Asian Games profile: Drawing lessons from e-sports

An ancient Chinese tale tells of a race among animals, with the sequence they finished determining the 12-year zodiac cycle’s order. First came the rat, then ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig.

At the Sept 23-Oct 8 Asian Games in Hangzhou, Singapore’s 431-strong contingent will also be racing for honours. The Straits Times features 12 of them, each corresponding to one of the animals of the Chinese zodiac. In the ninth profile of the series, Kimberly Kwek chats with e-sports player Brandon Chia.

How did you get started in Street Fighter?

When I was very young, my parents used to go to NTUC FairPrice at Tampines Mall and there was an arcade at the top floor so my mum would give me $5 to hang out there for an hour or two. The first game I started was Street Fighter Alpha 2.

I started competing only in 2017 after I met the local fighting game community in 2016. By nature, I’m quite a competitive person so in a matter of time the urge to join competitions came about and 2017 was my first major tournament.

What do you love about competition?

For me, it’s the satisfaction of victory – it always feels good. The one that I enjoy the most is playing well in a tournament. Of course, winning is important, but if I play to a level that I’m happy with, even if I do go home a loser, it’s fine, because I know that I played my best and it just wasn’t enough.

What does it take to be a good Street Fighter player?

There’s a physical and there’s a mental aspect to this. For the physical, if one is passionate about improving in fighting games in general, they can play non-stop every day and they will gradually improve.

From the mental aspect, definitely the most important one is focus level.

You can go home or you can progress to the next round of a tournament in 10 minutes.

Decisions have to be made very quickly and if you have a low focus level, then it can just snowball into a negative effect very quickly without you knowing how it actually happened.

Is there anything you do to train your focus?

It’s about finding what works for you. When I first started in fighting game tournaments, my focus was really bad. I think mainly because I transitioned from being a snooker player to fighting games.

In snooker, you don’t have to make a decision quickly... but in fighting games you have to make it in a second or two.

I have one pre-match preparation to get into the bubble or zone: An hour before my match, I stay away from everybody.

What is the biggest obstacle e-sports players in Singapore face?

It’s probably the lack of the e-sports ecosystem. There are not many sponsors or companies willing to invest in e-sports. There are very few tournaments in the local scene, not just for Street Fighter, but also for most fighting games.

It’s very difficult for a lot of us to pursue e-sports because there are not many opportunities to be a full-time player. So realistically if somebody is going to go all in without a sponsor or contract with a company, he is not going to be able to foot his bills.

What is the biggest misconception people have about e-sports?

There’s a fair share of people out there who think that e-sports is easy because at the end of the day it is pretty much games. But in every game, not just fighting games, there are a lot of factors that come into play, such as teamwork. For Street Fighter, there are a lot of factors like focus level, mental strategy, planning, adaptation. There is a lot that gets ignored because the games fly by very quickly and it’s not easy to spot for someone who doesn’t really play the game.

How do you feel about e-sports making its Asian Games debut? 

It’s definitely very good. Technically, Street Fighter was supposed to be in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics but it got scrapped somehow and it later transformed into the Intel World Open, which I managed to win for our region.

We’re currently competing in Street Fighter 6 although the Asian Games version is Street Fighter 5, so one of the major Games having Street Fighter 6 will definitely be a very good inclusion.

How has e-sports changed you as a person? 

One thing that Street Fighter has taught me is not to regret what I’ve done. When you go into so many tournaments and you could make wrong decisions that could cost you the game, the feeling is not going to be good at the start. But after a while, you just get used to it and you say, ‘I made the choice and if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out’. I’ve brought that into life like if I do choose to do something, I’m not going to regret it – if it goes south, it goes south.

How are you similar to your zodiac sign – the monkey?

I’m not a very good loser. There’s always an hour after a loss when I’m in catastrophic mode where I don’t really want to talk to people and if people talk to me, I might say something that I didn’t mean to say. If I take a loss, I take it really hard and I just want to stay away from people for half an hour to an hour.

There is a lot of reflection on the match that just happened. Once the reflection is done, I cool down and I’ll be back to normal. During that time, I would just rather get away from everyone, rather than make someone upset.

Fact file

Name: Brandon Chia
Age: 30
Achievements: Intel World Open SEA gold (2021), Capcom Pro Tour South-east Asia bronze (2021), Evolution Championship Series Online Asia South bronze (2021), Capcom Pro Tour South-east Asia gold (2022).