1 “We Esports Now”? Cultural Differences Between the Fighting Games Community and Other Esports Communities Helen Tang Keywords Esports, fighting games, GLOBE Project, culture, competitive gaming Author Biography Helen Tang is a Master’s student at SMU Guildhall, a game development school. She is studying video game production and has a strong interest in esports, having been involved in it since 2013. Elizabeth Stringer, MEd is a faculty member with the Guildhall at Southern Methodist University, Plano, TX 75024 USA ([email protected]). Abstract This study adapts the extensively used GLOBE cultural survey to compare different esports community cultures. Because of their arcade origins, the fighting games community (FGC) regards themselves as culturally unique and has many customs not found in other esports communities. This study found that the FGC and other esports communities differ in the specific cultural dimensions of Assertiveness, Humane Orientation, Institutional Collectivism, and Power Distance. They were similar in the Performance Orientation dimension. 2 Introduction Esports is defined as professional, competitive gaming, where players or teams compete against one another in organized competition for championship titles or money (Newzoo, 2019). There are many different game genres within esports, such as battle royales, first-person shooters, card games, multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs), and fighting games (Hitt, 2019). The top four esports games of 2019, by prize money, were Fortnite, Dota 2, Counter- Strike: Global Offensive, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (Hitt, 2019). Global esports market revenue is significant, valued at $1.1 billion in 2019 (Pannekeet, 2019). One of the least profitable esports genres is fighting games, played by a niche group called the fighting games community (FGC), which first emerged in arcades. Fighting games are traditionally characterized by gameplay involving two or more characters battling each other in an arena, with the goal of knocking out the opposing character(s) to win a match. Each character has unique attributes, as well as unique moves, which players execute using combinations of buttons (Hosch, 2009). Some popular fighting games are Street Fighter, Super Smash Brothers, and Tekken (Murray, 2018b). The FGC claims that their arcade background has made them culturally unique within esports (Graham 2011; Cannon 2017), to the point where a frequent debate within the community is whether they should be considered a subsection of esports at all (IGN, 2019). While the FGC could make more revenue if they adopt the business practices of the more profitable esports genres, the FGC is concerned about losing their unique culture by having to adhere to other esports’ norms and regulations of play. All esports games have their own communities, which consist of a competitive scene and the people and organizations involved in 3 that scene. Identifying the fundamental cultural practices of these communities may aid understanding of their similarities and differences in order to decide if and how the FGC should make the transition. At the time of writing, there is a lack of formal studies that examine the cultures of different esports communities relative to one another. This paper seeks to advance the study of esports cultures by identifying where cultural differences between the FGC and other esports communities lie on a set of cultural scales established by the GLOBE Project (House, Javidan, & Dorfman, 2001). Background Esports games’ competitive scenes are often built and maintained directly by the games’ developers and publishers, who typically exercise complete control over elements such as tournaments, the competitive season timeline, and who qualifies to play at tournaments. In some cases, developers and publishers may allow external esports leagues to run competitions for their games. Other developers and publishers do not manage their games’ competitive scenes at all, leaving the games’ fans to organize their own competitions (The Esports Observer, 2020). Generally, esports players participate in competitive scenes through ranked play modes in the games, where they compete against one another to rise in the rankings. The highest-ranked players may be recruited to play for esports teams professionally, a process referred to as becoming sponsored by a team (James, 2020). Esports communities do not just include developers, publishers, and players. There are streamers, who livestream gameplay sessions as a career; content creators, who make videos, art, and other media about esports games; commentators and analysts, who provide insights into 4 matches; and tournament organizers and staff, who develop and oversee competitions (The Esports Observer, 2020). Spectators play a role in esports communities as well. Millions of people across the globe spectate esports matches by attending live events, watching on television, or tuning in to livestreams on websites like Twitch and YouTube (Willingham, 2018). This viewership allows the esports industry to make revenue from media rights, merchandise, advertisements, and ticket sales. Spectators also attract the attention of brands, which sponsor events, players, and teams in exchange for opportunities to promote their brand (Pannekeet, 2019). During the development of modern esports communities in the 1990s, FGC members played a variety of fighting games in the public spaces of arcades, where people could walk in and declare that they wanted to play simply by placing a quarter on an arcade cabinet (Cannon, 2017). This high degree of public accessibility led the FGC to develop a mentality that anybody could be a competitor if they had the desire to compete (Cannon, 2017). Many members visited their neighborhood arcades regularly so they could continuously hone their skills (Chin & Vincent, 2015). Particularly strong players like Justin Wong and Sanford Kelly gained regional fame, becoming icons of their local competitive scenes (Hayes, 2012). Community members’ interest in competing against one another led to small, spontaneous, volunteer-run tournaments (Learned, 2017). In line with the FGC philosophy that anyone can compete, anybody could enter these “open” tournaments (Murray, 2018a). The FGC differed from other esports communities in the 1990s in four major ways. First, in contrast to FGC players meeting in the public spaces of arcades, players in other esports communities tended to play PC games, such as Quake and StarCraft, with each other remotely via internet connection from home (Graham, 2011). These players sometimes played in-person at 5 “LAN parties”, but such parties were usually still held in homes and other private spaces rather than in public areas (Kuchera, 2015). Second, while the one-versus-one nature of fighting games highlighted individual performance, many of the games played in other esports communities at the time were team-based, like Halo and Counter-Strike (Larch, 2019). Other esports communities thus had a greater focus on appreciating strong team performance. Third, unlike the FGC’s community-run, local tournaments, other esports communities had professional, competitive leagues run by companies like the Electronic Esports League and ClanBase, which featured national and international levels of competition (Learned, 2017; Larch, 2019). Lastly, while anyone could enter an FGC tournament, in other esports communities, only qualified players and teams could compete in leagues (Murray, 2018a). The FGC today has changed in some ways since the 1990s. It has moved out of arcades and scaled up to include national and international level competitions (Learned, 2017). The FGC also has more overlap with other esports communities because teams from other esports communities have started to sponsor more fighting game players (Shaw, 2016). Additionally, more league-based fighting game events have arisen (Myers, 2017; Cannon, 2011). Despite these changes, the FGC still maintains many of the differences they had from the rest of esports. Although fighting games can be played online from home now, FGC members state that they still prefer playing together in-person because they can bond with one another (Chin & Vincent, 2015). Community members continue to self-organize competitive scenes (Learned, 2017). Most fighting game tournaments, including small, local events and the largest and most prestigious tournament, Evo, remain open for anyone to enter. As a result, FGC tournaments offer opportunities for professional and amateur players to compete and interact with each other. This 6 is a social environment rarely found in other esports communities, where most tournaments are still invitationals restricted to qualifying competitors (Murray, 2018a). In addition to lingering differences from the 1990s, there are other facets of the modern FGC that are uncommon in other esports communities. The FGC is infamous for trash talk between competitors while playing, even at a professional level (Murray, 2018a). In other esports, trash talk may be regarded as unsportsmanlike, and codes of conduct discourage trash talk in professional play. For instance, the League of Legends World Championship rules state that players cannot direct insulting gestures or speech at opponents (LoL Esports Staff, 2019a). FGC tournament formats also differ from tournament formats for other esports. The FGC prefers double-elimination brackets, where players only need to play specific people and can lose twice before being eliminated. Other esports usually