

A man stood in a subway station during the morning hours of a cold January day in 2007, grasping a violin upon which he played six of the most intricate pieces of music ever conceived. The hour that he played went largely unnoticed by the distracted crowds who swarm L’ENFANT PLAZA STATION in Washington, frantically rushing to their next prime directive without a moment to breathe in the beauty that surrounds them. The Violinist was Joshua Bell, and he played for 1,097 people that day. He is one of the most prominent musician’s in the world, who has sold out concert halls averaging $100 a seat, with an instrument worth $3.5 million dollars. Playing Bach. Nobody seemed to notice.

For a moment, forget petty rivalries and the debates on our inclusion. For the next two minutes— the terms “E-Sports” or “Gems” do not exist. In fact, Vanilla AE and Phoenix never happened. We live in a time where our ideas about impossibility seem to crumble away into actuality. Arcades packed with dozens have turned to ballrooms burgeoning into the thousands – frenzied with an enthusiasm that to many who don’t know us would seem implausible. Look around you—none of what exists now is predictable in any sense of the word when you look back five years and realized we barely thought we’d scratch another year.

I don’t mean to play on sentimentality. Our success is already known to all of you. But it is so easy to forget what surrounds us. We pass by accomplishment and artistry and give into the advent of fear. We look forward to what lies ahead of us – almost terrified, hesitant to give into our desire to believe in it. The notion that any moment everything could shatter into forgotten history suffocates us. It blinds us from being able to honestly look around and see what time and circumstance have truly given us. It pervades us the false narrative that we are a niche. That term is diminutive. It should evident to every person reading this that we are a culture: a living and breathing stamp on values of the human condition.

We never use the word. It’s criminal. We’ve certainly earned the term, haven’t we? Over the past year, how much art and expression have you seen spring up from musicians, writers, filmmakers, cartoonists, and enthusiasts? How many people have you met who play this game—who connect with you on a level outside of an XBOX with an arcade stick? How many of you sat down and watched a stream, and reveled in the moments of uncertainty—only to speak about them aloud with everyone you knew? And how many people here provoked thought or discussion with only a few words on a thread, in order to spark insight into the development of these games? A community is wonderful. A culture is transcendent.

I know that a good number of you will read these words and feel as if I’m trying to glorify the architecture of a sand castle. A lot of you don’t like these games, and it’s understandable. You feel that optimism is not a quality warranted by the renaissance we find ourselves in. However, I see people like you every day at places like SUPER ARCADE, or at majors’ like EVO and the admiration I feel only grows. The love for competition we have, and the rivalry between the people we know helps keep our head above water— and that is something to be proud of. The moments we glorify in whispers and screams on tournament floors are born of this. But as weeks go by, amnesia kicks in, and our cynicism possesses us.

And for how long? How long are we going to be afraid of what comes to us? How long are we going to keep ourselves from enjoying what we have and appreciating it? Understand, I’m not trying to advocate blind acceptance here, but I do feel that we forget how much we have accomplished and what we can look forward to. We denounce possibility with distrust every moment because of our cynicism. As powerful as our expectations can be—we eschew them for the fear of our demise. And how unhealthy is that?

If there’s anything that scares me, it’s the negligence towards our accomplishments. And here is where that ends. We live in a time, where hundreds of thousands of people play fighting games. 2.63 million people watched EVO this year. We have nearly eleven major fighting games releasing, each with a morticum of dedication behind them. Eleven. There is debate amongst people about what games to put on a tournament card BECAUSE there’s so many. There have been six major film documentaries in the past year for fighting games. A major tournament every month. Hell, Capcom literally changed their business strategy to release a patch to fix a game because we wanted them to. Ono apologized to us. Do you understand how big of a deal that is in Japanese business? He stood in front of a crowd, bowed to us, and apologized.

How can you let fear consume you in the world we live in today? In life, nothing is so easy as to give you constant reassurance. And do we need it? We’ve gotten this far, what’s to say we can’t keep strong? If I cannot convince you to look towards the future with anticipation, than all I can leave you with is this. I have never felt more happy with the company I keep, the life I have, or moments I have born witness to, than for as long as I have been a part of the fighting game culture—and community. I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Happy New Year SRK. Get hype for 2012.

[Images via Bloody Knuckles and Karaface