Risk vs Reward and Go Big or Go Home

So I guess the title should explain it all.  This post is going to be about what's basically an ultimatum for myself and the community in terms of Super Arcade proceeding forward or just vanishing forever.  I have already explained how I poured in my entire heart and soul into this place and unfortunately it has come time where either a huge change takes place, or it's time to pack it up and go home.  This is in essence both a relief and a nightmare for me because for the past 3 years Super Arcade is technically my second home.  Just the thought of it no longer existing has cost me many hours of stress and even anxiety at times.  I can't explain in words what all this means to me and how immensely my life has been affected from being around the arcade scene not only here at Super, but over the 25 plus years I have spent surrounded by video games.  Incase some of you are reading my blog for the first time or missed on some info regarding my future plans for the arcade, I will lay it out here once again.

I will be launching either a kickstarter or an indiegogo campaign that is aiming to gather funds needed to completely remodel and change Super Arcade entirely.  I have spent the past month working on a brand new business model, gathering estimates, and just working very hard to gather a total needed to fund this project.  People have asked me why I don't just run a donation drive so I might as well explain it here again too.  As the place stands, it's no secret that Super Arcade is not the most beautiful or modern establishment.  The floors are over 20 years old, the restroom is borderline scary, and just the overall image can be described as run-down.  Even with all the effort to keep things running as best as possible and as clean as possible, it's just at the point where reality sets in and I'm forced to do something about it.  A donation drive will basically just keep the place running a little longer and won't do anything to ensure a future.  I can no longer keep dragging my feet and this is where it's time to "Go big or go home."  The best part of a kickstarter for me is either the goal is accomplished or all the funds are returned to everyone and I can call it a day.  If everything goes well, there will be no excuse of lack of support or lack of funding.  If it doesn't get funded I don't have to keep pulling strings to keep the ship afloat.  Pretty plain and simple how this will work yet for the past couple weeks it has tormented me.

There's been so many highs and lows throughout my entire time here.  A few years ago I was just planning on helping out the previous owner and making this place "popular" or "well-known" in a sense.  My only goal was to help Super Arcade become the one and only place for competition and give socal a breeding ground to help train and improve the scene.  Then through a complex series of events I somehow end up taking complete control and become the sole owner a year ago.  At that point I promised myself I would give it a go for one full year and reassess things come January 2014.  Well, that day is here and I can honestly say even through all the financial struggles and time I have sacrificed away from home, I don't regret keeping this place open.  There are so many people I have met and enjoyed associating with here at the arcade that cannot be replaced and will never be forgotten.  If you have attended one of our tourneys, or frequent them for that matter, I'm sure you share the same feeling as I do and have a great passion for the game and it's competition.  How can this be replaced by online match ups?  How can this be mimicked at a Dave and Buster's or a Round 1 arcade?  There's just something magical about this place and who knows, maybe I'm just delusional, and I can only speak for myself but I will say, my heart will be broken if the arcade dies.  I won't beg for people to understand or feel the way I feel, but if you are a part of the scene and do feel like me, please do your part to keep it alive.  I also noticed a slight increase in attendance after I started my blog and also a new influx of fresh faces that started to come out, and even though I wish I didn't have to go to these lengths to make it happen, I am glad people are coming out more and showing up to play and enjoy themselves.  Thank you for supporting and hopefully you had a good time and enjoyable experience.

So yeah, there it is, going to finalize the project and get everything launched hopefully by February 1st.  Going to let it run for 30 days or so, if it works out, awesome.  If it doesn't, then that's the Risk to Reward.  Super Arcade will be closing soon after and I would just like to thank everyone for your time and effort.  I will probably have one more blog post before launch just asking people to help me share everything through all branches of social media and any other possible outlets.  Thanks for reading people and see you again soon.  

Another heartwarming weekend at Super Arcade.

So we just completed another "Charity Tournament" for a gentleman by the name of Patrick Collins.  This tourney included both the original Tekken Tag and Tekken Tag 2 along with a crowd favorite Tekken Ball.  I'm going to start off by saying that it's gatherings and events like this that keep me positive and reassure me that the existence of Super Arcade is definitely mandatory to our community.  We had 20 people enter Tekken Tag, 40 people enter Tag 2, and 16 for Tekken Ball.  Might I say that 40 people for Tag 2 is a lot considering the game isn't super popular but the socal community came to support for sure.  On site I believe we raised a bit over $600 for Patrick's Fund and hopefully that will help out his family during this rough time.  It's really sad and weird how the passing of people can affect so many once it happens where as when they were alive their life isn't truly valued by others.  I guess that just goes with the saying that you don't know what you have until it's gone, but at least respects were paid and many including myself had a good time and felt an appreciation for all the love and support from everyone who attended.

Couple quick notes from the tourney that I would like to share with you guys.  First one is that Markman took the reigns in making a donation drive including his own prized sticks that are very very rare and sought after.  Dude's a mad stick junkie and for him to donate such prized possessions just shows his character and loyalty to the scene.  Another small shocker came when the 1st and 2nd place participants of both tourneys were to be awarded sticks courtesy of Markman once again and MadCatz.  Very generous and gracious gesture and congrats to the winners.  Another highlight comes from none other than the Grand Finals of Tekken Ball.  Let me set the tone real quick by first off stating we were planning on closing at 1am like any other Saturday but since it was for a good cause, no problem, rough it out another night and do it for the cause.  So the Tag 2 tourney ended roughly at 2:30 in the morning and the place is pretty drained.  The only high point of that tourney was the newly improved player known as RunItBlack has become a heel in a sense and people were cheering against him.  The levels of anger and salt when he lost to his teammate Incog were good enough to warrant the late closing and entertained everyone who was there.  So anyways, come around 2:35 I am getting pretty tired after working close to a 15 hour shift and dreading the fact we need to swap systems, games, and Mando has to man the helm of the stream station for one final match.  But here's the thing.  This isn't your ordinary match, this is a match between 2 guys who have been around the socal scene for a very long time and are both well known in the Tekken community.  The first participant is Rickstah, and for some reason I entered him as "Big Rick" as a semi troll during the last WNF we held on Weds and it started to stick.  He's a very good sport by the way and I always mess with him, hope he doesn't resent me too much hahaha.  Then we have a gentleman by the name of BL.  BL is notorious for picking the cheapest stuff you can possible do in any game he plays.  Mind you he is a very soft spoken, polite, and extremely nice guy, but cause of his "snatch-like" style of play he is definitely not a crowd favorite but still loved by all.  He also won the last Tekken Ball tourney they had at SoCalRegionals if I'm not mistaken.  So I laid out all the ground work that you need to know, now all that's left is for you to spare about 10 minutes of your time, and I will warn you, there is some foul language during commentary so don't blame me if you lose your job while peeping YouTube.

Tekken Ball Grand Finals

I can mark this down as possibly the best grand finals to ever take place at Super Arcade.  I am not over hyping this and I promise you will not be let down, so go check it out and thank me later.  And last but not least I would like to bring up something that one of the guys I have become friends with here Super said to me.  There is no negativity so I will use his name here and maybe he will read this and know he touched my heart.  Suiken and I were talking about the tourney and I was asking him his relation to Patrick Collins or what interactions he might have had with him.  He just told me they chatted a bit here and there and played a few times but nothing too deep.  Then we started to get a little mushy and he brought up the fact that now that we are both fathers it seems as though Pat's story is even closer to home and makes it that much more sad that he left behind 2 kids unfortunately.  I noticed he was getting a little teary eyed so I didn't bother to reply much hoping he would cheer up.  This is when he said to me "Mike, are you that cold hearted?"  I was a little sad from the chit chat we had and I just told him cmon man, you know I wouldn't be running this tourney if I didn't care.  But basically I just want everyone to know, I do care.  I care about this community as a whole, I care about all the people who come to play and support the arcade, and I care about respecting those who deserve it and feel that too often people don't receive the credit and respect they deserve.  So to those of you who do positive work for the FGC, just know that if you feel no one cares, know that I care, and I sure many others do too and you are genuinely appreciated by many.  And to Suiken, I just didn't want you to cry bro :)  If by you thinking I'm cold hearted saves you from tearing up at the arcade, I'll take that shot for you anytime buddy.

With 2 charity tournaments now in the books I do want to say that even though positivity came out as the final result from both, we really need to hope that I won't be called upon so often to run these things.  Too many good guys leaving us way too soon.  That's never a good look and I would like to once again thank everyone who participated and helped make these events possible.  Without a group effort there wouldn't be any success and just as in anything else, your help and support is always needed and appreciated.  On an ending note I would just like to say may you Rest In Peace Patrick and my condolences to your beloved family. 

Never Knew Giving Props or Helping People Deserved Backlash and Patrick Collins charity tournament

So I guess my blog is receiving some good exposure and hopefully the people it's reaching have been able to take away something from it.  I mentioned previously that I have always been a pretty private person when it comes to personal issues but I have always been very loud about dealing with people and problems that I feel strongly about.  I'm not sure exactly how it came about, but my true hatred for a select few in this community has lingered for many, many years.  Although this anger has not hindered my life, it is something that I would like to address or resolve whether it be in the public's eyes or held privately at their discretion.  And this brings me to the topic in the title of this post.  So I have recently received some backlash for a couple recent things.  One being the Marvel Remix tourney we just held in efforts to raise money to help someone, and another being my last blog where I tried to give some insight to the Smash Brothers community that I have been dealing with as of late.  I guess the only true bad feedback I received from the charity tournament came from a few specific people located on the East Coast and hopefully the true intentions of our event were realized when we generated $750 to give to Nelson's funeral fund.  Now in regards to my last blog I attempted give much deserved respect to a community that has busted their ass for years and never received the respect they deserved.  What did that leave me with?  It left me with some comments made by people behind a keyboard trying to just interject themselves into a conversation, or people who have nothing better to do than post condescending replies when there is a complete absence of negativity.  I usually ignore most of the "trolls" and try to take into consideration the majority of these comments are coming from a vast array of people who have no lives, nothing positive going for them, low self esteem, or just no respect for themselves or anyone else.  At many times I can understand where people might have an argument or wish to discuss matters they don't agree with or possibly don't understand, but there are too many instances where there really isn't anything to argue about and people just want to act foolish and stir up drama.  This is where I personally have drawn the line.  In my younger years I have had an extensive post or two, or three, maybe even more, where I would not give up until I proved my point and just completely shut down any every opinion or comment from the opposing party.  But through all these ignorant, time wasting, and unproductive arguments, I found myself just wasting too much precious time that I could be using to better myself or help people around me.  At this point if I don't have an insightful or positive response, I will most likely ignore the trolls and keep the ignorance isolated.  I don't have the time to entertain you crafty trolls any longer and for that I apologize.

I guess I am explaining this because I was actually bothered for a few reasons.  Some people believe I am using this blog for ulterior motives, other feels I am trying to prey on the FGC for money, and then last but not least, some feel I am here craving attention.  At times I have asked myself why did I start this blog and why I have allowed people into my life, but then I also receive a lot of encouragement and people telling me how much they appreciate what I am doing here not only with Super Arcade but also with being genuine and basically hiding nothing about our current situation.  So the positives greatly outweigh the negatives but the constant needling and small jabs are adding up as time goes on.  I personally had no idea that this blog would be posted on all the major sites and I had no part in that.  Had I have known I might not have even started one to begin with.  I have never been an attention whore nor have I ever been one to complain about things like stream time or ask for my matches to be streamed.  I truly try to stay quiet in the scene until someone comes along that needs to be put in their place.  With more interest and more exposure comes more responsibility and I have now come to realize that I do have a voice and fortunately my opinions and actions are respected or can be used for good.  This is a privilege and power that I will be very careful with and if I wasn't already being careful with what I was saying or doing, I must now be even more careful and handle situations very cautiously as I move forward.

With all this being said, Super Arcade is hosting another charity tournament for another gentleman who passed away much too soon.  Patrick Collins was a member of the norcal Tekken community and died at the young age of 28.  As with Nelson, I have met this person but we were in no way best friends and merely just acquintances. He stopped by the arcade a little over a year ago and we had a few conversations over the phone regarding arcade cabinets and other arcade stuff.   I had actually talked to him about a month ago when he called me up asking if I knew of any more Tekken Noir Cabinets that were for sale.  When I first heard the news of a Patrick passing things didn't even click.  It wasn't until I saw his picture that I realized another person I had contact with in the community passed away and all this stuff is starting to hit way too close to home.  So here we are once again throwing another charity tournament hoping to help someone in need and do another good deed.  Hopefully this time there will be zero ignorance and people will see that the arcade and myself are acting genuinely to help someone.  This tournament was not my idea but obviously I am always willing to use our location to help charitable causes and people in need.  Only problem I have is that this better not become the norm and we better not be holding these on the regular for obvious reasons.  So if you have the time and want to support another good cause we are throwing two tourneys including Tekken Tag and Tekken Tag 2.  I'm sure the entire socal Tekken scene will be on hand along with MarkMan already confirming himself and the San Diego crew.  Aside from the prize money going towards his donation campaign and some MadCatz stuff we will be raffling off, I am not 100% sure what else will be going on to help, but I'm sure we will think of something.  So once again, this Saturday January 18th, please stop by and support this tournament.  I will post more updates via twitter once they start coming in.

Thanks again for reading and let's try to get through the year without losing anymore of the good people in the community.

Fundraising Tournaments, My Thoughts on the Smash Brothers Community, and Moving Forward

As I continue to move on with my plans on improving Super Arcade I would like to briefly discuss the tourney we held this past Saturday to raise funds to help Nelson's family.  All in all I would say it was a decent success in that we accomplished our main goal of being able to donate money to a great cause.  People who normally don't frequent our location made the effort to come out and support this event and I think SoCal should be proud of the outcome.  Hopefully the viewers at home had a good experience and as promised, we ran zero adds, had no banners for any advertising, and kept focus on what really mattered.  We showed some old school videos of some classic East Coast vs West Coast matches to keep the show moving along while maintaining the hype, competitiveness, and aura that only Marvel vs Capcom 2 can bring.  Someone mentioned to me that it was in a sense ironic that there was some drama surrounding this tournament involving EMP and myself.  I guess with MVC2 you just can't avoid it and the good news is that at the end of this mess, it was all about the game and raising money for Nelson.  Big thanks to Shankar, IEBattlegrounds, and everyone who showed up to participate and help make this event happen.  Once again may you rest in peace and know you have left a good influence on our community.

Now onto discussing the Smash Brothers Community.  For those who aren't familiar with this bunch let me try and spread as much knowledge as I can from my experiences over the past few months of us hosting Super Smash Sundays.  There are three different games this community plays and I guess I would say there are also three different groups just as we have a different group for Street Fighter, Marvel, and Tekken.  Let's first start off with the Melee crew.  This group is definitely the most organized of the bunch and possibly of any scene I have ever been around.  These guys are the epitome of what every group in the FGC should be like.  I run at least 10 tournaments here a month and I can say hands down that Melee are the most organized, enthusiastic, and just have that genuine love for the game that can't be matched.  I have not once heard any player complain about the size of the pot, or how they feel shorted in the sense of not having huge prizes.  The game is over twelve years old so they do not have the sponsorship that the newer games have, yet they have the strongest community out there?  How is that even possible?  Well, for starters, these guys play this game because they love playing it.  They have very knowledgeable Tourney Organizers and also strive selflessly just to keep the game alive.  I am very glad to have met this group and they inspire me to help and continuously improve my own community.  On a less positive note let me discuss a little about the Brawl crew.  Dealing with this crew is like comparing night and day when it comes down to it.  Where the Melee community strives in maturity and cohesiveness, it seems as though the Brawl community lacks true leadership and is still very immature in terms of being timely and orderly.  The fact that this game is only about five years old might be a huge contributing factor.  Regardless, I do feel this group can continue to grow and become stronger, but it definitely needs someone to step up and make a huge push to get there.  Last but not least we have the Project M crew.  This group seems to be supported by not only their own players, but both Melee and Smash players as well.  To keep it short and simple, Project M is basically a fan made hack to make the Brawl version of Smash play more like its predecessor of Melee.  I believe the first version was made sometime early in 2011 while the latest version was released this past December of 2013.  This group is definitely on the rise and has the right pieces in place to continue to grow and become a staple just as Melee has been.  Please keep in mind these are just my personal thoughts through my brief experience of holding Smash Tourneys here at Super.  I do not expect all of you to agree with my opinions but once again, I am basically just an outsider to this community and sharing my opinions how I see them.

Just thought I would shed some light to the FGC about the Smash Bros. Community.  For some reason they had a bad reputation with us and I will be first to admit that I didn't give them a chance.  But after seeing first hand and working with them a couple times a month I can definitely admit I was wrong and these guys are a huge part of the Fighting Game Scene.  Hell, I said it before and I'll say it again, without Super Smash Sundays, Super Arcade would've probably gone under months ago.  Thanks for keeping the scene alive guys, not only yours but now ours too.  I truly appreciate your effort and hopefully we can co-exist and move forward together in building a stronger FGC.

And speaking of moving forward, I have spent countless hours these past two days figuring out and discussing a stable plan for the arcade and the new plans we are hoping to achieve here.  I already let the cat out the bag when it comes to our basic ideas and now it's time to produce a product that people will have faith in.  I am currently working on concept art and other visuals to provide people with so they can envision my thoughts and ideas.  There will be a website up soon with a couple videos, some concept art, and just a general breakdown of funding required to get this project off the ground.  Once I get this project out and have a deadline for funding I will finally be able to get some stress off my back.  This is going to be in the hands of the community and if all goes well Super Arcade will be here for years.  I will also be liquidating some of the stuff here and using those funds towards reaching the overall goal needed for the project.  If any of you are interesting in purchasing any of our arcade cabinets feel free to call me or stop by and we can discuss further.

I know a lot of you tune in for the drama and unfortunately I needed to take a break from all the nonsense for at least one post.  Sorry for the lack of excitement :)  and thanks again for reading.  I will try to keep up and blog at least once a week and until then, don't rile up an old man!  Or you might get exposed and blasted on stream with f-bombs galore!  Just kidding.  See you again soon.

Unneeded Drama, a Cancer In The FGC, and Being Guilty by Association

What an intense and emotionally draining night it was to say the least....  I am writing today with a few different motives and one is to obviously defend myself, another is defend the actions of Michael "Yipes" Mendoza, and lastly to talk about none other than the head figure of an organization known as EMP.  Since I know this person is a drama queen I will dance around using his name because I am sure he will make some feeble attempt to try and drag me through the mud or even scratch and claw at me with some dumb threat of a possible lawsuit involving me slandering him or something of that matter.  But we all know who I am referring to and by now I hope most of you know his antics, his motives, and even his presence in the community have always been negative yet for some reason people have just accepted it as him being borderline crazy or just flat out mentally unstable.  All that is going to be a long part of this post so I would like to start off with more important things and something that deserves our full attention.

I would like to explain how and why I was pushed to the point where I felt in order to deal with backlash I needed to resort to calling out people and put aside the code of a gentleman.  For the past week I have been working hard not only operating Super Arcade but also building an entire plan and trying to organize what is going to be either the shutdown or complete revamping of the business.  This is very draining mentally and emotionally because there is an obvious sense that if it fails, not only am I left discouraged and disheartened, but I will be letting down a community that I have been desperately trying to carry on my shoulders for a long time now.  Before I go any further in this post I want to get to the point and let everyone know that I do feel Yipes is a very kind and genuine person.  He is one of the rare few in the community that truly does bring an aura to any event he steps into, and brings that happiness and hype that is unmatched to the games we have all grown to love and enjoy.  But he is also human and he has also lost a very close and dear friend at this time.  I don't want to focus on what caused him to make a post that was basically trashing me and my establishment, and I don't want to focus on the fact that he is a loyal person to a complete jackass in the community.  I do want to focus on the fact that I am well aware he is a very dark and lonely place at the moment and he needs to get back to being that great person the community has grown to love.  At this time emotions are at an all time high and people say and do things they sometimes can't control.  I can honestly say I felt bad that people were trashing Yipes in chat for a good part of the night and even though I just blew up and called him out, I still found it in myself to come to his defense because once again, I know he is just not in a stable state of mind. At the end of the day Yipes contacted me and within a few text messages we cleared the air and now it's time to complete the task at hand...  Run this charity tournament, get as close as possible to covering the goal needed for Nelson's family, and then get on with our lives.  So Yipes, please stay strong, many of us knows what it feels like to lose someone close and we can understand your pain.  Just know many people out there care for you and only wish the best for everyone involved in the situation.

I really wanted to defend Yipes actions here first and foremost because I genuinely like him as a person.  So now let me lay out a timeline in hopes of explaining to people exactly what went on and possibly why I was being accused instead of praised for trying to help someone.  This tournament WAS NOT MY IDEA to begin with.  I cannot make this any more clear for the knuckleheads that think I am trying to make a buck of someone's death.  Shankar came to me and asked if we could hold a tournament here to raise money for Nelson's family.  I instantly said yes and over the past week I have been doing all I can to promote the event and try to get more prizes and what not to raffle off so we could raise even more money for the charity.  I also believed that Shankar was taking care of contacting the parties involved on the other end and my job was to just make sure the tourney part ran smoothly.  Then all of a sudden I am blasted publicly for trying to help?  Can this go any worse?  I was told about a week ago by Shankar himself that a couple top players didn't want to attend because they felt I was trying to make money off this tournament.  But for the greater good I just kept this to myself even though it was making me very angry.  I still went on and kept working to collect prizes and other things to try and make this event better.  Let me also state that Super Arcade is not open on Mondays or Tuesdays and we have some type of tourney scheduled every day that we are open.  So I filled this coming Saturday with this event and never even thought twice that charging a venue fee would ever be an issue and is completely standard from a business point of view.  I guess at this point people looked at things all wrong and figured I was somehow snaking half the pot and being a douchebag.  Let me defend myself again in stating that it costs money to operate a business and I need to bring in an extra employee to run this event.  Who is going to cover this?  Who is going to cover the electricity bill for the day?  Who is going to pay the lease and again, I could've booked another event to cover these costs but I didn't.  I tried to act as the bigger person and just ignored the accusations but last night was the final straw.  The camel's back finally broke and my solution to dealing with ignorance was to fight back with more ignorance.  There is no mystery when it comes to my love and admiration of the man who legally changed his name to some stupid Nintendo Game Icon.  I put aside all my differences with this individual to run this event and I cost myself money by having this event thrown at my arcade.  All for what?  So people could call me out and try and throw me under the bus without having any knowledge of what really goes on?  That's just too much for me to swallow and what happened last night was a product of me trying to be the hero and just trying to drop the nuke to end this moron's capability to publicly speak ever again.  I will say this, I will not take back or even attempt to justify anything I said last night, and through all the F bombs and nonsense spewed I could only find one thing I wish I could take back.  Out of all the harshness I used the word "faggot" and I can honestly say that is the only thing I wish I didn't say.  I can go into this long argument and try to defend myself about how this word has evolved since I was a child and how this word is just not the same as it was back in the 80's, but that would make me even more ignorant and I would just be trying to make an excuse.  I have worked pretty hard to delete this word from my vocabulary and up until I went into rage mode, I feel I have done well and believe those around can vouch for that.  So to everyone I ask forgiveness for my ignorance in the use of this word as I am trying to better myself and take into consideration how this word affects those surrounding me.

There is a very long history of what Nintendo Boy has done wrong for the community and I can make many posts about it.  But I must cut this entry a bit short and let you all judge by his latest stupidity as to how he a cancer in our community.  Thanks for reading and I will make another post after our tourney on saturday discussing the event along with announcing the total amount of we have raised for Nelson.  See you all again soon.

New Year, New Motto, New Attitude.

So it is day one of a brand new year and with much hope this year will bring a lot more good memories instead of tough times for Super Arcade as well as the entire community.  I just read my last post and boy do I apologize if it put some of you in an unhappy state of mind.  After it was published I can say many people did come out and support a little more than normal and there was also some touching moments that were created by very generous and kindhearted people that support the arcade.  I received a few Christmas gifts for my daughter and myself that were completely unnecessary, yet very kind and appreciated.  I also received many offers of donations and, I had to graciously decline until I had everything set up for a new business plan.  So thank you to everyone who came out over the past week, thank you to the people who brought me amazing gifts, and thank you to everyone who continuously supports the scene and takes time out to come and be a part of Super Arcade.  I can honestly say that just a few nice comments and seeing people enjoying themselves playing games here has changed my mood entirely and given me a boost to keep working on what will hopefully be the next phase of Super Arcade.

I have been working diligently to keep this place afloat and hope to move forward with a brand new plan to keep the arcade up and running for the long term.  Not only have I done my own research but I do follow up on just about everything that is posted and commented on through SRK, EventHubs, Twitter, Facebook, NeoGaf, and even Reddit.  Just browsing all these sites and filtering through the forums in a job in itself and I commend you trolls who do this day and night, you get a definite A for effort there monsters.  But back to the point, I have thought very carefully and taken into much consideration all of the constructive criticisms along with suggestions.  I feel what I have come up with is a great improvement for Super Arcade and will revitalize this location along with the FGC as a whole.  Problem now is, with ideas and work, the most important factor is now funding.  Here are my feelings about this project.  First off, I did not intend for this blog to be about advertising or self gain.  I did not even have a clue it would be receiving as much attention as is has gotten to this point, and my original intentions were to just bring you guys into my world and let you know that being a part of the behind the scenes takes much more work than you can imagine.  But now that it has taken a turn, I would be a fool not to use this blog as a tool to reach out to people and use it as a voice not only within the FGC, but hopefully towards people that can help us make a change and support not only me, but the community as one.

I have a motto I would like to share with you all, and I hope it's not too cheesy but for the time it took and me being older now, please excuse me.  "Member Driven, Modernized, and Made-for-All!"  I think this motto fits the ideas behind my new business plans really well.  I have developed a new strategy that I think will finally generate the revenue needed for Super Arcade to not only survive temporarily, but stay relevant for years and years to come.  Without exposing too many specifics I can say that my main goal here is to attract the business of the college students across the streets.  I am paying a premium lease for this location so it is now time to make use of it.  Having an area for people to use their laptops, purchase wifi at an affordable rate, and just have a hang out during down time in between classes would be a great addition to this spot.  And if done properly, with a little help from some promotional advertising and just word of mouth, this should attract many new customers during the daytime.  There is also an obvious issue regarding our game line up here.  As I mentioned previously, I focused way too hard on making this a fighting game arcade instead of a family or casual gaming spot.  With that being said, I will still have set ups for the current popular stuff here including head to head cabinets for 3rd Strike, MvC2, SF4, and ST, but I will make much better use of our floor space by incorporating a few pinballs machines, a few driving games, a few more shooting games, and keep our current music and dance games as well.  These are all very relevant changes because you cannot get this type of gaming experience from home with an emulator and these are games that you can only play at an arcade location.  Once again, more games to play, more revenue for the arcade.  Thirdly, I will be changing our current counter and register area to include a glass case where I can be in a sense a 1-stop shop to purchase all of your favorite FGC items including t-shirts, toys, buttons, sticks, etc.  You will no longer have to wait for buttons or clothing to ship and have a place where you can just get everything when you want it!  And last but not least, I am going to have a membership system in place that will benefit both the customer and the business.  I cannot release details on this but just know that if you are a current tourney attendee there is value in this for you so stay tuned!

All in all I feel as though these are the immediate changes that need to take place.  Along with renovating and remodeling to bring the place a more modernized look, these implemented models to follow are the things that we have been lacking and knowingly missing from this location.  A new restroom, new overhead and wall lighting to make things much more cost efficient and energy saving, and just a new feel and look to change the atmosphere here will be a huge benefit to everyone.  I am actually excited to see if this project will come through and envisioned it all many times over.  Now all that's left is for me to get accurate estimates and an estimated time frame before I leave it up to the hands of the community.  This project will be done as a kickstarter or indiegogo as I have obviously exhausted everything in life including my time, health, and savings.  Is this location and plan enough to have people willing to support?  I really don't know, but regardless of the outcome I know that I will have zero regret and I know that I have done everything in my power to support the community and push it towards being better and stronger.  Oh and by the way FGC, I have a little secret....  Now that we are hosting Super Smash Sundays, I kind of have the support of the Smash Community and we all know they raised over $100,000 just to have their game at EVO.  So who knows if they can help bail out the FGC and give us a hope for a brighter future.  Might a name change of "Super Smash Arcade" be in the works?  We can only wonder........ 

Thank you all again for reading and I will keep everyone up to date on progress and new plans as much as possible.