From the Vault — originally published October 23, 2009. Some links, videos or prices may be out of date.
Capcom hosted an event called “Fight Club” in NYC Thursday night in Manhattan’s, SOHO district. I’ll just cut to the chase and say this was one of the worst gaming events I have attended in recent memory. The event was poorly executed and they misrepresented what would be featured at the event. The Super Street Fighter IV content that most fans actually lined up for hours to play was not even playable at the event.
I will get to the unmet expectations shortly but for now lets start with the basics. First off the the venue was by far much much much much too small to fit any decent crowd of people comfortably.
Seriously. My loft condo is bigger than the venue they intended to potentailly host hundreds of fans. Sounds crazy right. I know.
The line to the event stretched around the corner and down the block an hour before the event even started. This clusterfuck line situation may look good in a press release, or post event photo for PR purposes but make no mistake many fans were upset.
This is all the same line. Here are some actual quotes I jotted down while out side by the line:
“Oh shit there’s no fucking way we’re getting in there”
“What the fuck?!”
(* upon some one screaming out that there a link to a live stream on SRK and that SSF4 will not be playable)”This is some bullshit. i could have been home watching this.”
“When I turned that corner and saw this [line] and I was crushed. I was crushed.”
“I have been on line a whole hour and all they are doing is giving us these shitty comics. To shut us up.”
Keep in mind that these are mostly people who requested and recieved confirmations of being able attend thorough they actually never checked any list at the actual event. If you spent time trying to register and you received a confirmation it didn’t help you in any way. You wasted your time it didn’t matter as you could have just showed up.
These fans waited upwards of two hours in line to find out that the game they actually came to see most was not going to be playable as teased. What? Yes. Super Street Fighter IV was NOT playable. The Capcons (just made that up) ran a viewable demo every hour. I spoke with one guy in particular who was one of the first in line. He got there at 5pm. (The event started at 8pm) He was very very disappointed about not being able to play Super street Fighter IV. His understanding much like everyone else that I spoke with was that Super Street Fighter IV would be playable.
Much to the dismay of fans, the primarily focus of the event ended up being Tatsunoko vs Capcom. Whether it was a last minute switch or not was misleading and came across like a bait and switch.The first images posted with the event announcement featured Juri the new Super Street Fighter IV character. The headings on these promos for the event list Super Street Fighter IV first. Yes they later switch the art to Tatsunoko vs Capcom but a quick update to fans to say “Hey, people who support us… this event will be mostly Tatsunoko Vs Capcom.” would have gone a long way. Its horrible to pump your fans up, make them wait for hours and on top of that fall short of the expectations you set.
At the end of the day this is ripe for Ed Lover. Fail. Capcom, c’mon SON!
The GameManx Weekly
New articles, once a week.
One email on Fridays, and only when there's something new. Unsubscribe anytime.
