Our little community: camaraderie is magic

While every gaming community should strive to become as huge as possible, there are fun times you can only have in a niche group of closely-knit friends.

My colleague Mary-Anne wrote a compelling piece on how not enough Singaporeans show up at gaming tournaments, and while I agree with her entirely that every gamer should make an individual effort to help their favorite gaming communities grow, there is also a nice calm to enjoy before the storm of a scene taking off. As the saying goes, sometimes it’s nice to stop and smell the roses, and in the case of a small gaming community, there is a certain fragrance to be enjoyed.

Here is a list of the things I personally enjoy about being a part of a small gaming community.

Our last Gundam Extreme Vs: Full Boost mini tournament we held last weekend.

Democracy

For big communities like Dota 2 or League of Legends, it is darn near impossible to have your voice heard. You will probably need to share a common opinion with a large percentage of the community and put in a lot of effort into voicing it out. And even then, if you want something to change, like the way tournaments are run, for example, the decision is still largely held by the head honchos who may simply choose to ignore your pleas. When your group is small it’s easy to have your opinion heard, and if your idea is a good and sound one, it’s also easy to have it put into practice.

Friendship

As a famous TV show intro song goes, ’Sometimes you want to go where everyone knows your name.’ It’s nice to show up for a tournament to see friendly familiar faces everywhere, mixed in with a few new faces who you will soon welcome into your group’s inner sanctum and befriend. Friendly rivalries are tons of fun, and when everyone is chummy and friendly, it leads well into the next point:

Everything (not everyone) is more casual

Do your tournament prizes suck? Is your livestream trickling with viewers? Did a controller accidentally get unplugged mid-match, forcing the match to start over? Good news, no one cares. Make no mistake, everyone still comes to tournaments aiming to win, but everyone is just that much more laid back. This kind of crap wouldn’t fly in a big tournament and these kind of incidents would probably lead to forum-wide drama, but your small community will forgive you because they know you’re just an amateur who’s probably too stupid to know any better.

No man gets left behind

I can’t speak on behalf of all the other insignificantly-small gaming communities, but in the case of the one I’m most active in, all the players are very willing to share gameplay tips and help each other get better in the game. For big time games like Street Fighter IV, it’s the modus operandi to train in a secret military-grade bunker, learning new tech and keeping it to yourself so that no one will know how to beat you. It’s not exactly wrong, and it’s the smart thing to do, but it’s also just plain nice to know everyone is selflessly helping each other on the path to mastering the same game you all love.