Twilight shrouded the earth, and the Fangjia Hutong lit up. The night of the Drum Tower gradually heats up, but the alley is still peaceful.
There are quite a few bars in Fangjia Hutong. One by one, they are hidden behind the cotton curtains covered deep in the alley, and only by actively searching can they find their tracks. The vast majority of people living in the hutongs are ordinary residents, so the bars here can't use exaggerated music and lights like those in Sanlitun or Houhai.
I was breathing on the roof with a few people, and they told me: "I used to be able to play on the roof, but now the neighbors have college entrance examinations, and they all blow people into the house. In business, there are a few who dare to offend the old neighborhood. "We looked out over the blurry sky in the distance, the dusk of the Drum Tower, and the bustle of pedestrians.
Inside the window behind us, the sound of the joystick crackled, people clapped their rocker frames, laughing or annoyed, and one person shouted, "One more plate!" The sound penetrated the glass window. I looked back and saw him staring at the screen, his mouth pursed, his hands resting lightly on the joysticks and buttons. It's like a fighter's posture.
Drink and fight
<h3>Wang Fan behind the camera</h3>
Wang Fan is more than 30 years old this year, with short standard hair, thick eyebrows and big eyes, and does not seem to like much talking.
We were about to interview in a bar in Fangjia Hutong. It was also their regular meeting time, Wang Fan was the first to arrive, and when I met him, he was busy putting on a crooked tripod. "Want to broadcast live?" I thought to myself, a bar isn't a great place to stream live: it's crowded, it's noisy, and the internet isn't very bright. The lights were not fully turned on, it looked a little dim, but it was just right.
In November 2020, the live broadcasting platform came to Wang Fan to sign a contract, and he agreed, this opportunity was not easy to come by. Wang Fan's live broadcast career has begun for several years, but it has not become a climate. When the live broadcast platform first emerged, Wang Fan tried to test the waters and broadcast it to friends. Later, some viewers also came to learn technology or offline battles. Broadcasting back and forth, the popularity of the live broadcast room has not crossed the barrier of small anchors. After a long time, he was a little discouraged and went to find a class.
Today Wang Fan did not broadcast live, and the tripod he is installing is used to fix mobile phone video recordings. In addition to live broadcasting, Wang Fan will also upload some videos, mainly for the novice teaching of his main role "Nash". In such an atmosphere as a bar, wanting to explain the game word by word is not realistic, Wang Fan wants to record it and review it for his audience. "It can also let people who can't come offline experience this atmosphere." Wang Fan told me that he felt that this was more important than reviewing. "Unfortunately, I didn't record that glorious arcade era."
The lights are a little dim, like the old arcade
Throughout the chat, Wang Fan had been fiddling with his video recording device. The tripod is not strong, and occasionally I need to help support it, but Wang Fan still insists on recording. In his video series, the number of offline videos has not been high, far less than that of novice teaching. But as long as he has the opportunity, he is still willing to record more, "if he can't record the arcade era, he will record more now as compensation."
The live broadcast business of "Street Fighter" is not very hot, at least it is far from the "King of Fighters" next door, and it is not in the same world as "Glory of Kings" and "League of Legends". Compared with most game live broadcasts, because of the lack of entertainment, the live broadcast of fighting games has higher technical requirements. Of course, entertainment anchors also exist. But even if it is a so-called entertainment anchor, the strength will not be too weak. Nowadays, the audience of fighting games is limited, and those who can survive are old players. Rather than watching live broadcasts, they prefer to play two sets with real knives and guns, or at least a live broadcast room where they can improve their skills and make local friends.
When I am not busy, I will also go to Wang Fan's live broadcast room to see. Soon after each broadcast, the news of the audience entering the live broadcast room filled the chat channel, interspersed with a few greeting bullet screens. Wang Fan could remember the names of many old audience members and reply to their speeches one by one. Occasionally, there will be a few novices, grabbing him to ask some basic questions, and Wang Fan will almost always answer them. "Coaching others also improves yourself." He always said that, like a teacher.
Occasionally someone asks, "Is there a quick way?" He didn't like this kind of question very much, fighting games value the accumulation of practice, how to get started for newcomers, is always the most difficult question in the fighting circle to answer." On the one hand, they hope that fresh blood can inject vitality into the community; on the other hand, blindly lowering the operating threshold will make old players lose years of accumulation.
Under the name of "anchor", Wang Fan is just an ordinary player. Small anchors don't have much business cooperation or assigned tasks, and their salaries depend on whether they can broadcast enough time in the contract. As for the gift - after a while, the top ten of Wang Fan's live broadcast room total added up to 28,000 contribution values, converted into RMB, 2800 yuan.
In the game outside of fighting, Wang Fan didn't know much. But as an anchor, you should know more or less about the game, and there are more topics with the audience. "After signing the contract, I want to see more articles about games." He said to me, "Do you have a public account?" What's it called? He clicked on WeChat, but he got stuck. The video phone is a bit old, it runs very hard, and the touch is not very sensitive. After tossing and turning for a long time, Wang Fan smiled at me embarrassedly.
<h3>Competitive heart</h3>
If you want to list the "Four Heavenly Kings" in Beijing's street fighter circles, there must be Yang Ning.
Of course, the Four Heavenly Kings are always made up of 5 people, and there will be a champion above them. In Beijing, this champion is Li Jun.
Everyone who knows Yang Ning tells me that he always wanted to win Over Li Jun—though he didn't admit it himself. They also told me that Yang Ning was one of the few people in the circle who liked to compete with himself. In order to defeat Li Jun, Yang Ning went to the arcade hall in Shanghai to practice, facing a new local environment, a new opponent, and a new challenge.
In addition to wanting to defeat Li Jun, there are other reasons. Not only Yang Ning, but also many people have told me that the fighting circle in Beijing is not large, and there are just so many people who go around, and the horizontal class is quite solidified. Most of the players don't really have the energy to practice hard, and Street Fighter may have been the whole of life for them, but it is not a very important part now.
In the long run, many people's enthusiasm for the game has been exhausted. You can beat anything you can beat, and you can't beat anything you can't beat. In addition to personal life reasons, the consumption of enthusiasm is the most important reason why people no longer participate in offline activities. People always want something new, not 10 consecutive races to get the same place – even if it's the championship.
Yang Ning participated in the 2017 CPT (Capcom Pro Tour) competition
The fighting environment in Shanghai and Guangzhou is better than in Beijing, they have "serious" arcades, and the overall level of players is higher. Speaking of the Fire Arcade in Shanghai, Yang Ning is very envious, especially the "Magic Capital 100 °C Club" of the Fire, which is a larger and more professional player community, holding various competitions and practicing engagements in the team. Compared to Beijing's scattered soldiers, a club system will make it easier for players to improve their level.
The fighting community in Beijing is called "Battle in Beijing", also known simply as "BiB". It's a somewhat historical organization, originally founded by a group of foreigners who wanted to play fighting games in Beijing. Due to the small fighting circle, it has gradually attracted many local players. The movement of people in the community is inevitable, and the organizers themselves are the same, and the organizers and members of the Jingdou community are constantly changing as people move their jobs and other reasons. Most of the people who come to the event today have not experienced the first days of the Kyodo community and cannot tell me about its history, but it does not matter, because they themselves are already part of the history of Kyodou.
"Now the community is a little too peaceful." Yang Ning told me that although peace was good, he occasionally envied those places that were "full of gunpowder". In a fighting game — or any other one-player versus one-player confrontation game — that's a big deal. Generally speaking, the kung fu of fighting such a hard bridge and hard horse is the least lacking in gunpowder. But once everyone's energy drops and they are not so aggressive, they become a smiling Santa Claus. No one cares who is stronger, no one cares what happens to everyone else, and if they lose, they will never go home and practice for a week and go back to revenge. Instead, they smiled, went to the barbecue stall together, and went home to sleep, after all, they had to go to work the next day.
Yang Ning won a set of Wang Fan, and he came down from the computer to explain to me the game that had just ended. Talking about the choice at a critical moment, Yang Ning told me: "Anyway, there is no consequence, just 'choose' it, good luck will win, bad luck will lose." He paused and continued, "There is no coin cost of an arcade, no nervousness about competing with unfamiliar people, I have known them for so many years, and it doesn't feel so important to lose a game and win a game." ”
Sega Game Hall in 2005 (Photo courtesy of Fire Liu)
As the night darkened, the light seemed to dim, and the bar seemed to become an old arcade. People sat around, and the light of the screen reflected everyone's face.
During the whole interview, Yang Ning did not tell me about the topic of special training, nor did he fight with himself, he pulled me to tell a lot of stories. In a dim corner of the bar, Yang Ning and I were facing a laptop running Street Fighter 5, and the character on the screen used a move of Sheng Long Fist, just like "Street Fighter 2" more than a decade ago.
He told me the story of that era. At that time, Yang Ning had not yet begun to play "Street Fighter", but specialized in "VR warrior". At a time when the network connection of game consoles and arcade machines was not yet popular, some local masters would choose to go to the field to "kick the pavilion" after dominating the nearby arcade hall and fight on behalf of their own cities. After that, people were no longer satisfied with playing with domestic players, and they set their sights on the masters of Japan and South Korea.
The Sino-Japanese confrontation in "King of Fighters 98" was held in a movie theater, and they chartered a screening hall and played game screens to the audience with a huge screen, and Yang Ning was one of the audiences that year. There was also a ceremony to play the national anthem before the competition, and although they were not the official national team, they sincerely believed that they were fighting for the country. At that time, Zeng Zhuojun, the "child" who is now famous in the domestic fighting circle, played a shocking 11-game winning streak against Japanese masters.
Scene of the China-Japan Confrontation (Photo: Huo Liu)
Contestants participating in the Sino-Japanese Competition (Photo: Huo Liu)
Later, as arcades faded, the connections between players slowly faded. Although the rise of the Internet has given players the opportunity to play online, the competitive atmosphere is much worse than before. Only a few flashing memories are engraved in Yang Ning's heart: after the 2019 "Street Fighter" CPT Shanghai Game, players from all over the world who fought for themselves during the day were randomly grouped and carried out a grand "Night Festival" that anyone could participate in. Whether it is a professional player from Japan or South Korea, or a local enthusiastic ordinary player, you can chat, laugh, drink, and play until dawn. Yang Ning told me that it was the best look of the fighting game, and it was also the way he missed it the most.
CPT Post-Match "Night Festival"
Going around, the conversation always goes back to that arcade era. Even if the stories deviate from the theme and drift towards the aimless night sky, they will always be about that time, about the arcade machine, about Xidan 77th Street and the Shanghai Fire, about his 15-year-old desire for the championship, and about the indelible sense of competition.
In my opinion, Yang Ning is one of the people who misses the arcade era the most — although he doesn't admit it. I asked Yang Ning if he had been holding back his desire to win Li Jun, and he shook his head and said, "There is no such thing." I asked again: "Some people say that you go to Shanghai to practice." ”
He replied, "Go on a business trip and stop by." ”
<h3>"This place is very important to us"</h3>
On the day I went to the interview, there were about 8 devices in the bar, of which 6 TVs and Switch belonged to "Smash Bros.", one belonged to "Iron Fist 7", and only one laptop was used to play "Street Fighter 5", which was carried by Chen Shangyu. "The equipment is all carried by us in turn, and I may carry a little more." Chen Shangyu said to me, "Basically, wherever I go, it is a stronghold." "But most of the time, they still stay in the bar in Fangjia Hutong.
He describes himself as "just an enthusiastic water friend who maintains the community", and in the entire Beijing fighting community, Chen Shangyu's level is in the middle and lower stages, and the results of the competition are basically not comparable to Yang Ning and Wang Fan. In the monthly competition of the Jingdou community, he only reached the top 8 once. He pointed his eyes at several people who were fighting a decisive battle and said, "When I meet these people in the game, it means that I am going to the loser group." "Despite this, his passion for participating in and organizing competitions is unstoppable.
"It's hard to have a love," he told me, "and it's a little bit to be able to do a little for the community." I swept up his backpack, a 17-inch alien laptop, a set of external speakers, a fighting stick, and an additional 27-inch monitor if you wanted to play the PS4 version. Every Tuesday, Chen Shangyu would carry these to work and leave work to Fangjia Hutong.
Before that, the Jingdou community also had other strongholds, from one bar to another to the next. The community of fighting games always seems to be connected to the bar, maybe the bar owner generally loves it, or maybe the old guys always like to get together for two drinks.
"It's all big brothers here." Chen Shangyu swallowed a sip of wine, "I am also 30 this year, other people are basically older than me, or at least about the same age as me, there are too few new people, too few new people..." He always said so. As he said this, he and I were looking in the same direction, and in front of the screen of "Brawl", there sat a middle school student in a blue and white school uniform, asking the person next to him for the basic operation of the game, and there was a father-like person standing in the corner of the room, his eyes looking in the same direction as us.
Don't get me wrong, foreign friends are here to play "Brawl"
The "Street Fighter" two meters away is a different story. Sitting in front of the computer was Yang Ning, and the person who fought with him was a bald head, tall and thin, nearly 1 meter 9 tall, with a sideburned beard, which was very eye-catching in the crowd. People call him Daigo, and I mistakenly thought he was the "Daigo" of the god of fighting, "Daigo Umehara Daigo", and guessed that he was a player who used "Gu Lie" and was as calm as water, and the result happened to be the opposite.
"Wrong choice, wrong choice!" How did I get this! "Da Wu is like a fiery fire, shouting every game, without the slightest regard for the image." The force of his keys was quite large, and the box of the joystick swayed and crackled in Dawu's hand, like a lighter in the cold wind. Seeing that he was playing too much, I didn't go up and interrupt.
"People who like to compete with themselves are in addition to Yang Ning, and there is also Dawu - people who came from the old arcade era may be like this, and they have the strength not to accept defeat in their bones." Chen Shangyu introduced him to me, "Da Wu used to be quite powerful. After getting older, there are more things to take care of, and the amount and level of practice are not as good as in the previous two years, but the enthusiasm for participating in activities is still there. Before the words fell, Da Wu lost a set.
Da Wu and Yang Ning are not exactly the same, he is a bit tangled. Although he was fighting with himself, he could no longer run around the cities for the sake of the game like Yang Ning. His energy was bound by life, and he was devoting himself to games less and less, and before this enthusiasm was completely worn away, he wanted to enjoy the game as much as possible, enjoy the infinite fun that the party brought him, and enjoy the effort invested in every win or loser. It's not about fame and bonuses, it's just enjoyment.
Da Wu invited me to "smoke one", and the cigarette case and lighter were like the keys to his conversation box. I didn't smoke, but I followed.
Walking to the rooftop, the night of Fangjia Hutong was bright, and the stars fell a lot.
DaWu said that he had forgotten how long he had known these people, so long that he didn't care much about winning or losing. Although he was still like a pile of burning fire on the field, after putting down the joystick, he felt that having such a place to gather was much more important than winning or losing.
They are quite satisfied with this bar. However, it is still a little different from the arcade hall. Da Wu described this as a pond where the small fish swim happily, and it is a pool of stagnant water after all. Those who can come to Fangjia Hutong are all acquaintances, or they are introduced by acquaintances. And once those arcade halls were like streams, although the relationship between people may not be as close as they are now, but a steady stream of newcomers will let the blood of fighting games be passed on. They want this more, the arcade is gone, but the culture remains.
No matter what you play, having fun is the most important thing
In the year when "Street Fighter 5" was first released, a large-scale competition was organized in China. A lot of the old arcade era players have come. They played for a few days and still couldn't keep it. They think the game has changed, the proportion of luck elements is too large, and many people half-jokingly call Street Fighter 5 a "guessing game". For example, when the player is pressed up by the opponent, there are basically two choices: judge the opponent's shot and choose to disassemble the shot; or judge the opponent's attack and choose to defend. But the demolition shot will be attacked, even punched; the defense will continue to be shot, and then enter the next guessing cycle. The changes were made to cater to newcomers, but ironically, new players still found the game too difficult. Mental barriers prevent people from trying it, and in today's decline of fighting games, fewer and fewer people will spend energy practicing a twilight project.
The organizers of the community have a separate WeChat group in which they discuss how to recruit new people every day. A few months ago, they held a rookie competition, but with little success, and there were few people. There were many people in the "Big Brawl" next to them, and even some people sat and watched while asking Chen Shangyu, did any of these people come to play with you?
"Not a single one, but we occasionally go and play 'Brawl.'" Chen Shangyu told me that although there are few new people and the elderly may leave, they are still happy to hold offline activities. "Of course it's nice to have someone new. But it's also for ourselves, so it's good to be a regular party. ”
"There is such a place that is very important to us." Da Wu said.
<h3>once</h3>
Late at night, the customers in the bar gradually left, the students and fathers in the "Big Brawl" area were long gone, and a few foreign faces were still fighting. Yang Ning, Da Wu, Chen Shangyu, Wang Fan and the people of the Jingdou community no longer spend the whole night in the arcade as they did when they were young, they still have work tomorrow. Chen Shangyu put all the equipment into a huge bag, put the chair back, wiped the table clean, like people leaving their homes. They all know that they will always come back here, and this place belongs to them.
There were few people on the street, and we were walking on the road, and laughter came from time to time in front of us. "Every week is the happiest thing today." Chen Shangyu said.
Throughout the interview, everyone expressed nostalgia for the arcade era. Not only for those dim and crowded arcade halls, but also for their own youth immersed in the arcade halls. And everything they do today—partying, playing fighting games, even dimming the lights a bit—is a parody of what it once was.
At that time, people were accustomed to the existence of arcade halls and thought that it would always exist.
("Wang Fan" is a pseudonym in the text, and some of the pictures are provided by Huo Liu.) ）