In light of the recent Combo Breaker controversy, there is something I want to address in the FGC as a whole: Emergency Registration. “Emergency Registration” as it so aptly is described literally in its own name, implies that one can register “in case of emergency” on site in a “Well shit, I wasn’t originally gonna go but now I actually can! Woo hoo!” type of situation. The problem however is that many FGC tournament players have a tendency to just show up at the venue and register at the very last second for tournaments out of convenience. This creates multiple issues, most notably bracketing the actual tournaments themselves and forming pools. By having in some cases 150+ players emergency register on site, the staffers and the TO(s) of a particular event have to account for an additional wave of people they could have no possible way of predicting. Another glaring problem is that facilitates bad behavior by rewarding those who do not pre-register by giving them what they want. They can just show up to an event and get into tournaments with little to no prior planning. This extremely lax standard combined with the EXPLOSIVE growth in attendance since Street Fighter 5’s launch can lead to extremely miserable events, much like how Final Round 19 turned out. some may ask: “I SEE YOU TALKIN’ ‘BUNCHA SHIT BRUH, ‘TA FUCK’LL YOU DO?!” That brings me to the entire point of this little essay: what WOULD I do? How would I, Albino Jiginosis, an unknown proletariat with only 50ish twitter followers try and address this problem going forward? I see three options, one being nuclear, one being extremely painful but forgiving, one that involves the community as a whole.

The first and sharpest action TOs can take going forward is completely removing emergency registration altogether. This would obviously alienate a significant portion of the player base, but that’s not the point. There is a reason why hard caps on player entrants exist: they exist to make a TO’s life easier. There are a lot of intricate moving parts to an event and having a hard, easy number to bracket that can be set up a month or even a week in advance facilitates a much better experience by proxy of how much time it saves at the actual venue itself. It is time that can be used to better set up pool stations, organize certain side-events at the venue, or a plethora of other intricacies that give an event its own unique flavor. Most importantly it is not the TO’s responsibility to cover for a player’s complete lack of planning. Hearing stories of guys having already purchased plane tickets and not having spent a measly thirty dollars to pre-register is probably the saddest thing I have ever heard of. Why should a TO allow for someone who’s already committed both time and money to emergency register if said player already knew well in advance that the event was indeed taking place at said time and at said location? Pre-registration also allows for TOs to accurately book venues based off their pre-registered numbers for the previous year. Bad booking numbers can lead to either massive congestion as seen at Final Round 19, or huge financial losses if a TO does not meet the reserved room blocks that a hotel sets aside for event attendees.

The second and most fiscally painful option is to allow for emergency registration, but make it extremely painful in the wallet to do so. Governments tax certain things to shape behavior like tobacco and cannabis wherever it is legal, so TOs should have the option to do the same thing. If it costs twenty dollars to pre-register for a tournament, make it 100 to register at the gate. If it costs thirty dollars to pre-register, make it 150. Why? “Because fuck you, that’s why.” Players have ample time to save themselves a hell of a lot of time and convenience to register in advance, so it is their own damn fault for not using the resources given to them. By effectively giving emergency registration a crippling convenience tax, it still allows for “death brackets” for emergency registers that idiot stream monsters seem to love and allow for people to still register in that rare case that an emergency registration is actually needed or warranted. The primary goal of it would also be achieved by strongly encouraging players to use pre-registration, penalize those who for some reason don’t pre-register, and directing those who do not pre-register to reconsider showing up to an event without pre-registering. And who knows? If enough people DO show up and pay the convenience tax of emergency registration, maybe TOs can actually PAY THEIR VOLUNTEERS ACTUAL MONEY instead of sponsor freebies and an extremely cheap graphic t-shirt?

The final and most difficult option involves the greater FGC itself and is the hardest to find a solution to. Times have changed: The FGC is no longer a ghetto arcade scene straight out of the late 90s. It is not a dank, underground circuit of loosely affiliated events that people show up to just to have fun in mangy hotel ballrooms. While these days are often glorified and revered by the “OGs” of the FGC, those days have past and are never coming back. Once callous groups who didn’t give two shits about the underground competitive scenes for their games, developers are now dictating the terms for the first time. Rather than eliminating the grassroots circuit completely, they have GRACIOUSLY allowed the grassroots to host events on their behalf as parts of their own circuits, Capcom Cup being the most notable of them all. Whenever a company that gives an event a qualifier or a large pot bonus sees widespread fuckery going on in THEIR TOURNAMENT due to a bunch of careless gamers who didn’t have the foresight to plan ahead is very discouraging. As pot bonuses rise, standards also rise. The FGC needs to rise above a cabal of broke gamers who smell like weed and liquor at events, don’t even have bank accounts, and stuff five players in a room to save money. With the advent of competent budget smart phones and refillable prepaid debit cards, there is absolutely zero fucking excuse for someone to not have the means to pre-register for an event.

If you’re struggling to make it to an event and don’t have the means to pre-register? Re-evaluate your life. What you’re doing now is obviously not working. The odds of you actually making sustainable income in the FGC and professional gaming as a whole are comparable to an insect rallying against the heavens. Sponsors worth a damn are not stupid, they are not going to sponsor bums who have zero marketing skills or community standing so trying to reach that plateau is not worth it. It is great for the select few that do, but these individuals have skills and educations outside of character matchups and how to fleece people into donating to your EVO gofundme campaign. My father once told me that “pride doesn’t pay the bills” and the FGC is no exception. Get a job, get an education, do something. Fuck, get a fucking payday loan or donate blood plasma for six months if you’re that desperate to go to an FGC event to try and claim that prize money you’ll never see. The FGC is supposed to be about having fun and the spirit of competition itself, not about forming secret Discord groups to create drama and throw shade at people who are better than you. If you want developers to keep throwing money at their games and maybe even escalate said money, it starts with you. And the number one thing you can do to help is by pre-registering for events. If the tournament runs smooth as butter, companies are more likely to keep dropping pot bonuses. After all, we all know that more money means better matches, and more hype for the fans. But then again, what the fuck do I know? I’m just some schmuck that nobody in the FGC gives two shits about. My opinions don’t matter because I’m not some scheming top player, some revered B-rate color commentator, or “personality” who’s playing days are far behind him. I’m just a dude with an opinion, and apparently the basic philosophical chops to point out the obvious.