Thank you for coming today. You are both professional gamers are your job, but can you talk to us about what that actually means?

Momochi For me, my main work is to be active as a player of the "Street Fighter V" Fighting Game, which means I participate in overseas tournaments, and win prize money.

ChocoBlanka (Choco from here on) We are also part of Team Echo Fox, and receive a monthly salary from them, so you can also say that we are salaried employees.

How does one go about getting the title of "Pro Gamer"?

Momochi The actual definition of a Pro Gamer is still under debate but, generally if you are sponsored by a team or a corporation you are called a "Pro Gamer".

You said earlier that you are active as a fighting game player, but does that mean there are different pros for each game?

Momochi Yes, that's right. There are people that are pro "Hearthstone" or "Shadowverse" trading card game players, or First Person Shooter games called FPSs. It is very similar to how there is a large group of "professional athletes" and within that there are "Pro Baseball players" and also "Soccer players" and so on.

I see. So, can you tell us the details about how you two became pro gamers?

Choco The first step was getting an email from the owner of the first pro sports team that we joined, but prior to that we went to overseas tournaments at our own expense, we wrote a blog in English targeting the foreign market, and we also approached multiple peripheral manufacturers and had discussions about whether they would sponsor us.

You got results overseas, and also took part in business negotiations. What sort of results did you achieve domestically?

Momochi I won some domestic tournaments. Now people are saying that the competition is stronger overseas, but at the time the level was higher in Japan than overseas. At that time I thought I was good enough to be a world champion.

Momochi

You said that you negotiated with multiple companies in order to become a pro gamer, but could you tell me about how many companies that was?

Momochi There were multiple teams that we wanted to be a part of, and so we worked hard to make a strong case to join them. So you could say that we had limited the field to some degree… About five companies I think.

I see. So you did work for them, and then they said "Please join us", right?

Momochi Well, actually, we didn't really do any business at all, and they just asked us. (laughs).

Wow, really?

Momochi The team that we joined was an American team called "Evil Geniuses", and while they had a fighting games group, there didn't have any Japanese players on their team.

Choco Evil Geniuses is a team with a storied history, and their first American fighting games player was "Justin Wong" so … We didn't even dream of thinking that we could join them, and so we didn't even try to approach them.

That's amazing that you would get an offer from a team you didn't even approach! In 2017 you left Evil Geniuses and moved to Echo Fox, can you tell me about that?

Choco They also approached us. We don't just do things are players, but we also hold events, and make contributions to the fighting games community as a whole, and the owner of Echo Fox values that. This is a team that only just formed in 2015, and they approached us saying "We would like to work together and grow together with you", so we were negotiating with both teams…

Momochi We really love the Evil Geniuses team but, at that time when Echo Fox came calling, it was right at the time of contract renewals, and we thought from a timing point of view it was right. It was the result of many things taken all together.

Do you see a difference in the standing of pro gamers domestically and internationally?

Momochi I think that the environment is much better for players overseas, but the scene is growing here domestically as well, and so the gap between the two has shrunk a bit. Still, the two of us both have always belonged to a foreign team, and often go to overseas tournaments, so from that perspective you almost have to say that we are foreign pro gamers (laughs).

Choco But Japanese companies that will sponsor people have recently been on the rise here as well.

I think the domestic pro gamer environment has changed a lot in the past few years, what do you think of the current domestic environment?

Choco The number of companies that are interested and have started to participate has increased. The Nissin Food Group company was a main sponsor of "EVO Japan", a large scale tournament. I think bringing in more companies that are not directly related to gaming and garnering their interest is an important part of how the scene will continue to develop.