Hello, and welcome to episode number one hundred and thirty seven of the Chief
Steaks and Controller's podcast presented by Fox PHL The Gambler one or two point five
FM fourteen eighty AM I Heart Radio, where wherever you get your podcast is
where you can listen to this here show as you are right now. My
name is Jason Finelli, and I am the esports and gaming insider for Fox
PHL, The Gambler and Folks. It is one of my favorite weekends of
the year. It's EVA week. We are talking fighting games this week,
baby, and there are a lot of things to talk about as we get
into EVO Week eight. Tournaments plenty to discuss, and I have brought in
a fantastic interview to do just that. However, things are gonna be a
little bit different this time. We're gonna do something a little peak behind the
curtain when it comes to Chef Steaks and Controllers here. And what I mean
by that is so I have one guest on the show today. We'll get
into who that is shortly. If you saw the posts on social media,
you already know who it is, but we are I'm putting the interview in
two segments because we actually filmed. I'm sorry recorded, I don't film here.
We actually recorded two different times. We recorded the Friday before Project L
was announced to be playable at EVO, and then the Thursday after Project L
was able to was announced as being playable EVO. You're gonna hear the way
we talk about it, the way it's teased in the first segment, along
with his great insight into EVO in general, and then in part two we'll
talk about the afterpart of you know, the the the the reaction to and
stuff like that. So it's an interesting little peek behind how podcasts sometimes work,
and I feel like it'll be a really cool way to let you see
how I do things here on the show. So our first interview today on
Chief Stakes the Controllers is one I'm very very excited about. If you have
listened to my show, you know that I am a champion of the fighting
game community. I have gone on record of saying that fighting games are the
future of competitive gaming in general. But you can listen to all the old
episodes to hear me talk about that. EVO twenty twenty three is a day
away, starts tomorrow. I am super excited to get into it and with
me to talk about twenty twenty three is who better than the general manager of
EVO Rick Thyre, who started with Combo Breaker, still does Combo Breaker,
I think, and now is running EVO and making it the biggest and best
EVO that has ever been Rick, How are you today, Jason? Would
that kind of upsell for just stepping by? I'm doing great. We're trying
to live up to that biggest and best. Well. Your attendance figures,
your registration numbers certainly have already started you on that road. Seven thousand players
for street Fighter six alone. That I loved the numbers, where if the
only people who signed up for street Fighter only signed up for street Fighter,
it would still be the biggest tournament of the whole thing. Now twenty twenty
two, your first year back. Good attendance, great show, especially on
the live stream side. Were people streaming like I was? But I think
everyone's sort of expected this to be like an even bigger year in a sense
because it was your second year. You already got the first year underneath,
you worked out some cakes. Did you expect it to be this big?
I don't think you can ever expect something to be record breaking, you can
expect something to be a big moment or a big beat, which the launcher
street Fighter six for me, was always going to be. We're talking about
the franchise that, in a lot of ways was the genesis point for what
modern fighting games are. That's a street Fighter two without that arcade boom.
Maybe I'm not employed this way today with all those things happening, though,
You get to street Fighter six and you have to assume that you're going to
get a boom, And then the game came out and the game is good,
Yes, good with a capital G. Good. So seeing this response
is uplifting might be a great word choice for it. Definitely surprising in scale,
and I am really excited to see what happens at a tournament where when
you get out of pools, everyone that gets out of pool that next phase
of the tournament is still larger than the first EVO Street Fighter tournament I competed
in. Oh my god, how do you how do you wrangle that many
players like that? If you were to put that bracket on paper, it
would probably stretch the entire Mandalay Bay because it's double elimination too, so you
have all those players twice like, how do you how do you wrangle all
that. We've made a bunch of jokes this year about the fact that it's
going to take a small army to run the tournament, and I don't disagree
at all. I think that's incredibly true. I'm deeply thankful for the bracket
staff and the tournament staff we have, for the enthusiastic response from the community
to sign up and help actually execute that bracket so that we have enough bracket
runners to move those pools. But you brought up combo breaker earlier at the
top of the show, which, as you know, my original tournament.
Baby, it's always fun to talk about. But there are more PS fives
on the show floor for just Street Fighter six than the entire allotment of consoles
at the first two years of CB. If you can bind them together,
Wow, that's amazing. And that and that sort of support from PlayStation I
think is a huge Uh. The fact that you're able to not have a
cutoff, Right, how did PlayStation when you when you came to PlayStation with
these numbers or your your higher ups with these numbers and said, look um,
we we're doing pretty good, but it's going to be really good.
How do we mitigate this? Were they receptive? Were they like, yeah,
we're ready? Like, how how do you manage all those logistics?
Because that's a lot of consoles, As you just pointed out, it's it's
a lot of logistics. I think the cool thing about being in an orchestructure
that Sony is on top of now is they're going to get excited about people
using their hardware to play games. That's what they're here to support, and
so having the visual of that many consoles in a rome is a cool enticing
moment. When we were at Ebo Japan earlier this year, I got to
walk the show floor and then go up an escalator so that you could see
down onto the show for school with some of the executives at Sony, and
here's this just huge room of PlayStation consoles and Sony monitors and people enjoying themselves
competing. That's an impactful visual I think no matter where you are in any
corporate structure. Now, the backside of that statement, though, is eyebrows
raise when you ask for support and coming up with this much hardware. So
we're we are still using community vendors at this show that our traditional hardware suppliers
for a bunch of the fighting game community executions around the country, around the
world. Now actually we have support from Sony to come up with the sheer
volume of PlayStation five necessary to run and open bracket this scale. It makes
me think a lot about next year when more of these games will be available
on PS five, because there's a Tech and EIGHTE coming out, which I'm
praying is before Evote next year. There are more games in the future one
this year exactly. The needs for hardware support at this scale I think cannot
be devalued, and it's one of the absolute best parts of being in an
organizational structure. Now that has asked us to a legitimate platform partner who produces
hardware. Yeah, because it's not an immediate solve. Somebody still has to
go probably look through P and L sheets and shipping logistics and figuring out who
has what, where, when, why, how. But there is a
path that can start with just one email to one person to go down that
chain. Whereas every other show I've ever run, it's how how many suppliers
do we have to combine? Oh? Well, they show up on time,
So when does when did or does set up begin? Like when are
you again? This episode is going out the day before the show opens,
but we are recording the week before. So where have you started now a
week before or you waiting till the be like Monday? If next week,
when does that set up phase begin? So some of my team will start
arriving on Monday, the thirty first. We'll be in the venue on Tuesday
the first, chalking the floor, starting to get the rigging plans up into
the air, kind of doing those processes in terms of what I think a
lot of people would consider the setup. So trucks are in, vendors arean
boosts are getting set up, consoles are getting turned on. None of that
really gets going at great pace till Wednesday, which amazing to think. And
you're going to be up and running on Friday, so you're forty eight hours
to get this whole thing set up. It's amazing. How y'all do it?
The incredible things we have an extra day this year. Last year we
did not have that ball even less time. That's good. Well, you
have what four thousand more people to worry about too, a lot more than
that. One of the one of the wildest things, and talking about the
numbers of EVO is people come and talk about having almost ninety two unique players
and going, this is huge, this is the biggest, this is great,
and then no one discusses all the spectaculor tickets. Oh oh no,
oh, my's a massive, massive show. I hope you have a lot
of paths just lined up for people to just walk, because there's gonna be
a lot. That's like, I've only been to one EVO in my life.
It's twenty eighteen, five years ago, chomping at the bit to get
back hopefully next year. Um, and I just remember whenever something like a
big matchress go went on, or like something really tense was going on at
the stations on Friday and Saturday, people would gather and then we have to
clear the path, but nobody want to clear because they're watching. Now.
The big screens around the event center kind of mitigate that for the people on
the stage. But if there's a great match popping off, like in Row
four or Rowe D what do you? How do you? How do you?
I don't envy you, I guess That's what I'm trying to say.
Get on your tip you get down on tippy toes. Um. We definitely
have a lot of walk paths that are as wide as they can be in
the space that we have. We've got a lot of primary walks pass on
top of that to get from the left side of the venue to the right
side of the venue. You get north south, so on and so forth,
which I think are very needed this year because aside from the sheer volume
of players, they're gonna be present in that no lack of a better term
for this chaos pit for the early tournaments. The show has a wealth of
activities beyond that too, because you have a ten thousand square foot retro arcade
this year that has high score tournaments in it. So if you really want
to post up on Donkey Kong for two days straight and not sleep well,
he probably have to get kicked out of venue at some point. But regardless,
you can go that route of the show. There's the community tournaments and
the community stagings that you can go and engage with. Games that aren't even
part of that core lineup still represent the breadth of what fighting game culture and
the fighting game genre is. That on the opposite side of some of that,
you've got the artist alley is still there, vendor villages, are still
there. There's more exhibitors this year than there have been at EVA in the
past. And although I'm not going to drop the names here, the advantage
of this show coming a couple of days after another big announcement next week,
there are going to be more developers and publishers with hands on first impression games
characters, DLC routes. You even got SMK in their running tournaments for some
of their now legacy titles just at their booth space. So there is no
lack of opportunity to be entertained at EVIL this year. That's awesome. Now
you did you were mentioning big announcements. You had some things earlier this week
that have really set a lot of people on fire. What are some of
the things that you were dropping a week before this show starts? As if
we needed more than you know, thousands of players and whatever else is getting
cooked up here adding game community. If we're not asking for more, what
are we doing? That's true? That is true, and I'm happy to
be part of that, to be honest. Same here. Actually we have
at EVO this year, and you saw this with the announcement for MK one.
You saw this with the announcement for Tech and eight, the ability to
get hands on with upcoming titles in the fighting game genre that you have not
played before. Amazing. And I know you said that this is dropping the
day before the show's assuming Thursday here yesterday. If you go back one week,
there is another huge announcement that just came out about more hands on games
at EBO that I think are going to incite absolute fervor about getting over into
that developer publisher Alley at the show. Oh man, oh man, this
guy, this guy with his teases. Go check those announcements out. That's
pretty exciting. I'm gonna have to grow him a little bit after the show's
over because he's being coin with me. Here. Another game I want to
talk about a little bit is one that, honestly, for me, is
the most exciting part of this and that is Ultimate Marvel three at number four.
Having over thirteen hundred players for a game that is twelve years old,
well that boggles my mind. I mean it doesn't. Marvel community has always
showed out, but to have even that many players. Some may argue that
Street Fighter six if you're a capcom fan, you might have tried both,
but I'd say they're two completely different games. That doesn't really translate. So
what do you attribute that successful number two? If you had to choose something,
I think it's a combination of things. There's a lot of easy attributions.
But for me, it's that the player base around that subgenre of fighting
games has never lost its enthusiasm. Many of the best players from the heyday
of Ultimate marvels Capcom three are still playing and still playing regularly because the game
is at tournaments. But I know that a few years ago, when some
of the enthusiasm around the competition for that game had started to wane a little
bit because the age was showing you had high volume, not even high volume,
high viewership, influencers like Maximilian work with Twitch to put together an Ultimate
Marvel Versus Capcom three tournament that could be made possible because groups of developers,
particularly with parsek, had come up with ways to make sure that you could
play this game at home on your PC with other people multiple states away,
and that had never been possible for that game previously, the net code was
just a little too old. That opportunity was capitalized on by I think Kevin
Hoff first, but then tong Off Tampa Never Sleeps, where he started hosting
a tournament series. Every week. They were putting together incredible, incredible matches
on a consistent basis, So you have new viewership tuning in, You've got
players reinvigorated by having this tent pole spot to go to. And Tong then
went around the country championing Marvel at every tournament that he could get to,
and that led to what I think really true resurgence for that game, that
got our attention, that allowed us to go to Marvel and Capcom and go,
hey, come on, yeah, come on, and I am imagining
that meeting. Y'all sit down, the stuffed shirts, sit down, You
sit down, everybody's looking at each other, and you just break the ice
with a come on, guys, what are you doing here? I think
it was a perfect storm. We wound up working with some folks over at
Marvel truly and Marvel Game specifically, who understood why we wanted to do this,
Who are fans of the game, because I think it's easy to be
a fan of that game, that were enthused about the fact that we could
presented in a way that hopefully it just hadn't been presented in before, and
so when we announced that and the initial response was strong, that bubbling up
into what is now the largest ultimate Marvel VERUS Capcom three tournament in the history
of the franchise is a beautiful, beautiful thing to kick off the fact that
Evo's going to be doing these throwback tournaments moving forward. It's not just going
to be Marvel this one year. There is so much in this genre that
has surface back up in recent years because rollback net code is strong, because
PC ports are playable now, because of archival and emulation and all these things
that we don't normally talk about a lot, but still kind of keep that
fandom rolling, and we're big parts of what made EVO into what EVO is.
So shining this new, bigger light back on him and seeing, well,
you know what happens if we throw Marvel to ten people play, or
do oh thirteen hundred people play? Okay? Now, are you are you
worried that this particular classic game or retro game might be a misleading bar you
know what I mean? Like this one is particularly popular just had that major
resurgence. I feel like the modeing community, although they won't be moded here,
might have helped in there as well with those other characters and making things
a little weird. But I wonder, then, if you say, next
year you tried it with a classic Koft title or something from maybe like a
like a Mortal Kombat one and Mortal Kombat one or two or three or Ultimate,
if the same amount of enthusiasm might occur. Does that make sense?
It makes perfect sense. Do I think that all franchises will produce the response
that Marvel just did? No? No, I think there's an opportunity for
any number of franchises to produce this type of enthusiastic historical look back. Sure.
Yes, I don't think you have to run a tournament that gets thirteen
hundred players for it to have a valuable response, Like we go look Out
in Japan. This year you had matsudasan throw at DreamHack his annual Virtual Fighter
series, and it still produces great gameplay for really excited players who are invested
in that moment in the genre's history. And I think if we can put
a light on those moments, you wind up with new people who not only
discover a little bit of the genre's history where we all came from collectively,
but also might get engaged with and try it out. And I think a
lot of those games are still incredibly fun to play. That's why you've got
a Third Strike community series in North America right now. It's why you can
find Vampire Savior players, That's why you can find pockets of players in Latin
America, particularly where the older tech ins are played more than the newer techns.
And I think if we can find the right timing for a lot of
those games from year to year, we have a great moment to tell our
story while also giving new players who are unfamiliar with that history or those games
a chance to be part of it. Which is I don't know, some
weird VH one behind the music kind of approach to this, but I think
it works because the games are still good. That's true. As long as
the games are good, people are gonna want to play them. Especially,
like you said, with the rollbat Neck code bringing it to older titles in
established franchise is guilty Gear comes to minds what SNK is doing with all their
games as well. That makes a lot of makes perfect sense to me.
Coming up after the break, we get to part two of my talk with
Rick Thyer, general manager of EVO mostly about Project Dell if I'm being honest,
but you'll enjoy it. Stick around. Welcome back to Chief Stakes to
Controller's episode number one hundred and thirty seven. Moving on now to part two
of my discussion with Rick Thyre, also known as the Hado General Manager of
EVO. As I mentioned at the top of the show, this was recorded
after the Project L announcement was made. A last segment was recorded before,
which is why we were being a little teasy about it. But he was
gracious enough to come back and give me some insight into that, and I
really appreciate him for it. So here is part two of that discussion.
Now. So, Rick, one of the most exciting things about EVO this
year. There's a lot to be excited about, don't get me wrong.
As we've talked about, it's going to be a humongous show. But as
far as the convention part, with all the different poos where you can try
out different games, there's a bit of a coup, a bit of a
big coup for EVO this year, and that will be the first playable demo
of Project L, which I believe is still a working title. You can
correct me if I'm wrong, which is Riot Games first foray into fighting games,
a two v two tag based fighter, pulling from their immense pantheon of
champions from the League of Legends universe. The next step in there branching out
for just their insular mobile game to Arcane and the RPGs that have come out
on consoles and stuff like that. So talk to me about how those discussions
came about. Obviously the Cannons. There is a lot of connected tissue between
EVO and the Cannons, so I imagine the foot in the door was not
that difficult. But from there, how did this all come about? So
you are correct, the foot in the door had arguably nothing to do with
me. You have Tom and Tony Cannon who helped found EVO, ran it
for twenty some years and moved on to work on Project L full time and
make sure that the future of fighting games looks as bright and ambitious as they
wanted to. And coincidentally, are you know, still on our board of
advisors. So being able to go, I'd like to take my game and
show it at the largest fighting game tournament convention in the world, which also
happens to be mine. I can't see where that was too hard a decision
process, and probably a pretty wonderful full circle moment for them both as event
organizers and owners and former owners and quick just people who have grown up in
fighting games since the dawn of fighting games. So you get the foot in
the door dawn, and then it turns into a bunch of meetings about space
and logistics and power and how long do we think this Q line can be?
Wait, how many people are coming? Yeah, that's a problem.
Especially so the interesting thing about Project Deality vote is I don't think there's been
anything about activating that hands on experience that has been unexpectedly difficult or weigh out
the bounds of what you would consider normal in two entities getting together and go
we want to showcase something. I think the truly wild part about Project del
at EVO is the fact it exists at Evo at all is way outside the
bounds of what I expect from Riot historically. I expect for a game that
hasn't even had an official demo anywhere that I really know of, that's available
for the public to consume, and that's going to exist at EVO in a
year where the event is so large that you're not walking away with a playtest.
You're walking away with the population of an entire city. Yeah, basically
tested out the game. That's awesome that today. Did you anticipate when?
So? I guess obviously, I'm trying to think of a timeline as to
when your attendance numbers started coming in and when they decided like a demo would
be happening. Was the demo before your attendance figures, like early figure started
to roll in. When did that decision happen? Because I wonder if that
attendance figure made any difference, if that makes sense. So when we first
started talking about it, attendance was already up for the year. It just
wasn't okay, we're going to be breaking all the records kind of up.
So we had committed to that. At which point we get into the standard
registration period where you get done with your early reds, you promote that there's
a price increase. Everybody floods into register to save the couple of dollars here
and there, which makes total sense against the scale of a Vegas vacation.
Maybe not that impactful, but makes total sense. You get an extra you
know, Johnny Rockettsburger meal but after that really came into play. We wound
up on site with the Riot team talking about, Okay, what what are
we going to do to make sure this works because this is no longer just
EVO at EVO scale and Project L. It's Project L for the first time
at the biggest EVO that's ever existed. Oh, you're going to announce really
close to the show. I guess that might help a little bit because maybe
the whole city doesn't flood in, but I expect there to be a an
interesting Q line for this particular activity, Healthy, which will yeah, yeah,
it'll be healthy, which, although, to be honest, it might
be a squashed a little bit on the fact that Project L is a two
B two game. So whereas you get in line to play Technade or m
K one or there's surprises at the show that you'll discover later this week wink,
there is an opportunity for Project L to potentially move through that Q line
even faster because instead of two people, that can be four or three or
whatever combination. That's true. That is true because the duo's mode, each
player gets a character you can switch back and forth, and I imagine the
demo will focus on that duo's mode, it will not It'll just be four
people to a console at a time to keep that line moving. It almost
reminds me of I don't know if you were on the committee at all,
if you were helping with the vo in twenty eighteen, the one year I
was there when they had Smash Brothers demo available on the floor for four people
to a console, one big you know, free for all match, and
then off you went. I wonder, and that line was very healthy the
entire time. So I'm wondering if you might run into a similar situation just
with you know, probably some more people. I don't remember the twenty eighteen
attendants records off the top of my head, but there were a lot.
There were a lot of people. Yes, someone who also stood in that
line. Yeah, yeah, as someone who also stood in that line,
yes, well the line when I got there, if I recall, it
was the first thing I did. I made sure I just ran too it
on Saturday morning, I think, and I was still like twenty twenty five
people deep. It was brutal. I think the nice part is as much
as we're joking about the line being long and deservedly being long, sure that
Smash one moved pretty fast, and so I legitimately do expect the Projdel one
to move as quick or potentially even quicker, because I don't anticipate there is
going to be as many champions of a little as there were in Smash.
So even just getting stuck on characters, like trying to figure out who am
I going to play today? Smash, you're dealing with everybody's here. Yeah,
Project Bell, You've got three four champions. Yeah. Yeah, So
that that Smash demo was the same exact one from E three twenty eighteen,
So you're right, it was like eighteen characters in that demo versus four in
this one. Three they've revealed in the fourth one they're going to reveal at
some point before things kick off. Are they talking to them now this week?
If you've talked to them yet the week of the show, has their
excitement grown to see all these people? Are they now extra nervous? So
I imagine there's this double sided coin of yes, all these people are going
to play these our game. Crap, all these people are going to play
our game. But it's like a weird dichotomy. Is that is that what
you're feeling you're you're you're getting from them here. I mean, I think
the the enthusiasm and excitement versus the stress and nervousness applies that reaspect of the
show. Sure the Project L team is feeling it, Yes, I do
have I talked to them to confirm that. No, I hadn't, But
I know our tech staff feels that way. I know the janitorial staff feels
that way. I know that the security staff feels that way. So I
would expect the Product L team has a similar feeling in that regard. Poor
one out for the janitorial team, they are they are better poor two or
three out right saints among men. Those guys, those those folks are h
That is not a job I envy, but it is one I definitely respect.
So one last thing before I get you out of here. It's the
week of the show. You're flying out. I assume we're recording on Monday,
the thirty first, So why the time it goes out, you'll be
there Thursday. You're flying out tonight tomorrow, bright and early tomorrow morning,
right and early tomorrow morning. I got a three year old at home,
so I didn't want to fly out post bed time. I'd rather get up
a little too early, maybe get out the door before she's away. Otherwise,
have a breakfast and head off to Vegas. You and I have very
similar thoughts when it comes to traveling alone. We don't go after they go
to bed, we go before they wake up, which I guess in retrospect
is the same thing. But yeah, whatever, the kid appreciates it.
So my question then, is, how are you feeling now? All this
preparation, all this work, all these records, all these new cool demos
that you have announced. It's almost put up a shut up time. Are
you ready? I don't think you're ever ready to run a show like this,
but I think we have all the pieces in place for this to be
the evil event that we are aspiring for it to be. It all is
all the things any event can have at this scale to break those ambitions.
But I think we've got the right staff. I'm very confident we have the
right activities. We've obviously got a great turnout. I know we're going to
wind up with great matches. We've got a good venue partner, we've got
a good just general preparations plan and best practices that we've been running through for
the last few months. Is it all going to blow up eleventh hour because
that's what happens. Yes, but that's why you've got the best people that
we can have involved in the show so that it will be the best show
it can be. So what I guess my last question is for someone who's
getting ready to come out there, other than stay out of the one hundred
degree heat for as long as you can, there are there any words of
wisdom from someone who's been doing this for a very long time, both as
a fan and running the thing that you can give to attendees both new and
old for EVO twenty twenty three specifically, so it's not specific, all of
one hundred degree heat does play into this advice. This is the general advice
I give about every show because I think it makes a difference. Treat yourself
right so the show can do the best it can to do right by you.
Love. That means get enough sleep to actually enjoy the show. If
you're somebody where that's seven minutes, great. If you're somebody where that's like
me, it needs to be seven plus hours. Aimed for that drink water,
particularly because we're in vague it's going to be one hundred degrees plus,
whether you're inside or out. That will creep under your skin and get into
your bones. Yes, eat and if you can't eat, well, pack
some protein bars, bring some cranola bars, bring some jerky, because if
your body feels good, the event will go well. There's enough there to
do an experience that I can promise. The entertainment level is high. There's
enough to compete in that. If that's your jam, you will have the
opportunity to do so. The show that's been put together for Friday, for
the showcase, for the finals on Saturday and Sunday, all of that I
know will be what you need it to be. So just be in a
condition to appreciate it to the best of your ability. I love that advice.
You're going out to EVO twenty twenty three this year and you see Rick
Thyer, general manager of EVO, walking around the floor, shake his hand,
elbow, whatever, he's comfortable with, his choice, not yours,
but make sure you thank this man because he and his team are doing their
best to make EVO what it is. And based on those attendance numbers,
this year is going to be a hell of a show and you know what.
I lied. One last little extra question for you, is one particular
tournament of the eight main ones that you're excited for because there one game where
you're like, man, I'm really jazzed to see this. So I know,
I'm supposed to say Street Fight or six because it is the biggest tournament
YadA, YadA, YadA. As the guy who helped put together the Tech
and World two or years back, I'm supposed to say Tech and seven.
As the guy who still to this day is playing m K eleven pretty regularly,
I'm supposed to say Mortal Kombat. The reality of it is, this
is the single largest ultimate Marble Verse capcom that has ever been hosted, and
we somehow managed to get Combo Fiend to climb out of the shadow realm?
Do you commentary for that bracket? That one, to me is special,
and whether the rest of the tournaments are the best ever in any capacity that
you want it to be the best that one, specifically, that one means
something to me and a lot of the people that I used to travel to
tournaments with on a regular basis, So it's very cool to have that at
the show. I love that it represents evil being able to do throwback tournaments,
and I just think that one that one as a legacy head of that
game is going to just feel good. And I'm hoping that with the turnout
that you've had and the crowd that I expect for that Top six in particular,
because let's be honest, a lot of times people just don't only have
the time to tune in for the Top six is they can't be a degenerate
like me and have eight screens going on a Friday afternoon. Let's hope that
certain eyes are opened and that we don't have to talk about Marvel as a
legacy game for much longer. But that's just a pipe dream on my end.
I'm sure it's one on yours as well. I'm not going to make
you comment on that. You're welcome to, but I'm not going to make
you Oh. I would love to be the guy that could just sit here
and be like, yes, more Marvel. I have no influence, i
have no power. I've got the same hopeful dreams that a few too many
people have had for a few too many years, and hopefully those years dwindled
down into something new and cool eventually, I would hope, so too,
Rick Thire, Ladies and gentlemen, the general manager of EVO, the hardest
working man this weekend. I don't care what you're doing. This guy's going
to be running around Las Vegas in a one hundred degree heat making sure people
can digitally punch the punch each other in the face as safely and with as
much fun as possible. I look forward to watching as much as I can.
I'm not kidding when I say eight screens. I'll tweet it like I
do every single year, and I'll tag you in it specifically just so or
exit? Are we exiting now? What are we doing forget? Anyway?
Rick, thank you so much for your time and your efforts in this.
I am looking forward to an incredible, incredible show. Thank you for your
great answers here, looking forward to seeing what everything EVO has to offer,
and maybe after the facts, sometime in August or September or something like that,
we can do this again, to do like a post show like what
went right? What went wrong? What you were most excited about? Rick?
Thanks Bell, thank you. Coming up after the break, I get
into my wishes for EVO twenty twenty three, including reveals I would like to
see tournaments I'm most looking forward to, and pipe dreams that probably won't come
true, but hey, let's hope stick around, all right, Yes,
folks, is che Steaks and Controllers one hundred thirty seven, which I have
not mentioned yet throughout this episode. This is the EVO episode, and as
many people know, the number thirty seven is very relevant in the world of
EVO as EVO moment. Thirty seven kind of put this event on the map
for a more across the greater gaming industry as opposed to just the FGC there
in California. So it's for one thirty seven to be the EVO episode and
to have the great Rick Thryer. The Thier, the general manager of EVO
on the show, was a great, great, great, great get and
I really appreciate him coming. And now I am going to beg him for
things. I'm going to beg him for things that I would like to happen
at EVO this year. I'm going to queue up this music again because I
love it that much. It's just one of the best fighting game songs ever
made, and it's actually relevant to the first thing I would like to request
in this segment, and that is another crossover between Capcom and SNK. They
seem real chummy all of a sudden, they seem like they're they're good friends.
They're doing you know, roundtables together during the pandemic and there, and
they're spending a lot of time together. They're talking very highly of each other
on you know, social media and stuff like that. So they wanted to
give us cap Com Versus SNK three, I would have no problems with that.
Cap Com Versus SNK two is a very special game to me for multiple
reasons. The fantastic fighting game. For one, it holds the distinction of
being the only game to date that I have ever imported from Japan. Because
I owned the Dreamcast version of the game, an American version for the Dreamcast
did not exist, so I had in order to play it when I had
a Dreamcast and no other consoles, I had to import it, and a
local mom and pop shop here in my neighborhood had not only the copy of
the import but also a little called innovation disc that I put in to basically
allow my console American console to play it to get past them the coding or
whatever it is that the region region lock. Excuse me, uh So um,
cap con Versus SNK is big for me, and I would love to
see CAP con Versus SNK three, or if they want to call it something
else, just not Cap con Versus SNK Infinite Police. That name seems to
be a little you know, tainted at this point. But if they wanted
to give us another one, I would be all about it. I think
it's a it's ripe for the picking. If they wanted to you know,
expand on the ratio system or even bring that back stick with one V one,
two V two or VV three, I think there's I think the online
would be awesome. Um I would. I wouldn't mind the approach where capcom
makes one and SNK makes one just because they're so different. But I do
think that that there is definitely a possibility there h The the really you know,
needy part of me would love that to be in two D sprites.
That would be a really cool throwback. And I feel like a two D
sprite fighting game from a major company might be a cool way to replicate the
sort of retro revival that happened in the inde scenes starting with shovel Night and
going across multiple genres and multiple even fighting games are INDI fighting games to do
it and stuff like that, but it would be you know, full three
day, big budget. Of course, I'm not going to shake a stick
at anything Capcom versus SNK related if it were to come back, but it
is something I would like to see. Now. I know that SNK is
busy with other projects, which brings me to number two of my request,
and that is Garrow gameplay. So for two years now they've teased us with
the return of Fatal Furity Slash Garrow. First it was the teaser with Rock
Howard, and then last year there was a different teaser that was basically the
same sort of alleyway shot, just with different people standing in the alleyway.
Let's see some gameplay this year. Let's see what you're going for. Let's
see what you want to do. I don't need a full system deep dive.
I don't think it's that close to launch that we would get something like
that, but I just want to see it. If you want to give
me a couple of minutes of footage in a trailer with some you know,
big combos or special moves or whatever, I'm fine with that. I'm not
picky. Just let us see a little bit of garrow. Pretty pretty pleased.
That would be super cool. From the Capcom side, it's obvious,
it's what everybody wants, it's what I want, it's it's it's something we're
going to request to we're blue in the face, and that's a new Marvel
Versus Capcom game. However, I do not think it's very likely for this
year. But I don't think it's very likely for this year. But I
think this year could be a major boon in the favor of that in the
favor of a new game coming, thanks to the number of people who have
signed up for that tournament. It will there's so many people sign up for
that tournament. It will start day three. It'll be the first finals we
see on day three, placing fourth out of eight games in the overall rankings,
and that and Ultimate Marvel Versus Capcom three, let me remind you,
is twelve years old. So the fact that a twelve year old game had
that much of an of a support system, that so many that many people
came out for this tournament should open some eyes at the in the c suites
that need their eyes open, right, And I would hope that that sort
of attendance might lead and I kind of said this with Rick at the end
of part two of our discussion, I would hope that the attendance of this
tournament would would would allow those talks to begin, which would mean we wouldn't
see another game for you know, four or five years, if work hadn't
even started yet. It is something I would like to see built from scratch.
I don't want them to fall into the same trap they fell into last
time with Infinite where they just kind of poached and tried from Ultimate Marvel three
and tried to make the game as cheap as possible, as cheaply as possible.
I should say that did not work out well in their favor. Favor
they had a lot of egg on their face after that. But Capcom right
now seems to be firing on all cylinders. So if it's if the iron
was ever hot enough to strike, it would be now based on this attendance,
based on the you know, the the hot streak the Capcom was on
with Art President Evil and Street Fighter and all the games that they're making.
Now is a great time for that to happen. So if they wanted to
bring that to the forefront, I would appreciate that also too. With Capcom,
I would like to see character number two and Oversheed just came out and
he's causing quite a star with him having to be edited basically the first day
he was out. But I do think that getting a glimpse of the next
character, Aki would be kind of cool. Whether it's a little teaser trailer
where it's some brief footage, I don't know what they want to do,
but I would like to see Aki, and maybe some hints for year two.
I think it's a little early for that yet, but some hints for
year two would be kind of cool as well. So that's Capcom. Let's
move on to ban Dynamico. I think now would be the time to really
go all in on Dragon Ball Fighter Z two if that was going to happen.
The game has been out now for six years. It is getting a
huge rollback neet code patch. I understand that if they wanted to announce detail
on that as well for the third year in a row, I think that
would be great also. I'd be happy with that, but I think a
new game with some updated although the problem you run into there is what would
a new Dragon Ball Fighter Z add to what's already happening. The problem with
that game is it makes They would have to overhaul the fighting system in that
game, because a critique of mine ever since its first ego in twenty eighteen
is that it basically degenerates into who could do the super the fastest, and
it's just the same multiple supers over and over and over again, big long,
drawn out level threes that we're seeing all the time. They need to
find a way to streamline that combat make a little more interesting, whether that's
you know, slower meter or even two v two or one v one.
I don't know, to make the matches faster. I'm not sure, but
I feel like there's a lot more work to be done there. So I
don't think it's definite. The Dragon Ball Fighters E two will be announced this
year, but I would like to lease see some more news on the role
on the new rollbacknet code that would be nice. And then Tech and eight.
Obviously Tech and eight has the possibility for a huge update. I would
love to see some new characters, maybe our first guest character, or even
since this is EVO and it's the crowd that would appreciate it the most.
The first original brand new roster member for Tech and eight. There has not
been one yet. We have now had a beta test with sixteen characters,
and all of them were returning veterans. I do not think the entire roster
will be returning veterans. So if there was ever a moment to bring in
a brand new character with a new play style, EVO and a fighting game
centric fan audience base would be the place to do that. They are a
part of the Friday Showcase. I don't know again if they're going to listen
heed my advice here. It would just be really cool if they did.
I'm wondering if they would announce a guest character now, because I feel like
guest characters are going to be DLC and they don't even have a release date
yet, although a release date would also make an excellent announcement for EVO twenty
twenty three. I do think that game comes out in twenty four, though
maybe in the beginning of the month or at the beginning of the year.
Excuse me, but I do not think it's going to make this year unfortunately.
I think it's going to be a twenty twenty four announcement, So we'll
see their panel is seven o'clock Eastern, four pm Pacific on Friday tomorrow.
You're if you're listening to this when it actually launches, but that so we'll
see what's going on there. But there's a lot going on in this showcase.
So let's move on to what I am hoping for from the actual events
or what I'm looking forward to the most from the actual events. Arc system
Works panel, probably season three of Guilty Year Strive. Then it goes right
into Grand Blue Versus Rising, so we'll see more on that, and then
a Guilty Year Strife panel. So our system Works basically owns the first three
or four hours, three and a half hours of this EVO showcase on Friday.
A lot of stuff they're going to be doing there. I'm sure there
was a surprise announcement scheduled for twelve thirty Pacific three thirty pm Eastern, but
I'm guessing that's going to be Project del They'll announce the fourth character in their
playable demo, and then demos will open to the public. We already kind
of know who the fourth character is because one of the influencers that was invited
to Riot's studio to play the game was just shooting some camera and showing off,
you know, like people playing and stuff like that, and was pointed
towards the screen and the fourth character was standing there and it's kind of hard
to miss. So I'm not going to say who it is in case you
haven't heard it yet and want to be surprised. It is a champion you
would expect considering they have been featured in other League of Legends offshoots, but
I will let you figure that out for yourself. A lot of indie games.
In the second like segment of Friday, a Skullgirls panel, Rivals of
eight or two panel, and then a full fighting game showcase for about twenty
minutes before we move on to the Ultimate Marvel versus Capcom three panel, which
is just going to be EVO memories. It's not going to be anything with
news, so don't get excited. Street Fighter six panel, which is where
if we see any hokey it'll be there. Maybe costumes and collaborations as well
Tech and eight panel. As I mentioned after that, that'll be some new
characters, maybe a guest or two or release date. Another interesting one,
Kyar. It's the last thing of the showcase stage before the Evo the first
Evo Twitch channel turns into the top sixes of each tournament, and that is
a tenth anniversary showcase for Killer Instant. Killer Instate on Xbox One is ten
years old this November, because the Xbox One is ten years old this November.
And I really think that this game set a trend that we were not
ready for it to set, Like it basically introduced the idea of adding characters
piecemeal and you know, building a fighting game that way as opposed to gaining
everything behind the sixty or seventy dollars entry fee and then extra DLC after that.
Not every franchise took to it, obviously, but the model that was
there kind of set the standard for all of DLC going forward in fighting games.
And if they wanted to announce an one, that would be awesome.
Phil Spencer did show up at the Final Fantasy fourteen fan fest in Vegas to
surprise everyone and say that Final Fantasy fourteen's come into Xbox. Maybe he stayed
for a week and is going to show up at this showcase as well.
That would be bad S. Do I expect it? No? But it
would be bad s. So that's your your Showcase, Pandel and then we
get into the tournaments throughout the weekend. Obviously, I am most excited for
I'm most excited for the Street Fighter six tournament. I'm most excited for Guilty
Gear Strives Tournament Tech and eight or Tech and seven. Excuse me, it's
gonna be fun. It's gonna be a fun weekend of fighting games that I
am very much looking forward to. I'm wondering though, if I'll be able
to watch all of it, and I will get into the reasons for that
later. I have not talked about something that is going on in my days,
but I will leave that until next episode to talk about episode one thirty
eight. Wink wink, don't judge. Some people know, some people don't.
But so yeah, those are the things I'm looking forward to most at
EVO, the fighting games, the showcase. It's going to be a lot
of fun, and I encourage you to watch as much as you can for
the best competitive gaming has to offer. In my humble opinion, things kick
off tomorrow at I believe one pm Eastern time is where all the things happen.
Yes, ten am Pacific time. There will be eight different streams going
on or seven different streams going on. Excuse me. At any given time,
Evo has seven different channels Evoe Evo, Evo two, three, four,
five, six, and seven. Each one will be playing different fighting
games. Each one will have while the main one will have the showcase and
it's it's it's amazing, it's it's just a weekend of fighting games that I
highly recommend everyone check out if you have the time, and if not,
catch the videos on demand because it is absolutely worth it. And with that,
we are at the end of episode number one thirty seven or Chief Stakes
and Controllers percented by Fox PHL The Gambler one or two point five fourteen eighty
am iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. As I say at the end
of every episode, if you're hearing these words, you have reached the end,
and I am eternally appreciative that you have. I hope you were educated.
I hope you were entertained, and I hope that you were enlightened by
some of the things we talked about today. And I hope you come out
of here with a new appreciation of not only fighting games in general, but
EVO itself. Because Rick Thyer, the Hatto, the general manager of EVO,
who joined me twice on this episode, is a great, great man,
doing great things with a great team, and they're going to put on
an event this weekend that's going to knock your socks off. I have no
doubt. However, as I say at the end of every episode, I
hope you have a fantastic weekend. I hope you have an even better week
right behind it, and I will be back in two weeks time with the
latest and greatest in video games. Here on Chief Steaks and Controllers by