The fighting game community (FGC) has grown from holding local events to smaller venues to occupying ballrooms at four-star establishments with talent from all across the globe attending. Major sponsors such as Capcom, Namco Bandai, and others are responsible for the development of some of the world’s most famous franchises in gaming, and are showcased at a central tournament featuring the top fighting talent from across the world. With major prizepools, fighting games are now reaching a platform that can be compared to traditional eSports.

Each week, I’ll be posting interviews I’ve had the pleasure of conducting with members of the fighting game community. The interviews will touch upon their history in the FGC, where they got their start, and what they’d like to see from video games in general.

This week’s guest is the man coming strong from a 9th place finish at NCR, Alex Myers.

Kash: Thank you so much for joining me today, please introduce yourself to the Broken Joysticks readers.

Alex: Thank you for having me! My name is Alex Myers, I’m a So Cal Sakura player that would be really free without the help of my mentors Juso and Xian ^_^

Kash: Are you currently part of a team and/or currently sponsored?

Alex: No, I am currently a free agent lol

Kash: A fighter’s tag is like their identity. Some would rather use their name and some nicknames; how did you decide what yours will be?

Alex: I used to go by ATMfasho online because ATM was my initials and I loved Superbad at the time, if you watched it before you’d know what I’m getting at. The main reason I decided to use my name was because of Alex Valle. I really looked up to him as a fighting game player and wanted to be as good as him some day, so I decided to just use my name. Alex Myers ; Alex Valle, same number of letters and everything lol

Kash: Which fighting game(s) are you most known for and which character(s) do you play?

Alex: I’m most known for playing Sakura in Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition 2012

Kash: What reason led you in selecting you current character of choice?

Alex: A big part of playing Sakura was because of my friend Boon telling me to watch Uryo at GodsGarden, her combos and the way Uryo would make amazing comebacks made me want to pick her up. The biggest reason though was because my mom and I were separated for a long time and when she came back, she remembered I used to play Sakura in CvS2 when I was like 12, so Sakura had some sentimental value to me from there on out.

Kash: What is your highest placing currently at a tournament?

Alex: My highest placing was top 8.. I mean 9th at NCR 2014 T^T I dropped a combo I’ll never forget at NCR to cost me my dream, but it motivates me to come back stronger at my next major ^_^ Gotta take whatever lessons you can out of your losses.

Kash: Online play is something that many of the top players in the FGC prefer not to do or do it in secret. Do you feel online play is good and some players just don’t take advantage or do you think online play teaches too many bad habits that won’t help in a tournament setting?

Alex: I think online play is a double-edged sword, you need it to practice sometimes, but it will teach you a lot of bad habits defensively, like mashing cr.tech because the lag is spiking up haha but as long as you aware of what’s online and what’s not, then you should be good. Personally, if I know I’m gonna be playing offline on a certain day, like at WNF, then I won’t play online all day and just play training mode for like an hour. Make sure I have my OS’s down, combos, hit confirms, set-ups, cr.tech & OS cr.mk/cr.hp, etc.. you get the idea.

Kash: Do you think other people in the FGC like their characters because they like them, or because they need to use them based on the current tiers and meta game?

Alex: I think it goes both ways, but that the majority of the people in the FGC play characters they like. One of my closer friends plays freaking Dan, one of the worst characters in the game just because he likes him so much. I respect it, but at the same time it’s like.. come on man haha I personally do the same, so I can’t complain, I just got really lucky with who I decided to main 😛

Kash: Patching fighters is usually on a per company basis and if they currently have the resources with some companies doing it frequently than others. What is your opinion on patching fighters, do we require them frequently or annually?

Alex: I think patching fighters should only be done frequently to an extent, like say they are really trying to perfect the game, then it’s alright to me

Kash: As of late there’s been this push to get the FGC to eSports level. The community has a variety of colorful personalities as well as hype moments at events. What do you think is currently holding us back?

Alex: I think everyone’s going to be surprised with how we catapult into eSports, that’s all I’m gonna say right now. I have my sources :3

Kash: How difficult do you think it is for a new person to enter the community and feel welcome, from your experiences? Also how open are you for people to come to you for advice, guidance or to play a set?

Alex: I feel it can be very easy as long as your remember to just be cool and not irritate others or be overbearing in your judgements. No one likes people that are gonna tell them how to play their own character for instance haha. I’m very open for people to come to me for advice, or anything as long as it’s not too much. IF you really need extensive help, I do offer lessons for a minimum fee which includes me giving you notes on what you did wrong in your matches. Just send me the link and I’ll do my best to help you!

Kash: While it’s something that’s been going on for a while, what’s your take on pot splitting or throwing matches on stream? With tournament organizers and streamers vowing to work together to stop that, do you think we’ll see less of it?

Alex: I personally hate it, if you’re gonna throw a match you shouldn’t even be on the stage, no one wants to see you sandbagging. And yes, I think we’ll definitely see less of it now because of that

Kash: Recently it was revealed that Ultra Street Fighter 4 will have a mode called Edition Select where you can pick a past iteration for a character. Capcom revealed this mode is offline only. Do you think it should remain as offline only along with how do you think tourneys will decide the rule format now with this added variable?

Alex: I think it should be online, but only in endless. The last thing you’d want is some guy thinking they’re the best for using AE Yun/Vanilla Sagat in ranked and sending you trash messages lol. I think tourneys will only run on the standard, like Ultra sf4, but I also think they’ll run some hype side tournaments for edition select.

Kash: If you could challenge any player to a ft10 past or present, who would you pick and why?

Alex: I would like to play Jayce the Ace in a ft10 T^T lol just kidding, I’d wanna play Juso ^_^ Juso and I used to play online all the time with little lag, but it started to get really laggy as we’d keep playing. I’d wanna play him more than any Japanese player just to see how far I’ve come

Kash: Other than fighting games, what other styles of games do you play?

Alex: FPS are about it

Kash: Are there any upcoming game(s) on any platform that makes you scream “I need this in my life”?

Alex: Kingdom Hearts 3 made me cream mai pants, I definitely need that in my life

Kash: Next gen consoles are out and the only one with a fighter made exclusively for next gen is Killer Instinct on Xbox One. How do you feel about the game, will it do well being exclusively on Xbox One and will you pick it up for tournaments?

Alex: I don’t really care about it, but some of my friends like Tyrant and FRQ| Steve are really amazing at it so I respect the game because of them. I think it will do well on Xbox One and be the beginning of something big for fighting games in general

Kash: If you could grab any character from one game and put them in any other game, who would you pick, where would you place them and why?

Alex: I would put Mr. Slave from south park stick of truth in Call Of Duty as a playable soldier just to troll people hahaha

Kash: Any upcoming tournaments that you’ll be attending?

Alex: EVO and mostly WNF now, I plan on winning one VERY soon ^_^ Hopefully a major before EVO too

Kash: With stream sites like Twitch becoming the easiest gateway for people to view the community and players in action, is there any particular stream were people may see you play outside of a tournament setting?

Alex: People can see me play at twitch.tv/pandaxgaming from time to time, I also plan on making my own stream soon, I’m deciding on whether to name it twitch.tv/alexmyers or SakDaddyMyers haha we’ll see

Kash: Any last words for the Broken Joysticks reader as well as any way for them to contact you with any questions they might have?

Alex: Thanks to everyone who’s supported me over the years and everyone who will continue to support me in the future. You guys mean more to me than you know, I appreciate it. Also I’d like to give a special shout out to my friends in the High Desert who have helped me a lot over the years. And also to Romance for helping me translate questions to Juso and Uryo, they definitely helped me a lot. Also thank you to Xian who took me under his wing and was the main reason why I did so well at NCR, through his help I was able to be confident and tap into my full potential when I needed it! Thanks for reading this guys, I hope it wasn’t too long and if you want to contact me you can message me @lamyersl on twitter and also alexmyers14@aol.com and the best advice I can give to someone struggling to get better is that losing is part of winning, you HAVE to lose to get better, I know it may be hard to accept, but once you know and work on all your bad habits and learn to mix everything up better, you’ll be better off because of it. And thank you to Mike Watson, owner of Super Arcade for all he’s done for us in So Cal, as well as Alex Valle and Commando for all they do in providing us with WNF every week. Take care guys, God bless.