Kapital Koopas: Beijing Smash Redefines Getting Smashed With Weekly Smash Bros Friendlies

Press F to pay respects to all the fallen goombas. It's time for a deep dive into China's gaming culture in our column, Kapital Koopas.

Maintaining its reputation as a city with something for everyone, the capital has long hosted Beijing Smash, a home-grown group of local and foreign players who rally around the Nintendo Switch title Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, a fighting game mash-up of Nintendo and guest characters.

I sat down with Jonathan Augat, the group's head organizer, to talk details about this long-running group of fighting game enthusiasts.

How did Beijing Smash get its start?
We got started around 2014 or 2015. Originally we were at 8-Bit, back when they existed, and we did tournaments there. The tournaments were quite small at the time, maybe ten people, but a lot of people started to find out about it. Now we've grown into multiple venues, and our tournaments have 30, 40 people sometimes. It's gotten a lot bigger.

How do you feel like the scene has evolved since you've joined?
When I first joined there were a lot more foreign players than there were local players – originally it was like 75 percent foreign, but the community's probably 75 percent local now. Obviously part of the big change was Covid – a lot of our foreign players left and haven't been able to come back. But we've been really active on BiliBili, streaming our games on there.

Where'd the rise in local popularity come from?
Smash as a game really blew up in China because the Switch was the first console a lot of Chinese players wanted to get – it's portable, it's different from other Nintendo systems. There's been some tutorials [ed: online videos about how to improve at the game], but none made specifically for the Chinese audience. A lot of local players were looking for videos to explain the game to them. One of our members, Ma, has been making tutorial videos and has become quite well known on BiliBili. Then people find out, oh, he plays in Beijing, I'm gonna come train with him. Everyone comes looking for Ma Laoshi.

The fighting game community is known, maybe notorious, for smack-talk and big personalities. What's the vibe like at BJ Smash?
I've played in Smash tournaments in the US and some in France as well, and I would say our community is much more welcoming. Part of it, I think, is that we've had such an influx of new players and the general turnover.

What’s the turnover like in terms of regular members and involvement?
Beijing's an international city, and so you kind of get a turnover of players – people come for six months or a year, then they go back home. And so that means our community has to be much more open. We have to be more open to new players coming in because the fact is, our community is always churning.

And the thing is, a lot of these new, local players are coming in at the same skill level, and so they've been able to see their improvement over time and compare to their peers. They can see that they're improving themselves every month, every year, and that helps.
 
I remember feeling really intimidated when I first joined. "I'm new, I don't know anything, these guys are all pros," like that.
Oh, me too. The first tournament I ever joined, I got destroyed. Luckily they had a beginner's tournament and, in that one, I didn't get beaten quite so badly. It made me realize, "okay, I'm not the only new player here." So every month we have two beginner's tournaments, and that gives new players a chance to get more games in. That's been a big help too.

We also have friendlies every week, where there's no tournament, no competition. It's just fun, training, and practice.

What makes you guys different from other groups in the fighting game community?
One thing that's really made our scene stand out, and the reason I think a lot of people keep coming, is that we do a lot of stuff outside of Smash. We give people the opportunity to get to know each other outside of the fighting game. We have social events, like the awards dinner at the end of every season – one time we went to a baseball bar, we've done archery dodgeball, gone bowling, and done other fun stuff like that. It's much more community-based.

Where do you see Beijing Smash next year and beyond?
The biggest impediment to what we want to do is, who knows what the restrictions are gonna be like? Beijing Smash is well known for hosting "Smash Dynasty," a massive, all-China tournament. We were actually planning on hosting one last year, but had to postpone it because of Covid restrictions. I'm hoping we can host a Smash Dynasty before the end of 2022, ideally in the summer. This means we could get players from all around China to come in for a three-day event, which would be amazing.

Our greatest goal is to keep on growing our scene. We're looking at possibly other venues as well; we want to try to diversify when we have tournaments so that we can become more easily available for players to come. For example, some players work on Friday nights, some of our tournaments are on Friday nights, that means they can't come. Other players might work on the weekends, that means if we have a tournament on Saturday or Sunday they can't come either. So we want to have options available so that people can feel like they're more a part of the community, they can join in.

Apart from that, I think just continuing what we're doing when it comes to building out the feeling of building out the community, of people feeling like there's always stuff going on.

Any words for those at home, waiting to join in?
Don't be afraid of losing. That's the first and best advice – embrace the losing. I was terrible when I started, I'm still not particularly good; everyone starts out that way, and that’s okay. Understand that we're a community that happens to play Smash Brothers, not really just focused on being the best. So don't be afraid to come out to one of our events. Come to friendlies, come to a new player tournament, and ask for help. There are a bunch of people who speak both English and Chinese who are there to help out.

Any closing notes you want to put out there?
I just want to say, I'm really proud of the way the community has continued going. It looked for a time like Covid was going to be a really big blow, especially in 2020, but people really banded together. Seeing the way everyone came together, supported each other, and helped each other out with things – the community's grown so much. It makes me very proud and happy to be a part of, seeing how everyone's come out to support each other.

One last thing – where can people find you guys and get involved?
Every Wednesday night at The Great Outdoors we have friendlies that begin around 5pm and go until [the] venue closes.

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Images courtesy of Beijing Smash