Olivia Richman is a seasoned esports journalist who has worked with Inven Global, Esports Illustrated, Esports.gg, and more. As an editor and writer at Esports Insider, she loves telling unique esports stories, especially within the FGC. When not working and gaming, Olivia loves collecting Kirby plush, eating sushi, and driving her cars at the track.
I never thought I’d say this, but the FGC complains too much . Yes, even for me.
There are a ton of fighting game events coming up. The Esports World Cup (if you care) has Tekken 8 and Street Fighter 6 this weekend. Supernova is happening at the same time if you’re a Smash fan. CEO 2026 is almost here. And Get On My Level just wrapped up.
The FGC is eating right now. You’d think there’d be a lot of hype building up. A lot of epic rivalries, interesting storylines… No, all I see on X are the most POINTLESS beefs and complaints of all time. It’s to the point where even I, the notoriously salty FGC journalist, have no desire to cover these issues at all.
Can’t y’all just enjoy anything ?
The fighting game community has some reasons to be salty and whiny. I think it can be legit, to an extent. There are a lot of issues with developers ruining the balance of popular titles, with tournaments not really providing enough prize money, with large-scale events having terrible setups and game-breaking lag . This is like the tip of the iceberg, the part that the general esports community sees and agrees with.
Go down a bit further, however, and you start getting complaints about Evo losing its prestige , content creators being cringe and ruining the authenticity of the scene , and fans feeling like certain on-stage antics are disrespectful. This is all acceptable discourse within the FGC, but may be seen as dramatic elsewhere.
Complaining has become part of the culture, and I’m here for it. It’s even sort of entertaining. And it’s refreshing to see people standing up for what they believe in.
Go down even further , however, and you’re getting to the point where even fighting game veterans are begging for the scene to be destroyed just to not hear this stupid stuff anymore. This is the stuff that doesn’t sit right with me anymore.
On July 31st, I saw this tweet. Because Elon Musk’s algorithm knows to show me all of the most salty crap on X. If there’s anyone who will report on it, it’s me.
However, I was scratching my head. Apparently, others were too.
Apparently, this guy debated not registering for CEO, one of the biggest FGC events this summer, because they had “no clue who was going” or “how many people” were registered for that game. They begged to know why tournament organizers do this, claiming that tons of FGC fans have also refused to register because of it.
I sent it to my colleague here at Esports Insider and heard back: “WTF are they on about?” This sentiment was shared on X: “Bro, stop worrying about who else is going. No, normal people didn’t not register because of that reason. You worried someone’s gonna beat your ass in person?”
However, because this is the FGC, this is actually an ongoing discussion and not a one-time weird tweet.
Why do major TOs always hide attendies? I almost didnt reg for ceo cuz i has no clue who was going or how many people and i bet alot of people didnt register cuz they didnt know either. Please some1 tell…