember going to 42nd Street to Playland Arcade in Manhattan. The Good Ol Days 😊

[@zhaf]

I live in Sweden and we just didn't have arcades so there was no scene. We were just a group of friends who kinda knew a guy who owned World Warriors on SNES. So we went to his house and played it a lot, he became our ghetto make shift arcade. And he was also that "asshole" who gate kept all the tech, only he read the instuction manual. But we absolutely did the, before the last hit in the last round. One guy admits defeat and we just stopped playing and labbed stuff until the timer ran out. And I also used the second controller with my feet to lab things in VS or old school training modes. I didn't even know there is a community before SRK forums and downloading hadcam footage of arcades in US and super early EVO videos. The Tokido VS Justin in 3s at Evo2002 and Valle VS Daigo in Alpha 3 was like the first footage I ever saw of fighting game community, competitive play and tournaments. I were blown away that people actually played fighting games at this capacity. Because in Sweden the competetive videogames everyone played was Quake 3, Counter Stike 1.6 and StarCraft 1 no one would even consider that fighting games could be competitive. I remember the logic back then was, because those games are PC games and they could be taken seriously because they got balance patches but console/arcade games didn't. I remember having long discussions with Conter Strike and StarCraft players about it and they would never consider playing a game that didn't get balance patches and they could not see such a game gaining popularity. And to this day a fighting game community is kinda non existent in Sweden. There are super small groups here and there but not enough to call it a community. Love to hear more old days stories. Even though I started with World Warriors. I don't know a lot of the American FGC history. EDIT: Also when you guys got the SF4 cabs. I basically watched and studied all those videos. Becasue we would have a SF4 tournament at Webhallen (kinda a Swedish version of GameStop) for the release of the console version of SF4, where the winner would win a TE stick. But since we didn't have any arcades and certainly no SF4 cab anywhere in the country so the videos coming out of american arcades was all I had to study. But of cause Webahllen did a thing to "so simulate the game". They had one of their employee to practice with the actual 360 version of the game for like a month before release to act as the "last boss". I didn't win. There were far better players there than me at the tournament that also studied those videos. But I did pick Sagat and almost won a BO3 against the Webhallen employee that acted as the last boss. All I won was a t-shirt. womp womp... But it was quite a fun experience.

[@nateolison7553]

Hey James, what if you did a weekly (or bi-weekly) community poll so that viewers could tell you what they want to hear about? It would take the guess work out of it for you, it would help the audience feel more invested, and I imagine it wouldn't be super heavy lift.

[@SuperArt7]

When SF4 got to socal. I went to Denjin out in Simi Valley when it open just to get on and play it early😂😂😂😂 also did this back when I grew up in Detroit. Lived down the street from Roscoes Arcade and would go when it opened so I could practice KOF and MvC2

[@BackForwardPunch]

This is some of my favorite content you make! I remember those lines in CTF tor Street Fighter IV!

[@UltraChenTV]

Dang, you were there, huh? Must have been bruuuutal!

[@BackForwardPunch]

​@@UltraChenTV Yeah I got destroyed every time! Just like you said, I didn't have a clue how to play

[@shaideyfresh1]

Great vid! More Classic FGC History pls!

[@SaviorGabriel]

You're quite the fighting game historian, so anything you want to share from the olden days is most certainly welcome.

[@prophecy0731]

I still believe you don't require Cory Bell for this series, but he was a helpful contrast as a personality. Ok, Sonic Boomer was really dope James!

[@KillahManjaro]

Mercy round was the training mode for us in Toronto when a game was new.

[@UltraChenTV]

Hell yeah. Mercy Round was super important in the right scenes!

[@awesomeguy42]

Please do more of this stuff

[@michaeljohnson588]

I miss the good old days of playing fighting games in the arcades, but I sure don't miss spending $5.00 dollars in quarters just to play a game all day.

[@UltraChenTV]

That's why Fighting Games were SO GOOD. If you were good, you'd only spend 50 cents if no one could knock you off the machine. It was the ultimate way in saving money by being good. ^_^

[@MochiPupusa]

James i want to hear more of this

[@JimmiePitts]

Yes make more of these

[@ILOVEPANCAKES2K]

Mercy Rounds were our training stage

[@Partinaire]

I remember reading your Cammy and Sabretooth FAQ for x-men vs street fighter when I was in middle school computer science class lol

[@UltraChenTV]

It was an FAQ for the whole thing. I would never write a solo Sabretooth FAQ because I hate that character so much. LOLOL!

[@Felipera_]

Shamefully, I was that "I figured out on my own, figure it out yourself also" kid

[@Autopsy92]

Love the fgc history stuff😊

[@hugejackedman3447]

Each one teach one. Good ol' days!

[@jbennett8660]

Loved this video

[@Limit5482]

I remember going to a local pool hall to play and risking getting stabbed and smelling like smoke so bad you had to burn your clothes. Good times

[@mikejonesnoreally]

"James more of this i wanna' hear more of this stuff!" :3

[@fugutabetai]

I'm so old I still learn how to play games without training mode.

[@UltraChenTV]

That’s crazy, but I totally get it. Haha. Many people aren’t cut out for Training Mode life. But man. It’s so hard to learn Fighting Games these days without Training Mode. Back in the arcades, it was okay to take 6 months to learn stuff because that’s the pace everyone was learning with you. Nowadays, people figure crazy shit out in a day. It’s so hard to keep up without Training Mode.