I work at an office that has an Xbox setup right by one of the elevators, which means that whenever we get some after-work games in, we also get a few passers-by to stop what they’re doing and watch or play for a few minutes. During one such recent session, I was chatting with one of the other regulars about getting a group together for Evo, and one of said onlookers interjected with, “Wait — you’re going to Evo? Are…are you competing?”

Well, duh, I thought to myself. I’ve entered every year I’ve gone. Personally, going to Evo isn’t just about seeing friends and getting hype; it’s also about giving me an excuse to practice fighting games seriously for a few months. For most of the year, playing fighting games is a thing I do whenever I have free time, but for the pre-Evo season, “Gotta practice for Evo” is what I tell myself to make sure I’m spending time in the lab instead of watching TV; getting regular training sessions in instead of staying late at work; making it out to Super Arcade on a work night instead of hanging out at home.

But the awed tone in which he said the word “competing” made me realize that the way I think of Evo is pretty unusual for your average gamer, even one who plays mostly competitive multiplayer games. To him, the thought of playing the same game day in and day out with the intent of winning — a game as physically and mentally complex as Street Fighter, no less — was something worthy of admiration.

In the past, I’ve written similar posts exhorting people to go to Evo; to see old friends and make new ones, to partake in the brilliant drama of a fighting game tournament firsthand, to see what it’s like when you’re surrounded by a group of people who take video games every bit as seriously as you do (if not more so). This year’s tack is different. I think that if you are a Person Who Plays Video Games, you should enter Evo because, well, it’s good for you. It’s good for your video-gamin’ soul.

It’s like a marathon, except with video games

If your Facebook friends list is anything like mine, you probably get a semi-regular stream of people talking excitedly about the marathon they’re entering (or maybe those weird Tough Mudder/Warrior Runs). I couldn’t ever understand what the heck drove people to run marathons, but I knew I felt obligated to respect the fact that they’re doing it anyway, because, well, they’re hard.

And I think that is actually why people run marathons — because running a marathon is hard. It takes a lot of hard work to get yourself into marathon-completing shape, and that’s enough for most people; no one enters their first marathon (or even their fifteenth) expecting to win. Winning isn’t even the point, really — ask someone training for a marathon, “Why bother? It’s not like you’re going to win,” and they’ll probably give you a weird look and change the subject.

Entering Evo is a marathon for people who play video games. For most of us, entering Evo not about winning Evo; it’s about making video games something that you play seriously. It’s about taking your adult priorities and telling them to buzz off for a few months because you want to get better at this video game. It’s about looking at these games not as a way to kill time in between work and sleep, but as a mental and physical challenge you will overcome just because it’s there. It’s about being able to close your eyes and imagine the way you’ll celebrate after beating Daigo in the finals — not because that’ll actually happen, but because just daydreaming about that feeling is what keeps you up late grinding some games.

A good friend of mine told me this, when I was preparing for my first grappling tournament years ago: “The hard part isn’t the competition — it’s the preparation to get there. The tournament is your reward.” I think that’s true in fighting games, too.

No, playing fighting games won’t get you in better physical shape. (Unless you play for pushups, anyway.) But it trains you in other ways. I’ve found that even games industry professionals often regard fighting game enthusiasts and competitors with a special kind of admiration. We’re known for our dedication to practice, our desire to test ourselves against the best, our hunger to tear apart a game in order to win, and our loyalty to a genre we believe in. We play harder than most people work, and people respect that.

“I’ve always wanted to learn how to play Street Fighter”

Perhaps the most important part of the marathon ritual is that it’s not meant just for accomplished runners; it’s something that average people can train to complete, and the goal is just to finish because that is a personal victory.

I can’t count how many times I’ll be talking with someone who doesn’t play fighting games, and they’ll tell me something like, “Oh yeah, I’ve always wanted to learn how to play Street Fighter,” in the same tone that other folks tell me, “I’m about to start going to the gym again.”

If you’ve ever said anything like that in your entire life: Now is the time to actually do it. Register for Evo, get yourself an arcade stick, and practice until you get sore shoulders from hunching over so much. For most of your life, you’ve been playing video games that indulge your power fantasies; spend a few months of your life seeing what they’re like when they remind you how awful you are. Remember what it’s like to feel bad when you lose to someone else in a video game — something you might not have felt since you were a kid playing Street Fighter II in a convenience store somewhere. Marathons get your body in shape; fighting games get your brain in shape.

Along the way, you’ll learn how to develop a wholly new skill. You’ll learn how to seek out advice from wiser players; how to watch tape and read tutorials and turn that advice into concrete improvements in your game; how to dissect your own failures and iterate on them in the hopes that you won’t eat that setup next time. And you’ll learn how hard you can push yourself in developing a skill that won’t help you get a better job or get into a better school, that most of your friends and family won’t care about — in other words, a skill that matters only to you.

And then, when you get to Evo, you’ll see what it’s like to be surrounded by people who did the exact same thing you did. You’ll walk through the hallways and see the bags and the sticks and the t-shirts that mark us all as kindred spirits, and you’ll feel at home, if only for a weekend.

See you there.

(Photos courtesy of David Zhou and Polygon)