I’ve been competing in fighting games for over 20 years. I still love competition, but over time I’ve gotten tired of a lot of the stuff that comes with traditional tournaments.
The travel, the cost, the waiting, inconsistent setups, scheduling, seeding, and sometimes not even knowing where the next important event is going to be until you suddenly have to figure out how you’re going to pay to get there.
After doing this for so long, I started thinking about what competition would look like if I could build something around the things I actually care about as a player.
That’s where The Tower came from.
Playing on the Setup I Actually Practice On
One of my biggest issues with tournaments now is the setups.
Back when we played on CRTs, I could practice at home on basically the same type of setup I was going to compete on. When I got to the tournament, I didn’t have to spend time figuring out how that particular setup felt. I just needed to warm up and play.
Once we moved away from CRTs and started playing on LCDs, that changed.
Even when certain monitors became the tournament standard, you could sit down at two setups that were supposedly the same and they wouldn’t necessarily feel the same. Maybe the settings were different. Maybe the monitor was old. Maybe it was the wrong model. Sometimes you couldn’t even figure out what was wrong. You just knew it didn’t feel like what you practiced on.
Tournament setups started feeling like Russian roulette.
At a high level, those differences matter. If something feels slower than what I’ve been practicing on, that affects my offense, my defense, my reactions and my execution.
I don’t want adjusting to the tournament setup to be part of the competition.
I want the competition to be between me and the other player.
Playing online from home lets me compete on the same setup I’ve actually been training on.
I Got Tired of Waiting
Anybody who has competed at enough tournaments knows how much waiting can be involved.
You travel somewhere for three or four days and a lot of that weekend isn’t actually spent playing.
You’re waiting for your bracket. Waiting for another game to finish. Waiting because somebody is entered in multiple games. Waiting for a stream station. Waiting because the schedule is behind.
I’ve played online tournaments that have the same problem. Something can technically be a one-day tournament and still take five or six hours because you’re constantly playing a match or constantly waiting for the next one. Delays made by deciding if a match should or shouldn’t be on stream while icing the players.
I understand why this happens at big events. They’re trying to fit a bunch of different games, players, spectators, commentary and broadcasts into one weekend.
But from my perspective as a competitor, I just want to play.
That’s one of the reasons I like how The Climb works in The Tower.
The ladder is open Monday through Friday, but that doesn’t mean you’re playing a tournament all day for five days.
You choose when you play.
You can post a challenge for a time that works for you or accept somebody else’s challenge. You can play around work, school, practice or whatever else you have going on.
The scheduled tournament portions happen separately.
I’d rather have multiple days where I have control over when I compete than call something a one-day tournament and spend most of that day waiting.
I’ve Never Been a Fan of How Seeding Works Out in Practice
I’ve heard for years that seeding is supposed to prevent strong players from playing each other too early.
But I’ve still had that happen to me over and over again.
I’m not saying somebody is sitting there intentionally trying to give me a bad bracket. I’m saying that after experiencing it enough times, I started questioning what the benefit was for me as a competitor.
If the point is to keep certain players apart early and I still end up playing really strong players early anyway, I’d rather just play.
That’s another thing I like about The Climb.
There isn’t a traditional seeded bracket deciding my path through the ladder.
I play. Other people play. The results determine where we stand.
If somebody is good enough to climb, let them climb.
Your name shouldn’t be what makes you dangerous. What you do when you play should.
Mistakes Affect Players Differently
Another thing I’ve thought about over the years is how much a tournament can cost a player compared to the people running it.
Large events need a lot of people to function, including volunteers. I understand that, and I’m not attacking people for volunteering their time.
But there is an imbalance.
I might have spent hundreds or even thousands of dollars between travel, hotel, food and registration just to be at that event.
If somebody makes an administrative mistake that affects my tournament, that mistake can change my entire weekend.
I’m the one who paid to travel there. I’m the one who practiced. I’m the one who has to live with the result.
The person who made the mistake usually doesn’t have the same amount at stake.
That’s always bothered me.
No format is going to eliminate every possible problem, including The Tower. But I wanted to remove as many things as possible that have nothing to do with actually playing the game.
Tournaments Are Events Now, Not Just Competitions
This is another thing I think gets lost sometimes.
A major fighting game tournament isn’t just a competition anymore. It’s an event and an entertainment product.
There are spectators, sponsors, commentary, broadcasts, production schedules, multiple games and a lot of other things that have to be considered.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. A lot of those things helped fighting games grow.
But what’s best for the event or the broadcast isn’t always what’s best for me as a competitor.
Sometimes you’re waiting because something needs to happen on stream. Sometimes schedules have to work around multiple games. Sometimes the needs of the overall event come before getting your match played as quickly as possible.
I understand why.
I just don’t always want to compete that way.
When I’m competing, my priority is pretty simple.
I want to play.
The Tower gives me an opportunity to experiment with competition where that is closer to the center of the experience.
Traveling All the Time Gets Old
I also wanted another option besides constantly traveling.
Going to a major isn’t just paying an entry fee.
You have to get there. You need somewhere to stay. You need food. You have registration fees. You’re away from home for several days.
Depending on the event, you can easily spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars before you’ve played your first match.
I’m glad we’re seeing more tournament circuits putting real money into fighting games. That’s good for competition.
But there’s another side to it.
To chase that money, you often have to spend even more money traveling for the opportunity to compete for it.
Then another event gets announced and you’re figuring out where it is, when it is, how you’re getting there and how much it’s going to cost.
I’ve done that for a long time.
I wanted another option.
The Tower Isn’t Me Saying Offline Tournaments Should Go Away
I want to make this clear because I’m sure somebody will read everything above and assume that’s what I’m saying.
It’s not.
I’ve had experiences through traveling and competing that I never would’ve had otherwise. I’ve met people all over the world because of fighting games.
If you love going to majors, go to majors.
The Tower is an alternative.
I wanted something where I could compete from home on the setup I actually practice on, play the ladder around my schedule, and have my results determine how far I climb.
Then I wanted to build something meaningful on top of that.
Reach the Top 8.
Win Champions Arena.
Become a Weekly Champion.
Fight a Boss.
Beat the Boss and become a Boss Slayer.
Keep progressing until somebody earns the right to make the final climb.
And that’s where I come in.
I’m the Final Boss.
I don’t want somebody to register for The Tower and be playing me an hour later just because that’s where we happened to land in a bracket.
If you’re going to reach me, I want there to be a story behind it.
It’s called The Tower for a reason.
You’re supposed to climb it.
I Want People to Make Their Name Through Winning
This might be the part I’m most interested in.
I want somebody we don’t know to enter The Tower and make us learn who they are.
You shouldn’t need to have a big following.
You shouldn’t need to know the right people.
You shouldn’t need everybody on social media telling us you’re good.
Show us.
If you’re good, climb.
Beat somebody people recognize.
Win Champions Arena.
Beat a Boss.
Keep going.
If you make it all the way through the season, survive the final gauntlet and take the Progressive Vault, nobody is going to have to tell us you’re good.
You proved it.
That’s the type of competition I want to see.
The Tower isn’t perfect. Online competition has its own variables. Connections matter. Every format has tradeoffs.
These are the tradeoffs I prefer.
After more than 20 years of competing, I got tired of waiting for somebody else to make the kind of competition I wanted to participate in.
So I made it.
Want to Climb The Tower?
Registration is free.
You can read the full format, see how every stage works and register here:
Perfect Legend