Telling the whole community to "shape up" is totally unfair. Yeah, we have a few screw ups. SOOO surprisimg for a community that plays 10-year old kids game to attract a few losers. What are we supposed to do, kick them out of the community? I haven't played SSBM for that long, but have had experiences in Europe, the midwest, and now NorCal, and each experience was largely positive. Sure each region has some screwups, but as a whole, all 3 were great. We are not a bad community, lol.
And it's not like the FGC is clean or anything. Plenty of things to bring up here. How about the sexism thing? I mean, Melee is a HUGE sausage-fest, but any time I've seen a girl sit down and play, it was treated casually/normally. And we have less sh*t-talk in general (esp. these days) compared to the FGC, which I prefer.
Really, we're outside the FGC because Smash being popular/different/Nintendo, plus how our community evolved (on its own away from the FGC) has put us on the outside of the FGC. It's not because they by and large hate our game, it's just how it happened. And outsiders are always looked upon negatively until proven otherwise. Humans are tribal like that.
Yes, you do kick them out. Capcom pulled the plug on Aris. We've always had ******s like Dark Prince and Josh Wigfall, but on the flip side, if you're going to play into it, then don't be two-faced and act insulted.
If you actually watch the show, then you'll see Pakozdi enjoying the attention the day before she quit, giggling and laughing. She then gets completely outclassed by a 'Gief and an Abel, then has to play the sexism card and quit due to an unrelated issue. Don't misunderstand me, I think Aris was definitely in the wrong, but Pakozdi definitely isn't innocent based on how she withdrew.
There are too many double standards to go through concerning sexism. We were accused of misrepresenting females in the community, which isn't true at all. They really just cannot compete with JWong, Daigo, Ortiz, Vangief, Gamerbee, and whoever else. Regardless, we held the controversial girls-only tourney at EVO2K10. As much as people want to say that was only a "side event," the golden fight sticks being rewarded prizes contradicted that.
Harli's opponent a couple of years ago played his hardest with his main against her and destroyed her. He promptly got booed off of the stage. This was coming from Aris's community of all communities... Thomas Osaki would have been very disappointed.
The real reason why we didn't evolve with the FGC was because we're a console game. EVO, SBO, and all of those weeklies in CA, NY, and NJ didn't start using consoles until around mid-2000. They were using cabinets for the prior decade. Even small games like Melty Blood and crap like Arcana Hearts had representation because they were on cabinet.
EVO2K7 was a great event for Smash. PC Chris and Mew2King made a good impression on Bacardi (which was huge), and even JWong tried Melee for a bit. However, we never had problems with tourney prizes being delayed, funds beings misappropriated, or fixed matches. OC3 and MLG Dallas partially contributed to the reason as to why SRK never fully accepted Smash.
I can only think of one time when some crap like that happened, and it was when Ranma screwed some winners out of a SBO qualifier to fix his own team. Our answer? Boycott his events, and even the import community boycotted his events.
Yes, shape up. It may be "totally unfair," but Smash is the smaller community trying to gain acceptance. Smash needs SRK more than SRK needs Smash, and if that wasn't true, then you guys wouldn't be trying so hard to gain our acceptance.