The Street Fighter account officially announced the commencement of the Street Fighter 6 art competition whose third edition is called ‘New Challenger Edition’ and will show up the votes already. The entire process of submission took its toll and 84 entries after the long waiting have been officially accepted; now the gaming community will select the ultimate 28 winners. The voting players will receive a special wallpaper and the one who has logged in using a CAPCOM ID will also get a unique in-game title; voting ends on the 25th of January.
What’s more, the developers at Capcom couldn’t possibly think of anything better than allowing the fans to choose their favorite artworks. If it was named after Terry Bogard, the ‘New Challenger Edition’ contest, perhaps just because, has managed to let through the ton of submissions 84 pieces that are now available for a vote open to the public. But the good thing is that it is not just that the best art gets to be seen. If you go to the website and cast your vote, you get not just a great wallpaper for your phone, desktop, etc. But hold on there is more –l if you log in with a CAPCOM ID to vote, they will provide you with a special in-game title in Street Fighter 6. That is a great deal for just clicking a few buttons, don’t you think? The voting is open only until January 25 at 11:59 PM PST, so if you want to get that deal, you need to hurry.
The community’s reaction on twitter, or X or whatever it is called this week, has been very mixed, all over the place – from being really excited to some negative reactions. Some players are very happy about the excellent artworks. One of the Twitters Dawn mentioned, “with the many great pieces it is so difficult to choose one 😩”, which is an expression that many of us can relate to. While the user Team GOGO eSports was really excited and simply posted, “Looking forward to the winner in this contest!! Quite a nice way to show the community!!” It is evident that there are many who see this as a very good opportunity to get the talent in the fighting game scene to be recognized.
Then, of course, it is impossible to have a community event without people portraying their different views. Some of the players involved even became more specific about their favorites. User ElitistChimp shared their favorite characters, while another user, AlfredInTheWood, made the comment “wow the e honda is crazy” showing his love for the sumo master. Moreover, there was a pretty good moment when the artist who made the popular E. Honda drawing, 5_StarGold, appeared in the replies and thanked the people who praised his work. Such moments of interaction are what make these contests feel alive, don’t you think?
Not everything that was said was good, however. Some players took this opportunity to complain about the game Street Fighter 6 itself. The user RuiCost58168533 cracked a rather harsh joke, posted a meme and said, “Funny thing is these great artworks are from the 3rd SF Art Contest… while SF6 still on its ‘SF6: Starving Edition’ 😅.” Ouch! A more severe user, AleGrado87, went straight to the point: “They are so lazy and short on ideas that they can’t even be bothered to come up with an art piece for the game. SF6 has the least content of all in terms of game editions.” Yikes! For some people, the contest merely highlighted what they believed was a shortage of content in the form of official in-game content.
Besides that, the process of voting raised some practical questions among the users. One of them is ABluesInTheVoid, who asked a very pertinent question: “Can we find out which artist created the picture we are voting for, if there is a way? Because then we can check the rest of their works.” That’s a really solid question for anyone who loves discovering new artists. And then there were the, um, very passionate campaigners. User JuriForFortnite saw the art and immediately turned the discussion around writing “I vote to add Juri Han to @fortnite”. Well, you have to go for it, right?
TheHeartless193 commented on the finalist but suggested a softer critique, “I think some of the picks are pretty close to previous winners,” while some congratulated the finalists. And of course, the classic community discussion about character drawings popped up. In a thread about a drawing of Blanka, RuiCost58168533 said, “At least Blanka in that drawing is portrayed as he should be – not like a green gorilla as he is in SF6.” The debate over character designs seems like it will never come to end, not even in the fan art department! Ultimately, Capcom’s resolution to involve the PlayStation and Xbox communities in this voting process is a smart move.
