At Saigon Cup 2018, I was able to talk fighting games with the one and only Core-A Gaming. His insight and vast bank of knowledge on all fighting games really allowed me to piece together some concepts and interesting ideas and theories. Not only was he kind of to explain the ins and outs of the meta that was being played out on screen in front of me. But, he was also willing to help me translate Jeondding’s interview. A talented and passionate member of the FGC, it was a pleasure to have interviewed him.

How did you get into YT?

I went to ArcadeStream a lot, which is kind of like a barcade. It was run by a guy called DrakeFang, and a lot of talented players were hanging out at this particular spot. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to make some good content. I mean, you had players like Infiltration just turning up at this place and there wasn’t any media paying attention to him. I think that might have been because of the language barrier. It really struck me as a opportunity to get some exclusive content that other companies wouldn’t necessarily touch because of the costs involved in going to South Korea to interview one person. Luckily I spoke Korean so I was able to become a one-man band. For me it was just something natural, it felt like filling a role.

Biggest challenges as a content creator?

Coming up with something that isn’t obvious that would be useful to the community. Additionally, trying to find a different perspective and present a coherent and relevant idea. That is why I use a lot of analogies that have parallels to fighting games. Also, a game like Chess. That is probably the earliest game that is similar to fighting games, in terms of mind games, that has been patched. Pawns use to be able to move only one piece, after they were able to move two pieces and now they are only able to move two pieces on the first turn. Just finding the similarity in these abstract ideas that relate to fighting games is something that I find really cool. These are the types of topics I try to cover.

How do you prioritise what goes into your videos?

I come up with a concept or a theme, and everything I make for the video. I try to make it relate to the theme or concept. So currently, I am working on a concept around ‘salt’. I am trying to make sure everything I add into the video can very clearly be related to salt. Most of the hours in my videos go into writing the script for the video. The special effects, and the actual video editing doesn’t take that much time. The script is where the majority of my hours go. There has been times where I have spent several hours on a single sentence.

Are there any events you are looking forward to?

So, I am not able to attend a lot of events but I have been able to go to a lot of the Asian events because UYU has been gracious enough to help me with this. I am going to be making more content with UYU players, which is why they have been able to help me out. I was able to go to Combo Breaker and I am most definitely looking forward to CEO. From what I have seen, these tournaments look really well organised and the atmosphere and hype really appeal to me.

What advice do you have for people why want to get into content creation?

Well, the content creation I do isn’t the most common type of content. So, the stuff that I will say will only apply to people who are doing similar content to me. When it comes to this kind of content, you have to nail the writing really well. All the stuff they teach you in school about structure, pacing and evidence really helps. I don’t really like my voice either, I don’t think I am a very good narrator and some of my content is kind of cheesy with the special effects. But, I think I would rather create a good piece of content with less well done secondary effects. I mean, if you think about a cake. Would you rather have a good piece of cake, with a little bit of icing or would you rather a lot of icing with a small amount of cake. You would prefer the more substantial meal right? That’s kind of how I think about content creation. Focus on making the actual content as good as possible, it is easy to get caught up with YouTube strategies and promotion. But, what's more important is making your content as good as possible. If the content is strong enough, it will fly. I remember getting 10,000 views on my first video and I was super happy. But I made the mistake of thinking that 10,000 views wasn’t really worth the time I put in. Now, that video has over 200,000 views so over time your channel will grow. After 6 months of continuous content, my channel really started blowing up. YouTube’s algorithm recognised that people were watching my content all the way through, rewatching it and sharing it. So it gave me a lot of exposure on the platform when people were watching similar content. Just remember, slick content isn’t the same as good content. Writing is the foundation for good content. Quality content will always trump other secondary factors.

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