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The SoCal Tournament Scene Without SHGL (12.17.03)
Artavan "Maj" Mkhikian
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the fall of Southern Hills Golfland,
the center of Southern California's fighting game tournament scene for over
seven years. With revenues steadily decreasing since the close of the movie
theater next door, Golfland Entertainment Centers, Inc. saw no reason to keep
the small arcade open. The high value of the land it occupied lead to the
demolition of the arcade to make way for a gated community of single family
houses.
There is nothing left of SHGL now, with the newly constructed buildings almost
completed. The entire area, including what was the SHGL parking lot, is enclosed
in a brick wall perimeter. The main access road is named Stepping Stone Cir,
which meets Beach Blvd at the entrance to the community. Within the walls are
over twenty separate houses, at least one of which serves as the sales office.
The deserted movie theater has since been replaced by Super Autobacs, a Japanese
automotive store specializing in rice rocket power ups. The Yoshinoya and the
Burger King are still open, along with a new Quiznos restaurant and a new
Poofy's Pastrami restaurant. The Pho place near the mysteriously vacant donut
store has been revamped. Finally, the furniture store next door with the crazy
neon lights remains completely unchanged.
Camelot Golfland, the supposed replacement for SHGL, has nowhere near the
management support that John "SHGLBoss" Bailon provided the regulars at his arcade.
Camelot may be a much bigger and better funded arcade, but it caters solely
to children's parties and family outings. Where the SHGL management encouraged
its big name players and recognized their valuable ability to help bring in new
customers, Camelot has made an enemy out of every player who requests
tournament support and demands working equipment.
Because of these conditions, the only fighting game group to survive the
transition to Camelot Golfland was the Marvel vs Capcom 2 crowd, but only
as a shadow of its former glory. SHGL's considerable Capcom vs SNK 2 and Third
Strike scenes started frequenting Family Fun Arcade in Granada Hills instead.
The Tekken 4, Soul Calibur 2, and King of Fighters communities completely
vanished. Where SHGL had enjoyed a sizeable Guilty Gear X following, all of
the best SoCal Guilty Gear XX players now play at Family Fun. Most of SHGL's
Bemani game fanatics now either play at home or frequent Arcade Infinity in
Rowland Heights.
The most important function SHGL served was providing a regular meeting ground
for the best players from all of the Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego
area arcades. Everybody knew that the only wins worth bragging about were those
collected at SHGL, so the entirety of the SoCal fighting game scene improved
together. In fact, this reputation was so well respected that even regular
tournaments were reason enough for top players from as far as Las Vegas and
Seattle to make the trip to the surprisingly small arcade in Stanton. Even
after a full year, no arcade has been able to take its place as the core of
the SoCal fighting game community. Not surprisingly, the scene is nowhere near
as cohesive as before and SoCal can no longer claim to be the best in any
major game.
Obviously, SoCal has too many great players to ever disappear off the tournament
circuit. And with a community this large and this dedicated, SoCal will always
pose a threat to the rest of the country at major national tournaments. But for
this region to regain the championship status it enjoyed before the first
Evolution tournament reshuffled the national rankings board, it's going to take
a lot of cooperation, a lot of friendly rivalry, and a lot of personal
dedication. Because no matter how perfect or how poor the situation is, the
most important factor of all is somebody deciding to do whatever it takes to
be the best and following through every day until it happens.
However, for those of us who thought of SHGL as our home arcade, nothing can
ever replace that run-down hole-in-the-wall we all loved. There will never be
another hangout that is as easy to go to or as important to defend. And the sad
truth is that most of the players responsible for SoCal's reputation will never
care as much about practicing or take a loss as personally as they did during
SHGL's glory days.
Really, it's the people of this community that matter most of all. The SHGL
regulars were a group of the most diverse individuals imaginable. That's what
made the whole thing so magic. From Watson parrying chairs, to Thao telling
someone to hold his kid when his turn came up at SFA3, to Wizard the orange
token machine letting everyone know what's up with the Golfland jingle, to Alex
Valle giving some new kid the twenty questions, to Crackhead Bob losing countless
tokens in shady card games with Scan, SHGL had a personality all its own.
Ultimately, this is also what makes the fall of SHGL so depressing - these
people are so diverse that aside from that arcade, there's just no way to get
them all back together. And there's no drama like Golfland drama ...
    
Photographs taken by MrWizard on 10.10.2002
    
Photographs taken by art and ALTANertive on 10.26.2003 (the SoCal Armageddon)
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