F.A.N.G. Farts, Kotaku Listens | Discussing FGC Coverage & Games Journalism 

"My stream's kinda like a talk show." *Looks up* "Sajam's Talk Show" Me: Checks out.

they should've timed the farts with fang's attacks at least

They settled the issue. Psh, watch Capcom come back in a week and make them commentate the losers bracket.

Those were legitimately all of my thoughts as a grappler player.

i wish my anti-airs were impeccable as the summer sun ...

calling eventhubs a "publication" is like calling a sprinkling of hay on a concrete floor a "bed"

It’s a problem with niche hobby coverage in mainstream media. Articles only cover the extremes of good or bad. So people think the FGC is either Evo moment 37 or sexual assault allegations. Mainstream outlets looking for clicks won’t give a niche hobby the consistent coverage it deserves because it’s not profitable. The answer is to support the coverage you do like however you can by contributing or spreading the word.

Like even if the game is boring, if your best way to entertain the audience during a set is to sit there and hit the fart noise button you probably shouldn't be commentating in the first place.

In terms of video creation, we have struck gold with Core-A's content. I highly doubt the same level of quality can be achieved by someone in writing. Gerald's mix of passion and talent is very rare, I would be extremely surprised if someone could recreate it in a written article

Sajam's idea of a Zoner vs Grappler article is so good I question if he has a background in writing

Infil's netcode article did get publication on Ars Technica, which was pretty awesome, but that's also because that contributor is a big fighting game fan and tries to get articles on the FGC in there.

Omg man, thr grappler part made me laugh so hard on the commute XD That was gold Sajam

It sounds funny from the tweet, but watching the footage it's not even tastefully done, it's literally just spamming the noise without any rhyme or reason. They could've at least synced the farts to certain moves or something!

I appreciate your more empathetic take on the farting thing - I think it's kind of a cop-out to point to the whole thing and instead say that people are just being "soft" about it. nobody wants that playing over their match lol

article series called "did you see that shit?" that just goes over sick shit that happened in fighting game matches in a semi analytical, mostly fan boy, tone.

Sajam do a hairstyling tutorial

Imagine playing F.A.N.G. and NOT having fart noises played in the background.

That fart spam is pathetic and lame af... Then again, I've come to not expect much from Reddit.

I can definitely agree with Sajam's feelings on FGC publications, they've never felt as fulfilling as anything from CoreA or Hold Back To Block

It's pretty funny. I don't like seeing Jesus sad, the dude is so nice

I'd read whatever articles Core-A gaming publish if they ever do. Their content are next level.

Stopped reading Kotaku the day they did the "Agressive Juri made me afraid to come out being gay" article. Some of the most ridiculous shit ever put on a website.

9:49 I'm so in for this and damn your examples at 10:35 KILLED ME SO HARD!!! :D :D :D

I feel the exact same anytime I go on the forum boards for D&D. People with years of experience complaining "Wizards are overpowered because their prepared for anything" and I look at my group full of people that can 1-shot enemies twice their level as a fking pole vaulting fox shape monk or soulless gaze antipaladin that causes even mindless creatures to cower in fear. I can't imagine them trying to DM my group to any level of success. With a level of system mastery so off the board they often have more feats then levels and auto-pass God teir skill checks at level 5. I truely feel like we are playing two different games when I hear them talk about the "strength" of certain classes.

Interviews are cool but more volatile, they're highly reliant on how well the reporter can write or how interesting is the person being interviewed. Imo the best kinds of fighting game articles are either recollections of historical moments or think pieces, like domination 101, machabo's or the magic player type ones. Tbh, what made me subscribe to your channel here on yt was that you kinda do that in the videos, there's always a short discussion sorta like a small podcast about fgc related stuff and I really enjoy that.

I don't read articles because most of them don't include pictures of people touching their hair.

What I'd want would be talkshows that focus on in-depth gameplay stuff, and history. Stuff about how, well, ten years ago, this player was like this, and this previous game was like that. Well, in these GGXX games it was this way, and here's how Xrd's different and that's why we see this current trend, etc. etc. etc.

I'm not exactly sure when I stopped hunting down FG articles. All I remember is that those that I'm really interested in only numbered a few: in-depth interviews with high level players(not just the current issues/drama), the history of the FGC that I missed out on(learned about the community around 2016-ish), and tournament staff members that rarely get the spotlight. Wish there were more of those.

I'd be down for more strategy articles written from the perspective of fighting games. One of my favorites is a series of Magic articles called "Beyond the basics" written by gavin verhey. A lot of the ideas behind the decision making he writes about translate well to fgs and really any 1v1 competitive game

The unfortunate thing about mainstream gaming 'journalism' is due to the way Google works; the big sites like IGN and Kotaku that aren't well informed or represent what the community actually thinks are the ones with the biggest reach and what gets to make a first impression on people outside the community. Fighting game players know IGN's coverage of their game is worthless, general gamers don't trust IGN but your family member seeing IGN pop up on their feed thinks IGN is a reputable information source. It would be nice if the most front facing journalism actually represented the games better but that seems to not be the way things are for reasonably niche hobbies.

Writing and fighting games make up my entire personality and for some reason I've just never thought trying to blend the two. I kind of want to write something on the development history of Them's Fighting Herds now since it's A) interesting as hell and B) not exactly a well known title outside of the FGC.

About the first part, i think it's absolutely ridiculous that you would have 2 top 200 players in the semifinals of your tournament and be so unprofessional and so disrespectful as to play fart noises over it. Even if it's a somewhat small tournament it still had 80 entrants and these are still some of the best fang players in the country. As for the journalism part i think sajam really missed the point that people are upset about. He kept referring to kotaku as a fighting game news site and that's not what it is at all. It's far more of a overall video game news website that many people from other communities visit on a daily basis for there news. If all the news stories Coming out are talking about how unprofessional the scene is or all the sexual assault allegations or the pedophilia that went on eventually it begins to sour other peoples opinions of the scene. We don't want the casual league of legend fan hearing the name SFV and correlating it with how unprofessional those people are. In direct contrast just think about how people think of SGDQ people who barely even know that speedrunning exists tune into sgdq every year because of all the positive coverage it gets. The FGC could really use more "FGC is raised X ammount of money for Y"

It's a cyclical problem. The audience for fighting game articles isn't large enough/is too niche to begin with for larger publications to put more resources in to writing good articles about them, but at the same time that lack of resources being put towards those articles stops any audience growth from happening. There aren't enough of us interested for them to make content for, and they won't make more/improve the content because not enough of us consume it. If we want better articles, we need to show that we will consume content if they are willing to make it it, because they aren't going to improve it if we aren't consuming it to begin with. As much as it should, it isn't going to start with them.

As someone who is a writer for Dot Esports (currently covering Legends of Runeterra, League of Legends, Hearthstone, and other games) and this was definitely an insightful look into potential extra coverage I could do for Project L and other FGC related content. I already dabbled a bit in Project L writing since currently it's mostly hopes and dreams for the game, guesswork/estimation, etcetc at the moment. I always look to expand and improve my craft so it's nice watching this video and feeling like I'm on a proper path right now going forward.

As someone who has worked in games journalism for a few years now, and specifically in esports for a good chunk of that time, I really appreciate Sajam's thoughts on the matter. Especially since he's absolutely right about a lot of it. The problem with writing FGC content is: 1. Fighting game articles do notoriously poorly. They just don't perform as well as articles on other genres, mostly for the reasons Sajam listed. 2. Pitching articles about FGC stuff to your editors is really hard and a lot of the time it won't get a pass beyond just news. 3. Even when you do write unique things, like interviews, (I actually interviewed Sajam at the SFV ELeague finals a few years ago) it very easily gets lost in the void and won't pick up traction. Being a writer who specializes in FGC content is very hard. Most people just don't seem to care.

Yeah, fart sounds on a tournament is kinda disrespectful, for the player and for the people that is watching this seriously.

I would definitely like there to be something like AsumSaus, but for every fighting game. A website or RU-vid channel that just covers weird interactions and tech.

I think there should be more articles about FGC lore and history, like the cool videos that document tokido vs daigo

I do hope you write that article series, it sounds hilarious.

Kotaku is a 'pop culture' website. they care about articles that will draw eyes, not about articles of change. They post articles that are one and done and trendy. There articles are for GENERAL people, not a specific group of people. They arent writing for FCG fans who like BBCT. They write articles about EVO. They write very general articles they can essentially make money from.

He won't leave me alone... I only played it once and now he wont leave...

I think Eventhubs has at least 1 banger every other day

Valuable journalisms, was always a really a small drop in the ocean of tabloid pulp. Personally, I think there is a huge need on the market of some kind of valuable analysis of all those shenanigans around FG (general concepts, controller discussions, play style analysis, etc.) Considering how big thing e-sports becoming with each year seance people can legally betting the scores, and by that, how much money potential is on the table (look for last few marketing decisions of main players like RIOT, and response from all other companies around that topic) it is just a matter of time before "professional look from the inside" would be a thing Ps. May someone finally think about initiating some actions to prevent great footsies handbook. If everyone would just talk about how influential it is, and not do anything to actually protect all those media linked there (only one of the issues)

There should be an article about why Juri Han is best girl

You didn't have to call me out like that in the grappler part...

Fantasy Strike is held back by its creator, dude is just too weird

Kotaku is only out for sensationalism, they only want the clicks, not to give actual game information.

Loved the nod to medieval warfare at the end

Fighting games lean more towards videos maybe if the site was linked to a youtube channel that way you could watch or read. I'm not sure how hype you can type moment #37 was in a way that captures just watching it, but dev interviews would be fun.

That grappler spoke to my soul.

The zoner article was actually poetic.

damn when does the Horse Armor DLC for Zoners drop?

The article of the Rushdown, Grappler, and Zoner write it for the option select 😄

ngl I'd love to read that archetype article series

0:26 I agree, from the perspective of someone not playing it’s fucking funny, but it must have sucked for the players.

Im curious what you guys would consider a "casual" in the fgc. Anyone who doesn't compete in locals or tourneys? Someone whos real low rank? Someone who just plays for fun and doesn't grind to improve? what about someone who isn't great at playing, but is really involved in watching and learning about competition?

Guy on horse vs Spiderman wasn't a matchup I was expecting to hear

Is posting whenever desk makes a new video content, is posting every pros new tier list content?

Tells you something that Ars Technica chose to cover the Infil article :-)

LOL dude that grappler and zoner joke.

As a Poison main, my writing has become Impeccable.

The kinda thing with articles happens all the time in card games as well, most lesser known games get content creators that have no idea what they are talking about competitively.

When it comes to news you never see things like "we saved 20 puppies and kittens today; everything is going good." Instead you see "everything is terrible, and they're coming for you." This probably isn't different when it comes to fighting game news in gaming news websites.

2:33 its evo moment LETS GO JUSTIN PTFF PTFF PTFF - Sajam

I think it's weird that you didn't talk about the old srk stuff like domination 101. Not to mention a bunch of fgc people (even ol' save dirlin) have written entire books about fighting games and competition. You'd think that there would be a lot to talk about

I would read those articles series

That grappler article is fine with just that haiku LMAO

This is the acceptable eSports equivalent of thuggery

Ready to go Justin!!! *fart noises on each parry*

3:10 You mean... the farticle

Amusingly, if someone were to write those articles on a blog, *then* Kotaku would write an article sharing those articles. News do be like that...

I would shoot a bear for that three-way article

When will we have a Fart Tier List. I think the "Shart" is A Tier, but the "Silent Assassin" is S Tier

Man, how did MtG catch that lightning in a bottle and get so many knowledgeable players who were also talented writers? Was the scene hard carried by godlike editors, was it just a natural side effect of being a more cerebral game, or what?

15:14 I don’t know about articles, but it used to get heated when we got into Pathfonder vs D&D at the game shop. (I think Pathfinder sucks... even though I played it anyway since it was there).

Is Sajam the Mark Rosewater of the FGC?

At this point I'd rather Sajam get a man bun or a buzz cut. If you had to drink everytime he touched his hair in a video youd be dead of alcohol poisoning xD

Sun sets... life bar diminish... no return.

the farticle was posted on kotaku

I don't read any gaming articles anymore because it's usually just a wall of nonsense and a clickbaity title especially if it's from any mainstream publication, if someone who is passionate about the about a specific genre does a write a up then it becomes worth reading because there's actual content there like the netcode article by Infil.

Please write that article series

Me grappler player...me offended...me not sound dumb...me want only hug

I didn't know grapplers spoke in haikus

Fang goes mo bamba in the corner.

SRK used to write the kinds of articles Sajam (and a lot of other people like us) would probably be interested in. Then it died because there’s not enough people out there like us who actually reads stuff like that. Even when the writers were paid in peanuts they couldn’t make it financially viable. Eventhubs absolutely sucks, but it seems like you have to suck to be commercially viable...

Sounds like when you are describing what you would like to read you are just describing core a gaming but he makes videos

Sajam do the articles. we need better content for fgcu members that are intermediate level but not pro

Big grapple no connect, big sad

Grapplers know numbers? Me think not.

I think games media's audience are mainly other people in games media

The progamejournos mailing list kinda showed what kind of people they are...

Don't forget all those cosplayers in event hubs.

Am I the only one baited here though fantasy strike ?

This needs time stamps

I would rather watch a video of players being interviewed rather than read an article, but then again I hate reading. I feel like drama articles would pull in the most readers tho.

Literal whiff punish

fang mirrors are usually boring, akuma mirrors are interesting

Me struggle.

reddit, street fighter v, online tournament, fang mirror

We have Core-A Gaming, so in my opinion, I need no Kotaku