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[cliq-geo]

Community in Crisis: Melee's Digital Divide

Hi all, it's been a while. This is another blog post with the potential to spiral into a rambling mess. I will do my best to rein it in.

My main idea is this: Melee is changing for the worse. For the longest time I wondered if my aversion to this change was a natural instinctive rejection of what's new and different ("being a boomer") or if there was actually something substantive to my vague negative feelings. I am thinking about it in less vague ways now and I'd appreciate if you heard me out.

Here's the thing about Melee: it's old. It's almost older than me. The community is older than me being sentient. I'm a '98 baby, doc kid, veteran TO, and tenured community member, and yet at ten years in I still haven't been around for more than half of the game's existence. I've been involved in two of Melee's biggest scenes (SoCal and Washington) and I've seen a lot of players move through that revolving door. The community has been through a lot of changes over the years, and there have definitely been generational vibe changes throughout the community's many eras. However, I believe that since COVID shook the world and permanently rearranged society, the cultural shift in Melee has been larger than anything we'd seen in the 19 years of Melee prior. I believe this is because every single aspect of day to day life switched to online as the primary mode, which is very bad. I will get back to that in a bit. First, let's talk about the before times.

If you asked players in 2019 what set Melee, Smash, or even the FGC apart from other games, you would without a doubt hear "We gotta play in person" as the response. As online game connectivity surged through the 2010s, fighting games remained as the final bastion of LAN gaming culture. We commonly held the belief that playing in person bred fiercer yet more respectful competition. We believed sitting next to your opponent and shaking their hand brought about humility and good sportsmanship. Fighting game events were not only places you could compete, but also thriving social scenes where people met and shared lifelong friendships. We formed local identities and rivalries with adjacent scenes. When we competed internationally there was more pride on the line than money. The list of reasons community members might name goes on and on but the point is: Melee players really liked going to tournaments. There's something unique about Melee. It was originally played on the GameCube, a revolutionary and competitive console that somehow was Nintendo's only commercial failure. The game itself is part of one of the most successful video game franchises of all time. It was a best-seller, yet it's often treated as the forgotten middle child. No other games in the series play like it. No other game in the world does, for that matter, despite many imitators. Regardless whether you joined the community in 2006 or 2025 this aspect of the game is understood. There is an aspect that is no longer understood by all newcomers, though: Melee is a game that lives on through its community. As a part of the community you are a part of that legacy. By going out of your way to assemble a GameCube, Melee disk, memory card, controllers, a CRT, and setting them up in a room in your house so that others could come play, your effort was rewarded by something greater than yourself living through you. Melee is every smile ever shared at a tournament. It is every groan after losing a stock. It is every sleepless night and every bead of sweat on foreheads of major TO's trying to figure out how to turn months of work into a weekend thousands will never forget. It is a story of resilience and hope. When new players joined in, they were handed a pen, and they knew that they were writing for more than just themselves. It was more than just a vehicle for personal success. We were sick because Melee was sick. We had fun because Melee was fun. If outsiders didn't get it we didn't care. Everything we did, we did for Melee. People came and went, the faces at events changed, but Melee remained something that lived on in the hearts of everyone in the community. Before I get too wrapped up in how much I care about that, I'll get to the point. I think that the events of 2020, Twitter, and Discord, are slowly but surely diminishing what Melee had always been prior.

So far I've only spoken to what is largely agreed upon to be true. I doubt anyone would object to my romantic musings about Melee, it's the type of shit we all love. But I'm going to enter the nitty gritty here. I'm going to sound like a hater. I will try to step wisely but there's no way to go about this without potentially insulting anyone. That's not my intention, but I've accepted it as a possibility.

The problem with Melee is the problem with everything now. When COVID pushed everything to the internet, shit got weird fast. All of us crafted new identities in digital spaces. Our outward facing personas and our online ones started to blur. I believe everyone has a story to tell about how this process negatively affected them. Melee is not so different. As anyone reading this knows, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fizzi blessed the Melee community with a gift. Melee with rollback netcode meant that even in quarantine we could still play the game we love from a distance. There was even an unranked queue where you could match with randoms with similar MMR and low ping. Eventually they debuted Ranked, with leaderboards and a whole new UI. Overnight, while our community struggled with missing our collective pastime, Melee became a full-fledged online game. This was more than just serviceable, it was revolutionary. But did Melee really need a revolution? Before COVID it was bigger than ever despite being somewhat inaccessible. We can now go back to in-person tournaments. Things were supposed to return to normal but that was always impossible. Every single aspect of human life is permanently changed. Because the story of Melee is a story of human lives, it is no exception.

When I ask people who have played the game a long time how they feel about Slippi, it is usually neutral to bad. People say it's too sweaty, it's no fun when you can't see the person you're playing. It's cold. Some see it as only a practice tool. Others see it as something wretched they would like to avoid. But here's the problem: it is currently the most accessible way to play Melee, bar none. For the first 18 years of Melee it didn't matter how you discovered the Smash community, your initiation to the game was in person. You experienced human faces, CRTs, laughter, the timeless charm of Melee on full display. This is what hooked everyone in. A lot of people who joined the scene in the last 5 years started with Slippi. They were recommended a YouTube video about Hungrybox or heard Ludwig talk about it on stream. Upon googling "smash melee" they found Slippi and decided to give it a try. This is sick and cool. I love that new people have come to the scene through new means. However, I can't help but wonder what it will look like when the entire community's initial experience of Melee was sweaty, no fun, or cold. They couldn't connect emotionally with their opponent for one second and this was of little to no consequence to them. What sort of community will that be? How many people were looking for community but instead found dead discord servers or weird twitter arguments about bigotry and hate? If they had any sense at all, they would move on and continue searching. Those that stick around might come into things with negative ideas and perceptions that pose a risk to what I can only describe in limited zoomer speak as "the vibes." They may perhaps only view Melee as a vehicle for personal success. Or consider themselves insiders and contributing to online discourse despite never attending an event. These attitudes are not ones I personally believe will best carry on Melee's legacy.

In many cases competition can bring out the worst in people. Online games can take this to extremes. Melee escaped this for so long by being one of the exceptions. It has always been more than just a competition. That "more" is the glue that has held it all together for so long. It is the foundation upon which something truly wonderful is built. If Melee was just inputs, frame data, damage, and stocks, it would have died long ago. When you have winners and losers you have a story, but when you have a crowd you have a collective experience. The inherent value of Melee was never what any individual gained or lost. It was what we all shared. I'll say it. Our community once wore its heart on its sleeve. The face of Melee, the first point of contact, was genuine. Its heart still beats but the heart of Melee is the collective heart of its players. In an age where our faces are cold digital facsimiles, we are more at risk than ever before of losing something beautiful for future generations by hiding it behind a mask.

I think there will always be more I could say about this, but I won't risk making this any longer. My views are laid as clearly as I can state them. If you got this far, thanks! If you agree, you're welcome to commiserate with me and even more welcome to help me brainstorm a better way forward. If you don't agree with me, you can let me know why. I can't promise I'll change my mind, especially if your first tournament was in the 2020s or your favorite player is Hbox, but I promise I will always listen. Take care.

[cliq-geo]

Aftermath

So here is the follow-up to my BOBC7 post. Hopefully this won't be as long.

So I went to BOBC, I played my sets, and had a lovely weekend. I played friendlies with very good players before my sets and I feel as though I was sufficiently warmed up. I 3-0'd a falcon after warming up with Nickemwit. I played Yeemans after, who lives here in Seattle but we rarely play. I gave it my best but I think I'm just not where I want to be. I am very tired of saying "I just need to work on my punish" because 1. I literally never do and 2. sometimes my punish game is insane without any practice. I took a game on FD then lost game 4. In losers I got a DQ, whooped a sheik and made him switch to fox, dropped a game I shouldn't have dropped, then won the set. After that I played a fox, won game 1, then got camped on DL for 6+ minutes. This is where my john kicks in. At that point it was like 4pm and I had been chugging Red Bull since 9am. My brain felt fuzzy and overwhelmed, my friends were cheering for me but after every set I won I felt embarrassed that they had seen me play so sloppy and drop so many punishes against players I felt were not very good. I don't know if this john is valid but the way I felt inside made me want to quit drinking energy drinks forever. Needless to say, I lost on Dream Land. Then I got destroyed on FoD. After that I was so exhausted. Hearing the cheers from my partner and friends become more halfhearted made me feel like I was failing them. I felt proud of how I had played up until that point but I just needed it to be over. So I switched to Marth and only F-smashed while this guy 4 stocked me on Pokemon Stadium. It was a rough end to what was otherwise a decent showing. I think if I really want my caffeine johns to be valid, I really need to stop drinking energy drinks at tournaments since my mental is easily affected by my physical state.

As a sidenote, I really want to go back to Geoguessr streaming and videos. I miss it terribly and it was fun for me before things got bad. Since I am looking for a job right now I'm barely hanging on and I need to figure out how I am going to pay rent first.

[cliq-geo]

Reflection Before Examination

Howdy. Long time no talk. This is my second gamer blog post, further solidifying my resolution to actually use this. I think it's healthier to write long form compositions than 180-240 character posts. It's not supposed to be eye-catching, succinct, or concise. At least, it's not meant to be more concise than necessary per platform limitations. Bring back blogging.

So this week I'm leaving for BOBC7. Very exciting stuff. It's been forever since I competed in a major (I went to Genesis but just for Sunday Top 8). I always find myself apprehensive before majors. These are the ones where you really want to do well. It's a bigger bracket. You're playing people from different regions. This. Matters. MORE. But the catch is that you're not supposed to think like this at all while you're actually playing your sets. Ideally you play like you're at your local, or better yet like you're in your room. It can be a little stressful to prepare for something seemingly so important while trying to treat it like a walk in the park.

Personally, I'm finding myself more engaged in Melee than ever before. I put aside pride and my aversion to corniness and I actually listened to all of The Inner Game of Tennis on the drive down to California last month. I enjoyed it so much I went ahead and listened to it again on the drive back. I think there is something for any melee player to gain from reading it, but it has one interesting caveat. The main idea of the book is that reaching competitive excellence requires taking your ego out of the equation and letting your body and mind do their thing. It goes on at length to defend this point and I think by the end of the book it has made a tremendous case. The catch is that the process of getting out of your own way, turning off your ego, letting yourself be free, etc. is different for every single person. There is no prescribed method for quieting the little voice in your head. It's something you just have to internalize one day at a time. But I think it's real and I think I understand that the best I can do is just keep it in mind.

I don't have too much planned for actual preparation beyond UnclePunch and some friendlies. I don't think there really is a lot you can do less than a week before a major. Instead of thinking about how I'm going to place I find myself more concerned with how I am going to play. Which I think is a good sign. I think the scene is so good right now that I could play my absolute best and still go 1-2 if my opponents are as good as me. That doesn't make me a bad player. I guess it is possible that something unexpected occurs and I play horrible (sometimes you eat a torta with extra habanero sauce the night before bracket and almost shit yourself while playing in pools). It's also possible I play horrible for no reason at all. I am choosing to not consider this possibility beyond accepting it as real. I've been practicing a lot of different matchups. I've been working on my mentality. I'm hoping to see some sort of yield for my efforts :)

If you're going to BOBC7, how are you feeling about it? Are you excited to play? Just want to chill with friends and experience Vancouver? Whatever it is, I hope you get what you want.

[cliq-geo]

Who to Watch Out for at the 2025 WA Melee Arcadian

Hello WA Melee-heads. I decided to make a whole new tumblr just so I could post this. The idea of this article is to highlight some players who I believe have the potential to make waves at the Arcadian. These are not all players I think can win, but rather players I think have an interesting trajectory at the moment who I expect to outplace their seed or produce interesting results. If you or your favorite arcadian player are not included in this list, don't fret. I believe in all of you and I am hoping everyone does their best. This is just the biased and hopeful perspective of a Seattle player. Without further ado, here is my list: Rat Love 2021 (aka Steven)

If you attended Take the L then you probably remember Steven as the young box Fox who was always looking to play and improve. If you've attended the UW Smash Weekly this year you know Steven as a top 8 mainstay. A #netplay regular grinder, Steven has improved a lot in the past year and he has the results to prove it. He recently beat Silvi at UW to earn his third singles bracket win. Many expect him to make top 8 at the Arcadian, but don't be surprised if he wins it all and upsets your favorite player in the process.

Studebacher Hoch

Stude is a Washington newcomer but a Melee veteran and household name. He's made waves since his landing, having already won a UW singles bracket. Stude has shown a tremendous drive to compete. He has entered almost every local in the time that he's been here and has performed consistently with strong placements and notable wins. In a region that recently hasn't seen too many high placing Captain Falcons besides Ka-Master, Washington may not be ready for Stude to mark his arrival in his typical style: with booming, thunderous flair.

Airship2

I don't want to draw conclusions from outside of what I know, and I admittedly know very little about Airship besides the fact that everyone who has played him knows how scary he is. He performs competitvely against a lot of the current favorites to win the tournament, but players who don't attend Seattle locals may be unfamiliar with his game. Top 8 hopefuls should tremble with fear if they see Airship2 in their path.

ders

Ders is another player who I cannot speak on extensively but UW regulars know that this Fox is cracked. I see ders as the type of player that arcadians were made for. A lot of talented up-and-coming competitors can slip between the cracks of glory in local brackets by falling short of top 3, even if they never lose to most of the players there. Without the demons of WA PR present, the Arcadian may provide ders with the perfect environment to flourish and showcase his technical prowess, strong mentality, and clutch factor.

Bunnyx

Bunnyx is a Seattle Melee grinder. Her technical Falco seems to get faster every week and she has the UW top 8 placements to show for it. She is the type of player who always comes back stronger than the last time you faced off. Her play combines careful positioning with precise laser placement, movement, and clever and creative combo extensions. She's got a lot to say within the game and it's looking like the Arcadian bracket may be the perfect outlet for her self-expression.

moth

It's been a cold winter in Washington, and in the past few months, moth has made a lot of strides with their Ice Climbers. They have developed a nasty punish game modeled after the "nobble" style of MOF and BluePinata and have gradually started taking names of Bellingham PR. Armed with newfound confidence against former problem matchups, this could be an opportunity for Washington's current ONLY active solo IC's to show how high they can climb.

Luminite

Luminite is a bright and positive force on the UW TO squad. He brings smiles and laughter to the friendlies setup, and has a ridiculously strong drive to improve. From 0-2er to amateur bracket gatekeeper in a short time, Luminite has captured the pure essence of growth-mindset Melee and its many joys. Win or lose, he's sure to share that joy with each of his opponents at the Arcadian and hopefully inspire them to believe in themselves like he does.

There are a lot more players I'd like to mention like Zemi, Swoomoo, Eddi, Marioman, and more but if I kept writing I'd be at it all night and it would start to defeat the purpose of the list. If you read this far and haven't seen your name yet, thank you and know that I am rooting for you too. We can't all be winners, but we can all try our best and have fun. Best of luck. EDIT: added Bunnyx