GC: Anything else you’d like to add about your community or game culture in general for other gamers out there?

F: On the whole, the fighting game community is friendly and very open to helping new members, although it could be said that we’re at times a bit too passionate. We often get new members saying they are surprised by how welcoming we are, and I think a lot of that stems from the root of fighting games: the arcades. We’re used to having to go out into town and play against people face-to-face, so there’s a level of social interaction that doesn’t necessarily exist in a lot of other gaming communities. Also I think both NZism and the fighting game community in general have a fairly high median member age, lots of us are in our late 20s and early 30s and so have a bit more life under our belts than many competitive gamers. I’m sure we’re all also disappointed by how much bigger other competitive gaming communities are, and therefore want to help newbies as much as possible!

Fluxcore's Arcade goodness...

To all NZ competitive gaming scenes: keep it up! I know it’s really hard sometimes, but we definitely have some talent kicking around, and even if it’s only really plausible to play against the Aussies we need to keep people interested and competing (so we don’t lose everyone to all those damn MMOs!)

To anyone who plays a competitive game: get involved in the community, if there is one. You can meet some really great people, and just like any other competitive activity, the best way to improve is to find good opponents. If you’re serious about the game and there isn’t a community, consider starting one! As NZism shows, it IS possible to do if you’re passionate enough! Shoutouts to the NZFortress community, and everyone at NZism who isn’t currently playing World of Warcraft instead of fighting games!

NZism website – http://nzism.alphaism.com

Keeping in line with our focus to support and profile local gamers and organisations, Game Culture recently interviewed ‘fluxcore’, owner of the fighting game community website ‘NZism’.

We spoke to flux all about NZism, what it is, how they got started and what they do as a gaming community in New Zealand. Flux had a whole heap of interesting info to share about the fighting game community in New Zealand, so if fighting games are your thing, read on:

'fluxcore' - Owner of NZism

GC: Could you please introduce yourself flux. What is your website all about and what do you do there specifically?

F: I’m fluxcore, owner/maintainer/general admin of the NZism website.
Our goal is to serve and expand New Zealand’s fighting game community through holding and promoting various events, as well as providing an open and welcoming board for discussion and information relating to all fighting games and players of fighting games, with special emphasis on anything within New Zealand.

GC: How did your website get started and how long has it been around?

F: There are many websites devoted to the fighting game scene, including
some absolutely indispensable sites such as shoryuken.com (SRK) and tekkenzaibatsu.com (TZ).These sites are the linchpins of the community, and tend to have the most discussion of strategy and international events. However, due to the sheer size of the userbase on them and the scope of discussion, a tiny place like New Zealand gets absolutely no coverage – it’s lucky if we have a forum for the entire asia-pacific region!. It’s very difficult to find other local players or advertise for events. Basically we’re just lost in the noise at sites like those.

A few years back I came across ozhadou.net, which is the community for
the Australian fighting game players. Rather than trying to act as a
replacement for sites like SRK and TZ, Ozhadou focuses less on the strategy talk, and instead concentrates on the Australian scene. They hold yearly events and even produce DVDs, but in general help fighting game players hook up with other like-minded individuals. I thought having a website that was the New Zealand corollary of Ozhadou would be a great idea, and in January of 2007 NZism was born.

Since then, at times it has been a bit of a struggle to get the word out and have enough users to maintain a decent level of conversation, but the release of Street Fighter IV in February of this year really helped. Tekken 6 will be out on consoles soon, so that might help also, Tekken being as popular as it is.

GC: You run competitive events for gamers. What sort of events do you run and where do you run these events?

F: NZism has run two formal tournaments and a number of ‘training sessions’ which basically are just an excuse to hire out a bunch of consoles, invite everyone in NZ to come, and jam on fighting games for six hours with the aim of gaining experience and tips from players of all skills in an offline environment. There have also been severalless well advertised events which are usually either short notice gatherings or semi-private gatherings at some generous person’s abode.

In general these events occur up in Auckland, mainly because it has the greatest concentration of players. A couple of years ago I also ran one Tekken 5 DR tournament at the arcade here in Hamilton, and there are other members who are running their own regular gatherings for other games in other areas. I try to advertise these events as much as possible on the front page of the site, our google calendar, and the details are usually posted in the forums initially anyway.

I should point out that as yet we haven’t held any online tournaments. It’s something I think about fairly often, however the inability to play 360 vs PS3 or PC really hampers efforts due to splitting the player-base drastically. Once a critical mass on any one system is reached I think we’ll start running online tourneys as well, possibly in conjuction with Ozhadou to get some real competitions going.

GC: RvB supports you guys with their venue, which is great. Who else
supports your community and how did you go about gaining that support?

F: We’ve had tremendous support from many organisations, most of whom say what we’re doing is really awesome and sincerely want to help make each event as good as it can be. RvB is an excellent example of this, it’s a great venue for holding a tournament, they give us a good rate, and the staff always are extremely helpful in the case that we need an extra cable, or a soldering iron to bring a stick back into functionality. Even when we are running out of time they understand that the grand finals of a tournament is important, and help to work out a solution. Also of course they have a liquor licence

The main other continued support I’ve received is from a friend, Bunkei, in the U.S.A. who owns the alphaism.com domain and graciously hosts the NZism website, even when I neglect to pay him for a few months at a time. Luckily we have fairly low bandwidth utilisation by American standards! Bunkei was the host of a call-in internet radio show which (mainly) covered the fighting game community in the US, and after chatting to him for a few months I asked if he’d be able to host my site, to which he agreed. While it would have been easy enough to get hosting through another source, I like that he understands what NZism is about and shares the same passion. I think it’s important to help each other out in a community.

In a different vein, for our 2009 National Street Fighter IV tournament we solicited a number of companies for sponsorship prizes – it was the first time we’d done this and in the midst of the recession some companies couldn’t help even though they would have liked to. However, we did get a few key sponsors and they really made the prize cabinet look pretty sweet. Don’t be afraid to look for sponsorship in places that are ‘out of the box’ – you may be surprised by which places will give you a positive response.

As for the method of approaching potential sponsors, it’s always best to meet in person if possible, that goes a long way to showing that you are actually serious, and also have a worthy proposal. Offering them advertising space on promotional material is a good start, along with letting them have their own merchandise/brochures at events. Even letting a representative of their organisation deliver the prize and maybe a little speech. Try to be as professional as possible and even if you get denied, thank them for their time and say you hope that you can work together in the future.

Permanent advertising on a website is another avenue that can be considered, however NZism hasn’t found a case for that one just yet.

One caveat I should point out to people seeking sponsors is to be careful to avoid conflicts of interest between sponsors. Even if you aren’t signing written contracts, there’s a basic level of common sense and respect for your sponsors that you need to take seriously. It never hurts to ask whether a sponsor you have disagrees with the addition of another sponsor who may be a competitor, and leaving a trail of happy collaborators is both beneficial to your own efforts and makes you feel good too

I think basically if people think what you’re doing is cool, then they’ll be pretty happy to help out!

ph33r my prizes

GC: We know that NZism focuses on fighting games specifically. What games do you support and on what platform?

F: As a general rule, everything on every platform as long as it is vaguely a competitive fighting game. While there are certainly particular games which are the current focus (such as Street Fighter IV, BlazBlue and Marvel vs Capcom 2), the fighting game field is an ever-shifting one, and many of us have followed dozens of games in dozens of different series’ over the years. I’m sure if I mentioned International Karate+ on the C64 someone would respond with a challenge! Even obscure games such as Tattoo Assassins or Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game have a few enthusiasts on the boards!

The New Zealand scene in general is too small to be able to segregate communities, so absolutely my cardinal rule for NZism was to be open to all fighting games, whether they be new or old, 2d or 3d, obscure or popular. Obviously I have my own preferences, and I’m not afraid to make them known, but everything is welcome and encouraged on NZism.

GC: What sort of competitions do you run?

F: We try to follow the tournament format set by the American scene, specifically the rules used by the yearly Evolution tournament series. This means double elimination, best 2 of 3 games per set, best 2 of 3 rounds per game, and the finals being more games per set, time permitting of course.

Double elimination means that in general the top 2 players will end up playing each other in the grand finals. It’s a pretty consistent format for that, and I think the players appreciate getting two games in before being eliminated, especially if they’ve travelled a fair distance to come to the event! It’s also the most common tourney format for fighting games, except in Japan where single elimination is more popular. Single elimination is pretty harsh, and the results tend to be more random, but Japan holds enough tournaments and have enough players close enough together that it works out for them somehow.
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GC: How often do you run competitions for gamers?

F: NZism has only been running for a couple of years, and only started seriously pushing tournaments in the past year, so we don’t have any set schedule yet. We intend to continue the yearly ‘Nationals’ event where the most popular games of that year get showcased and entrants from far and wide will attend.

Other than that we have less regular tournaments (every couple of months or so) just to keep things alive. Of course if anyone wants to run tournaments in their area, we’re very keen to help out in as many ways as possible!

The easiest way to keep track of upcoming events is to look at sidebar on the NZism front page, in the Pre-tournament discussion forum, or our google calendar.

GC: How do you feel about the gaming community in New Zealand as a whole? Do you think gamers get enough support? Why or why not?

F: I don’t think there’s any problem with the gamers themselves. We’ve made some pretty strong communities for specific games over the years that do really well. Unfortunately they don’t seem to get any real penetration into the mainstream sector, which could potentially open some people’s eyes that competitive communities for those games actually exist.

I strongly feel that New Zealand has far too many separate ‘general gaming’ communities and that it’s not healthy considering our small population. It’s especially difficult given the rivalries between some communities, and it can be hard to advertise events when you have to effectively spam 5-10 sites and monitor them constantly for questions, even when they may not have a very large userbase. Obviously some divisions make sense, and there have been a couple of junctures where NZism has been approached to integrate with another site. Perhaps I made the wrong decision to stay separate, but it’s difficult to merge into another entity when your community has its own strong sense of identity and way of doing things.

I guess basically all the communities just have to be willing to band together and support each other for the greater good of competitive gaming in NZ. Many sites are VERY protective about ‘advertising’ of other gaming sites, which combined with the points above really stifles the ability of small, very specific sites like NZism to get the word out about events and even just our existence. We’re certainly no threat to any general gaming site, any more than their sites are to general boxing sites because they have a thread about Tua vs Cameron! It’s even very hard to get some of the larger gaming sites to put up a news item about one of our tournaments, presumably because they see the ‘NZism’ tag as being more important than the ‘competitive gaming tournament’ part of the equation. Personally I think if an NZ CoD4, Dance Dance Revolution, Starcraft or any other community goes to the effort of putting on a serious tournament, knowledge of it should be spread wide and far around the gaming scene. Hopefully the Game Culture website can help with that

Also, there is still very much a stigma about video games in the mainstream NZ coverage. I think events such as XLan get coverage on TV because they are still considered niche and ‘freakish’, rather than to actually show the general populous that competitive gaming exists and is as real and serious as any sport tournament. We’ve also been approached by several media fronts that have been very interested in covering events, only to completely disappear from contact when the event actually occurs. This is, as I’m sure you understand, very frustrating and disappointing!

Part 2 of fluxcore’s interview is continued here.

Our ongoing quest into the local game culture scene continues from our first article where we discussed the competitive gaming scene in New Zealand. Game Culture recently caught up with Jeremy Klaosen, one of the co-founders of one of the biggest competitive gaming leagues (eSports) in Australasia called CyberGamer.

If you ever wanted to know what goes on behind the scenes of a competitive gaming league, how they work and what organisations like CyberGamer can do for you as a gamer, check it out:

Jeremy Klaosen (left) and James Burroughs

GC: Could you please introduce yourself for our readers? What is your website all about and what do you do specifically?

JK: My name is Jeremy Klaosen, and I’m one of the two founders of CyberGamer (www.cybergamer.com.au) – the biggest competitive eSports site in Australia.  We provide a community-base where gamers across Oceania can come together to talk on our forums and compete in our leagues.

I supervise the day-to-day running of the website as well as manage its backend development, while James Burroughs – CyberGamer’s other co-founder – oversees its visual / graphic design.

GC: How did your website get started and how long has it been in operation?

JK: James and I were avid video gamers throughout high-school, and we realized that the Australia / New Zealand gaming community didn’t have the central community-hub that it needed. So, we decided to make it ourselves. CyberGamer is designed and run from the ground up by gamers, for gamers. That’s what gives us our edge over other gaming sites.

It took us three months to design and develop CyberGamer, which we launched on April 9^th, 2007. Since then, the site has gone through countless facelifts, improvements, and updates.

GC: You run competitive events for gamers. What sort of events do you run and how do you organise these events?

JK: We manage a wide range of games across both PC and Xbox 360, and have dozens of ladders and leagues – many with over 100 active teams. We cater for all types of gamer: social teams compete in our “Open” ladders for fun, while more serious and competitive teams play in our “Main” and “Invite” leagues for prizes and titles.

Our unique ladder-software allows teams to schedule and administer their matches with ease, and lets our much appreciated game-admins moderate any disputes or issues that arise.

GC: What was the main motivation for creating CyberGamer?

JK: We wanted to develop and grow competitive Australian / New Zealand eSports, and eventually give Oceanic teams the recognition they deserve on the international scene.

GC: Are there any particular games that CyberGamer focuses on more than others?

JK: When we released the site, we primarily supported Call of Duty 2 – the premiere First Person Shooter at the time, and the main game that James and I ourselves played.  We now support many different games across a diverse range of genres, from ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’ and ‘Left 4 Dead’, to ‘Defense of the Ancients’ and ‘Heroes of Newerth’. First person shooters still lay claim to the majority of our user-base, as they’re extremely popular and well suited for competition, but ‘Starcraft 2’ should see CyberGamer’s Real Time Strategy community grow significantly.

GC: How difficult is it to organise 34,000+ members? How many staff members do you have helping out with the competitions?

JK: We have literally hundreds of staff, who you can find at http://www.cybergamer.com.au/staff/ Almost all of these are volunteers who give back to the community by moderating their particular game’s section on the website, refereeing official matches, and resolving match disputes.

Of special mention are Riley “RJ Aus” James who manages the entire Xbox 360 section and Richard “Talnoy” Lawes who not only administrates Cybergamer’s large Battlefield community, but also helps out the business side of the website by interfacing with our various corporate partners and sponsors.

GC: What do you get out of running CyberGamer on a personal level?

JK: It’s extremely gratifying to see the website continue to grow so rapidly, and to know that our hard work is paying off.

GC: How do you feel about the competitive gaming community as a whole? Do you think gamers get enough support? Why or why not?

JK: The community itself is great, but I certainly don’t think that online gamers receive the support they need and deserve from most game developers. A lot of new games seem rushed, improperly tested, and in some cases are even incomplete – they are almost never suitable to be played competitively out-of-the-box.

Most of the time, the competitive community relies on user-created open-source “mods” to make the game competitively playable.  Unfortunately, there is only so much that community coders can do, and we’re often left waiting months and months (sometimes permanently) for the developers to step in and make typically quite simple fixes.

GC: If someone was interested in getting involved with your community, how could they do that? Do you advertise your website anywhere or get support from anyone?

JK: Amazingly, we’ve been able to rely entirely on word of mouth to grow our member base – we don’t advertise at all. The overall running costs of CyberGamer are covered by the adverts on the website, and by generous sponsors like AMD/ATi.

If someone is interested in getting involved with the community they can sign up on the website and send me a Private Message from: http://www.cybergamer.com.au/profile/1/

GC: There doesn’t seem to be many competitive gaming leagues in Australasia. Why do you think that is?

JK: Australia will always be somewhat limited by a fairly small and dispersed population. Our main problem, however, is that we’re so isolated from the rest of the world that technological constraints prevent us from participating in American, European, and Asian competitions. The same problem applies to LAN events: it’s simply too expensive for overseas teams to fly here for a LAN event, and vice versa. Once (if) the infrastructure exists to facilitate truly international online events, competitive gaming in Australasia will explode.

GC: Have you met any famous gamers since you’ve been involved with CyberGamer? If so, who?

JK: I’ve met THE Raureka – a famous Call of Duty player from Sydney, known for his seemingly random style of play.  I haven’t met any other players famous on the international scene, but I have met plenty of top Australian players/teams.

GC: If you could give one piece of advice to any gamers out there thinking of getting into competitive gaming, what would it be?

JK: Sign up at www.cybergamer.com.au, post in our Recruitment Forums and join a team on one of our Open ladders!

One of the main goals of Game Culture is to serve gamers with information about local events and competitions nationwide. And one of the biggest problems gamers face in New Zealand is the lack of information about gaming events. The media can be a good source of information but will usually only cover big events that have an international scope or focus (such as xLAN and the WCG). We support these events and organisers as well, but we’re also trying to provide support for the local gamers and smaller gaming events.

We’ve come up with the idea to create a directory of contacts which will consist of individuals and other organisations that support video game culture in New Zealand.

If you’ve got a gaming event, LAN or just want your clan or news advertised somewhere to gain support from the public, this is the place to do it. Game Culture will upload your details to the gaming directory which we’ve  dubbed as the ‘New Zealand Gaming League Directory’.

The directory is located here. If you would like your organisation or event to be added to this list, contact us here. Be sure to include all relevant details about your event or organisation including contact details (phone, email etc), names, addresses. If your event is a one-off event, that’s fine too, just be sure to let us know so we can keep the directory up to date. If you are charging an entry fee for your event, please include these details also.

Competitions

If your event is a competition rather than a LAN or social get together for gamers, PLEASE include details of what type of competition it is and for what type of console (that is PC, Xbox 360, PS3 etc).

International Competitions, events and gaming leagues

We will also be including details of international organisations (such as the Aussie Xbox competitive ladder) to the directory. If you know of any competitive gaming leagues or organisations that we haven’t added or you think should be listed, contact us here.

Thanks for your support and gameon!

Are you an active gamer in New Zealand? Perhaps you’d consider yourself ‘hardcore’ or talented enough to compete if you knew how? Well, keep reading because you’re not alone. Unfortunately in its current form, competitive gaming in New Zealand kinda sucks. Especially if you’re looking to break into it as a gamer. It’s an area of the video game culture in this country that needs support.

The video game community in New Zealand is a small, niche area of pop culture in general which limits it in every way. The grim reality is that things are probably not going to improve any time soon.

After spending countless gaming hours talking and playing with competitive gamers, the following three areas seem to be problematic for many:

1. Exposure. Many gamers (particularly Xbox 360 gamers) are unaware of what’s available out there in the way of competitive gaming leagues. Most gamers find out about events or competitions through word of mouth or through online forums. It’s entirely up to you as a gamer to go looking for competitive leagues to compete in. It shouldn’t be this way but there isn’t alot being done about it in New Zealand.
2. Financial support. Financial support for competitive gamers is practically non-existent. Competitive video gaming in New Zealand is a very closed, niche area of gaming. There’s a serious lack of businesses (other than those directly connected to the industry) that will support gamers financially as ‘professionals’ or ‘cyber athletes’.
3. Lack of media acknowledgement. In New Zealand, media support for gamers is poorly represented. There are some media outlets that have focused on gaming and game culture and are supportive when big events (like x-LAN and the WCG) happen in New Zealand, but they are few and far between.

So what can be done about any of these problems? Game Culture was created with alot of these core issues in mind. And if alot more people were aware and got involved the same way, it would probably make things easier for serious gamers to stay informed so they can then organise themselves and perhaps move onto something bigger and better.

Over the next few months Game Culture will be featuring various articles that focus on informing competitive gamers about the state of the video game culture in New Zealand and how they can get involved.

Next week we’ll be looking at competitive gaming leagues – who they are, what they do and how competitive gamers in New Zealand can benefit from them.

Stay tuned.