_{(Credit to sfkingalpha on Reddit for the photo)}

I was recently browsing an internet forum discussing Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and something interesting popped up.

The discussion can be found here: https://www.xboxachievements.com/forum/topic/149385-my-2-cents-into-the-marvel-vs-capcom-quotspammingquot/

The post from user “StarTruck Jonez” recounts the following: “For those who live in New York City, maybe you remember a place called Broadway City on 42cd street. It was a fun spot to play many an arcade game – including MvC2. One day, a damn good player went in there, and started doing the infinite combos and everything else you guys are talking about up there. He was taking people out left and right with ease. Then one group of kids started placing bets on some new kid. The damn good player beats the new kid fast and easy. One of the kids from the group pulled out a knife and stabbed the damn good player. Needless to say, Broadway City was shut down after that. My point to all this is if you do shit like that in the wrong places, you get hurt for real. Its just a game. Embrace it.”

The above quote is the only thing that shed light on this event.

Mainstream media coverage: I looked up any stories with mainstream media outlets covering this event and only a vague story from circa 2003 showed up with not much discussing on “how” this event transpired.

You can see from the following link the arcade owner refused to provide commentary: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/8-shot-2-stabbed-in-nyc-club-melee/

There was almost little, to no coverage of this event and no one seemed to want to talk about what happened. NYPD involvement seemed to be covering up any association with Marvel vs. Capcom 2 according to this article: https://nypost.com/2003/03/29/cops-shut-shoot-em-up-arcade/

Its also worth noting the media may have added details for their own spin like “shooting”…to which the user above made no reference to a shooting, however both sources account for a stabbing. The NYPD also admitted “gang activity” was not related to the incident at hand … but it didn’t stop NY media from putting their own spin on the story. NYPD also strangely made the issue about “liquor’ and “minors” being on the second floor of the arcade while completely avoiding any mentioning of the video games.

There is some interesting things mentioned with this story that makes one take a step back and put things into perspective: People often downplay video games and say how these games are “not real life” and so on. The thing that is baffling about this story is it shows real emotions can manifest from these video games and have real life implications in the right setting.

These games seem to manifest very negative emotions and competition in their natural settings in an arcade environment when around other physical people.

I don’t know the people involved or if there are missing details to the story, but its still a crazy thought how these video games, and largely e-sports receive almost no backlash or scrutiny from any communities at all as to “what” they are doing to peoples mind set or any other irregular behaviors.

Anecdotally, I have found friends in a much more irritable state when playing competitive gaming and getting much angrier playing online competitive games. I couldn’t see something like this happening in the confines of a normal sporting event with people I have personally met over the years compared to the likelihood of people getting tilted over video games at various gatherings.

That says alot considering again most people pass off video games as a fantasy product that has no consequences in the real world.

In addition, live-service competitive video games provide an unrestricted, untapped outlet to engage in these type of activities 24/7, 365 not constrained to a season…nor provide physical benefits to the user either. Video games take the competitive aspects of sports and remove any of the benefits of the physical sport product.

_{(Credit again to sfkingalpha on Reddit for the photo)}