Blind Street Fighter V Player Wins at Pro Tournament

cageymaru

cageymaru

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"Sven", a blind Street Fighter V player, competed at a professional tournament and won a match! Playing as Ken in the video below, Sven used left and right sound cues to track his opponent's location in the game. Then he was able to lay the smack down on his opponent Musashi. There is a post match interview also.

I would quit the professional fighting game scene if I were his opponent. Losing to a blind opponent has to be embarrassing! On the other hand, way to kick some butt Sven! And props to Capcom for making the sound in the game so good that even a person with a handicap can play!

Sven states by way of a post-game interview that he became blind as a child because of cancer, but didn't give up playing games. He heralds Street Fighter V s a milestone in sound engineering, stating that with a headset, he can hear the difference between left and right cues, and that after a lengthy period of study he has most of them down.
 
I think the second interesting thing here is that Street Fighter V can be played as if you were playing a musical instrument of some kind. Seemingly independent of what the opponent is doing. If you just happen to know your location to gauge which direction to pull the moves off to, it doesn't matter what the opponent does as long as you stick to combinations and predictive moves that you're used to pulling off. It's hard for me to imagine that the sound on it's own is a good indicator of what your opponent is doing other than giving you a cue as to their general position.

Perhaps that's an oversimplification and in no way am I devaluing what this guy did but that's how it's coming off to me. Major props though. I suck at any fighting game so I'm always amazed at what these pro guys can do.
 
Got a pretty serious laugh going on when one of the announcers said "I've never seen Sven..." talking about how he (the announcer) had never watched this guy play before. Sorry, my oddball sense of humor at work.

Nothing special at work here that I can see as neither of them played with any particularly awesome styles or timing, a lot of the conflict was basically a lot of "I'll try this and see what happens..." but even so, the fact that someone that no visual sense at all of what's going on and relies purely on the audio - props to Capcom for that aspect - is still pretty amazing overall.
 
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Sonicks said:
I think the second interesting thing here is that Street Fighter V can be played as if you were playing a musical instrument of some kind. Seemingly independent of what the opponent is doing. If you just happen to know your location to gauge which direction to pull the moves off to, it doesn't matter what the opponent does as long as you stick to combinations and predictive moves that you're used to pulling off. It's hard for me to imagine that the sound on it's own is a good indicator of what your opponent is doing other than giving you a cue as to their general position.

Perhaps that's an oversimplification and in no way am I devaluing what this guy did but that's how it's coming off to me. Major props though. I suck at any fighting game so I'm always amazed at what these pro guys can do.
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Fighting games have a bit more going on that can give audio cues. For example, if you're near an opponent, a medium kick might make one animation/sound that is different than if he's further away. And of course, hits sound different than whifs. So by learning how moves sound, you can be quite effective. Sightless Kombat has videos up of his gameplay, and some tutorials if you're interested to know how it works.

 
cageymaru said:
I would quit the professional fighting game scene if I were his opponent. Losing to a blind opponent has to be embarrassing!
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Wow dude, really? That's just a dick thing to say. I've come here for over a decade for news and reviews, and don't mind too much the occasional editorial comment, even when I disagree with some of them... but don't be shitty.
 
You should look up Brolylegs also. I am not sure how he is doing in Street Fighter 5, but he was an amazing Chun-li player in Street Fighter 4.
 
Setiri said:
Wow dude, really? That's just a dick thing to say. I've come here for over a decade for news and reviews, and don't mind too much the occasional editorial comment, even when I disagree with some of them... but don't be shitty.
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I don't understand why this is rude?

It's no different If you were going to run a race of a 100 meter dash while jumping over hurdles while your opponent was also legally blind. It turns out you lost the race to the blind man. You telling me you wouldn't feel embarrassed?
 
BigMyke said:
I don't understand why this is rude?

It's no different If you were going to run a race of a 100 meter dash while jumping over hurdles while your opponent was also legally blind. It turns out you lost the race to the blind man. You telling me you wouldn't feel embarrassed?
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I think it's about the tone of the comment. Rather than sound like, 'he lost to someone who really applied themselves to overcome their own handicap' it sounds more like 'he lost to someone who shouldn't even be able to win and should feel embarrassed'. The latter lumps all blind people into a category in which they shouldn't even be able to play games and the former puts the blind player's real ability into perspective.

They both have the same general meaning however so it's ultimately up for interpretation. I don't think the comment is shitty in any way but it was a bit under-thought. I see it more along the lines of: the loser should feel embarrassed for not having applied themselves in the same capacity the blind player did and should quit the scene.
 
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Interestingly, due to the processing time it take for visual stimuli, auditory responses tend to be faster than visual stumili response times. I personally find that it's my auditory responses that save my bacon in FPS games more so than visual reponses... so maybe this guy just found a way to hack the system, lol...
 
I thought it was awesome that he could use the audio clues to defeat his opponent. I don't think words like awesome even come close to what this guy did. I think it is remarkable that he's that good at the game and blind. I also think that if I lost to him that I would quit. It would be soul shattering to lose to a blind guy at a fighting game. Hell if I lost to my mom I would quit. At best I would reevaluate my life goals if I thought I was going to go "Pro" and compete for money.

I wasn't trying to brush off his victory. I wasn't trying to say that it was luck. I think it was pure skill based by reading the audio clues presented by Capcom. Pure. Raw. Skill. I think Capcom should be commended for caring this much about the audio in their games, thus giving this guy a "fighting" chance to compete!

Now take that as you will; it's how I felt when commenting on the article.
 
BigMyke said:
I don't understand why this is rude?

It's no different If you were going to run a race of a 100 meter dash while jumping over hurdles while your opponent was also legally blind. It turns out you lost the race to the blind man. You telling me you wouldn't feel embarrassed?
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Some people see the disgrace in themselves.
Some people see the honor in your opponent.
Loosing to a blind man does not devalue all my prior wins. instead it just shows how much my opponent is good.

The mentally of loosing is always a disgrace is why it so hard to have serious scientific debate on forums, because people are more concerned about not loosing an argument rather then enjoying finding the truth with someone potential better than you.
 
cageymaru said:
I thought it was awesome that he could use the audio clues to defeat his opponent. I don't think words like awesome even come close to what this guy did. I think it is remarkable that he's that good at the game and blind. I also think that if I lost to him that I would quit. It would be soul shattering to lose to a blind guy at a fighting game. Hell if I lost to my mom I would quit. At best I would reevaluate my life goals if I thought I was going to go "Pro" and compete for money.

I wasn't trying to brush off his victory. I wasn't trying to say that it was luck. I think it was pure skill based by reading the audio clues presented by Capcom. Pure. Raw. Skill. I think Capcom should be commended for caring this much about the audio in their games, thus giving this guy a "fighting" chance to compete!

Now take that as you will; it's how I felt when commenting on the article.
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It was marginally untactful in it's wording (though FAR less so than my comment)...but not really offensive or untrue. I've got terrible asthma and if I beat Usain Bolt in a 400m dash, Usain Bolt should be embarrassed. Given that the word video, thus implying visual presentation, is literally half of the term video game, assuming that getting beat by somebody completely without that faculty should be (at the professional gamer level) embarrassed isn't that far from the reality of the situation. Ie. if this guy is able to train himself to do this good just off AUDIO cues, than other PROFESSIONAL gamers should be able to do the same PLUS the benefit of having visual cues....thus they should have a distinct advantage and still lost.

*edited for bad grammar, probably missed even more
 
cageymaru said:
I thought it was awesome that he could use the audio clues to defeat his opponent. I don't think words like awesome even come close to what this guy did. I think it is remarkable that he's that good at the game and blind. I also think that if I lost to him that I would quit. It would be soul shattering to lose to a blind guy at a fighting game. Hell if I lost to my mom I would quit. At best I would reevaluate my life goals if I thought I was going to go "Pro" and compete for money.

I wasn't trying to brush off his victory. I wasn't trying to say that it was luck. I think it was pure skill based by reading the audio clues presented by Capcom. Pure. Raw. Skill. I think Capcom should be commended for caring this much about the audio in their games, thus giving this guy a "fighting" chance to compete!

Now take that as you will; it's how I felt when commenting on the article.
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Again, you're not only demeaning the loser of the match but the winner at the same time. You don't seem to realize it though as per the example you used. I'm pretty far from a politically correct SJW, but this is base level stuff. "If I lost to my mom I would quit." Really? If your mom played 3 hours a day and was really good at the game which you played only occasionally, and she spanked your ass whenever you played, would you really say that? Or would you say, "No dude, my mom is insanely good at this game. It doesn't matter that she's my mom, she's a good player."? The part you're missing here is that you should be able to substitute anyone in. "If I got beat by ***, I'd quit." So basically, anyone who doesn't fit your stereotype of the normal gamer who beats a stereotypical gamer is... amazing and the other person should just quit? Ok.
 
Meeho said:
Jeez, can we stop with the "I'm offended on behalf of others" nonsense. Special snowflakes everywhere.
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I'm not offended on behalf of anyone, I'm calling out someone's actions as dick'ish.

Or, I'm sorry, can you not handle criticism? Is everything you do perfect and we shouldn't ever call you or anyone else out on it? Special snowflake indeed. :)
 
To me, when you say "professional" loses to a blind person in a video game the OP has a point. If a blind person beat another gamer in Madden what would you think of the loser's skills? It would be impossible. The fact that it happened speaks more about fighting games than anything.
 
I would say it's impressive, but literally anyone who can functionally play Street Fighter impresses me. With the kicking and the buttoning and all that. Beyond me.
 
Setiri said:
I'm not offended on behalf of anyone, I'm calling out someone's actions as dick'ish.

Or, I'm sorry, can you not handle criticism? Is everything you do perfect and we shouldn't ever call you or anyone else out on it? Special snowflake indeed. :)
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Yeah.. I'm one of those confused by you being offended over this.

Either way amazing how he merely learned the sounds of the game and responded as so.
 
Setiri said:
Again, you're not only demeaning the loser of the match but the winner at the same time. You don't seem to realize it though as per the example you used. I'm pretty far from a politically correct SJW, but this is base level stuff. "If I lost to my mom I would quit." Really? If your mom played 3 hours a day and was really good at the game which you played only occasionally, and she spanked your ass whenever you played, would you really say that?
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This is awesome. I gotta get back to learning how to play street figher 5. It just felt so different from 4 that I kinda gave up on trying to learn 5.
 
Meeho said:
Jeez, can we stop with the "I'm offended on behalf of others" nonsense. Special snowflakes everywhere.
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Think about what is being said in that statement. Person A is so bad at this game that if person B loses they should never play again because losing to person A makes you *irredeemable*. What could possibly be so bad about person A that it you are *irredeemable* by losing to them? Their disability. It doesn't matter how much person A practices, how hard they try, whether their unconventional playing style caught person B off guard etc. They are to be defined by that disability and not allowed to overcome it i.e. be a respected SFV player.

To repeat myself, the problem with the statement is it makes it impossible for person A to be viewed as anything but a defective person rather than just someone who has attained some skill in his hobby despite his huge disadvantage in pursuing it.
 
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Jamison Collins said:
Think about what is being said in that statement. Person A is so bad at this game that if person B loses they should never play again because losing to person A makes you *irredeemable*. What could possibly be so bad about person A that it you are *irredeemable* by losing to them? Their disability. It doesn't matter how much person A practices, how hard they try, whether their unconventional playing style caught person B off guard etc. They are to be defined by that disability and not allowed to overcome it i.e. be a respected SFV player.

To repeat myself, the problem with the statement is it makes it impossible for person A to be viewed as anything but a defective person rather than just someone who has attained some skill in his hobby despite his huge disadvantage in pursuing it.
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Or one could, you know, not read that much into it.
 
Meeho said:
Or one could, you know, not read that much into it.
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That's the plain meaning of what was said. If you disagree tell me how else it should be interpreted. You can't just say nuh-uh.

Or let me ask, which part of what I wrote do you consider to be "reading into things"? Where did I go off the rails?
 
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It's banter. You went off the rails the moment you felt it was worth more than a passing thought.
 
Meeho said:
It's banter. You went off the rails the moment you felt it was worth more than a passing thought.
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Another "nuh-uh". Why are you afraid to defend your position?

Let me ask you this. What if Sven had been a sighted black man? Or gay? Or a woman? Would it still just be banter? Why would it not be ok to say "if you lose to a black man you should just quit"? What is the *specific* difference?

(there is actually a correct answer to that question but we'll see if you get it).
 
Jamison Collins said:
Another "nuh-uh". Why are you afraid to defend your position?

Let me ask you this. What if Sven had been a sighted black man? Or gay? Or a woman? Would it still just be banter? Why would it not be ok to say "if you lose to a black man you should just quit"? What is the *specific* difference?

(there is actually a correct answer to that question but we'll see if you get it).
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The specific difference is that blindness is a disability that you sometimes just can't overcome no matter how much you try and competing at a pro level in a visual medium is one of those times. If you aspire for top levels and can't beat a blind person, you either had a shitty day or you aren't good enough to compete at pro level or you just didn't care enough or you are great but he is damn good better than 99% of players or whatever.

Going into the specifics of the case at point, whether John Doe 1 overcame his handicap and became a l33t master fighter or John Doe 2 was this or that is just autistic nitpicking and overanalyzing a harmless passing joke.

I feel retarded having to write as many posts on the issue myself at this point.
 
Meeho said:
The specific difference is that blindness is a disability that you sometimes just can't overcome no matter how much you try and competing at a pro level in a visual medium is one of those times.
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Ahh, but you're begging the question here. If Sven winning a ranked match is not proof it is possible to overcome his disability then what would it take? Does he have to win a champtionship, something which necessarily almost zero sighted players are capable of?

If you aspire for top levels and can't beat a blind person, you either had a shitty day or you aren't good enough to compete at pro level or you just didn't care enough or you are great but he is damn good better than 99% of players or whatever.
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No idea what the latter half of your sentence means but again you are begging the question. It is simply impossible, in your mind, that a blind player could achieve any level of skill in the game, despite this apparent evidence to the contrary.

Going into the specifics of the case at point, whether John Doe 1 overcame his handicap and became a l33t master fighter or John Doe 2 was this or that is just autistic nitpicking and overanalyzing a harmless passing joke.

I feel retarded having to write as many posts on the issue myself at this point.
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Explain the joke to me. Why is what was said "funny"? Believe it or not but I have a decent sense of humor and I don't see the joke. What I do see dog whistling under the guise of "humor"--lets mock people who are "other" and then fall back to the "joke" defense if we are called on it.
 
Every action and reaction in fighting games has a sound effect so It is totally doable.I did it in battle arena toshinden for fun
 
Jamison Collins said:
No idea what the latter half of your sentence means but again you are begging the question. It is simply impossible, in your mind, that a blind player could achieve any level of skill in the game, despite this apparent evidence to the contrary.
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Since you make things up you can continue this conversation by yourself.
 
Makes you think don't it..
An entire niche genre of sound-only games, meant to be played in blindfold with headphones
Could be fun even for non blind persons.. it would be very niche I think, but might be profitable if done properly.
 
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