Neo, a tournament fighting video game player, is from here in Bakersfield. He has ranked about fifth place in the world in the Marvel vs. Capcom gaming series, a fighting video games series in its third installment. The game was developed by Capcom and started in the mid-‘90s. He recently won $10,000 playing a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 one-on-one match.

Neo was first exposed to video games as a child in Guadalajara, Mexico. He said, “I used to go to this placed where they served menudo. They always had an arcade machine in there. I would always see 16, 17, 20-year-olds, playing Street Fighter 2. Just watching them have fun and be competitive made me wonder about it.

Ever since then, seeing fighting games, or video games all together, I’ve wanted to play them.”

Neo explained what it means to play these fighting games at a higher level and how he reached that place mentally. “When you play against people at a higher level, you discover things about yourself, not just in fighting games, but you could be doing a sport, and as you’re getting better at it, your brain starts to register new strategies, new things you can do to correct these previous mistakes.”

The $10,000 match that happened last February was called “The Final Chapter.” It was meant as a send off of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, a game with an intense ten-year-long tournament following. Neo played Clockw0rk, a veteran player of fighting video games. “We call them OGs because they have contributed to a part of the scene,” Neo said of Clockw0rk.

According to Neo, it takes players six to ten years to play at the level he got to in about three years, and because of his rapid success, ClockW0rk’s following and history with the tournament fighting scene, and Neo’s defensive playing style, Neo said about 80% of the audience was against him.

“It can do one of two things, a lot of people are going to get crushed or nervous by it, for me it actually does the opposite. What it does, it motivates me, so when they did it to me, it was more like ‘ok now I really want to win,’” said Neo about playing in front of that type of crowd.

Neo wanted to create excitement around the match, so he decided to have a little fun with it.

“There were a lot of theatrics involved in it, he was clearly the good guy. I’m thinking how can I get people more involved, well people already want me to lose, I might as well run with it.

“So I took this role of a heel. To where we both made videos, of him saying ‘show up to the match and have fun.’ Then me saying, ‘This guy can’t beat me, so come show up just to give me your money.’ So that gets people’s attention, and other people will be like ‘have you heard about his video? Yeah dude it just came out, go watch it. I can’t wait for this match to happen.’ So it spreads.”

A humorous thing happened to Neo when Clockw0rk was ahead.

“At one point, the crowd, in unison, started chanting what I thought was Neo, [so I thought], ok now I’ve become the underdog because it’s obvious he’s beating me at this moment, so maybe the crowd wants me to win, to fight back.

“What I didn’t know was that they were actually chanting Freeo.  In the fighting community, free means you’re free money because anyone can beat you. They combined my name Neo, with free, so Freeo. So I was getting a little happy, thinking at least they’re behind me, but they’re chanting Freeo trying to elevate ClockW0rk, but you go through the process and you adapt,” he said.

“The Final Chapter” match was Neo’s favorite and most memorable moment playing video games competitively.

“It created a lot of hype moments. A lot of them created by Clockw0rk, others created by me. It made me not only be in that moment right there, but made me think about from where I started, to how far I went, to that moment in time. Even though the crowd at first was hostile, at the end it seemed a great part of the crowd went my way.”

The tournament fighting video game community is even bigger than the local and national level; it is an international community with people coming from Japan, Central America and South America.

He said of his experience being invited and playing a national tournament in Mexico. “It was easy for me since I spoke Spanish. Most countries that invite you to go, they greet you, they treat you really well, they show you around.

“Most players in the states in the Marvel series dominate, so when we play, players are really happy that you come through and they get a first hand exposure of your game play first hand.

“There was a kid that beat me once or twice, and you would think that would make the crowd happy. You know “one of our own is keeping up”. But they actually got a bit upset. It was like ‘I thought you were going to beat everybody.’”