The Versus Festival was a tournament organized by a ragtag group of friends that are part of the Indian Fighting game community. It was the first anime, fighting game and cosplay event of it’s type and the organizers wanted to do something special for attendees.
Until 2024, fighting game controllers like Arcade sticks and Hitbox controllers were prohibitively expensive for most people, especially for gamers living in India. However, a startup from China called Haute42/Cosmox had just started manufacturing and selling Leverless controllers for a fraction of what they would usually cost. Having used one myself, I had the idea of giving away a Haute42 T16 controller during the event. This would fit in TVF’s limited budget, help us with marketing on social media, and drive more engagement during the event.
Initially, the single controller we would give away during the event would go to the winner of the Street Fighter 6 tournament, but this would change very shortly.
Enter the Second Controller
The initial design plan for the controller was simple – just get official art assets that the tournament was commissioning from independent artists, and slap that art on the controller. Not only would this be uniform branding, but additionally, if there are more tournaments in the future, then each controller that is awarded would have thematic elements and the name of the tournament it was awarded for. I don’t remember who shot down this idea, but it was decided relatively quickly that we should instead go with fighting game artwork.
While trying out different designs and ideas in GIMP – I had a flash of inspiration. The event has 2 tentpoles – Fighting Games, and Anime. I should make artwork that marries both. What if I have two designs? One for Anime and One for Fighting Games? Wouldn’t that require 2 controllers?
The more I thought about it the more it made sense to give away a second controller. The first controller was going to go to the tournament winner – a person with a special gaming skillset, and this would make this controller out of reach for most attendees. What if anyone could get the second controller, no matter how hardcore or casual they are in fighting games?
Eureka! We should hold a charity drive at the event. Attendees would be allowed to donate money to a charity, and participants who donate over a certain amount get entered into the raffle. At the end of the event, we randomly draw a name from the pool of participants, and the winner gets the 2nd controller. What a great idea – anyone with even $1 can now potentially win this controller, and it would be great PR for the event. Surely, this idea is foolproof, and everyone would love it.
I ordered a second controller without authorization from the event organizers, and started working on my artwork so that when I surprise them with the idea, the artwork really drives the point home.
Red and Blue – Yin and Yang
Now completely sold on the double controller giveaway idea, I started working on my designs. I loved the idea of two contrasting sister controllers. Both controllers should have similar themes, but with complimentary characters and colors. I would marry the hottest anime at the time – Jujutsu Kaisen, and the most popular fighting game – Street Fighter 6.
The controller for the tournament winner symbolizes strength, skill and limitless power. It would have warmer and darker themes and would showcase Ryomen Sukuna and Akuma, two villains/anti-heroes that embody these themes. Furthermore, a red and black color scheme fits perfectly with these two characters.
The second controller, the one that will go for charity would showcase Ryu and Satoru Gojo, the protagonists from SF6 and JJK respectively. This controller would have a White and Blue color scheme, to contrast with the other. The owner of this controller would embody kindness, magnanimity, and friendship.
The Giveaway Pivot and Final Designs
With my rough designs ready, I presented my ideas to the event committee, and while they loved the designs, they informed me that the charity idea couldn’t work, because the State government has bans/regulations on sweepstakes.
Since the two controller idea was too good to let go to waste, they decided that the second controller would go to the winner(s) of the Anime Quiz contest that takes place at the event. This was satisfactory for everyone as this allowed potentially any attendee to win the controller, regardless of fighting game skill.
As for the first controller (Akuma/Sukuna), it was decided that it would be awarded to the player that places 2nd in the SF6 tournament, instead of the winner, because the winnings for the tournament were already pretty top-heavy. However, I was opposed to this idea as I wanted it to go to the winner. Instead, I found a happy middle ground, where instead of giving this controller to the winner, it would go to a player who exceeds expectations and causes upsets in the SF6 tournament bracket – a ‘rising star’ in the community, if you will. This idea was embraced by all the parties and I proceeded to work on my final designs.
As seen in the gallery above, the final designs had bigger profile/hero images for Sukuna and Gojo. I placed manga backgrounds on the entire front panel, and the bloodstain/flame effect was made translucent so that some of these panels are visible below. This would later became sort of a signature template of mine. I also replaced the ‘Tourney Tyrant’ and ‘Charity Champ’ labels with names of the characters.
For the back designs, I went with profile shots of Ryu and Akuma, with effects to highlight parts of their body or attire. I also placed text that says ‘Thank you for playing’.
Printing and Cutting
It’s one thing to make fightstick artwork, and another to print and cut it. So much so that there are entire businesses that do one or the other. Businesses like focusattack print your artwork, cut out the button and screw holes, and ship you the final printout for $20-30. Various vendors on Etsy do the same.
While I’ve been making artwork on an on-again off-again basis for 15 years, I hadn’t done my own printing and cutting before. While I would like you, the reader, to think it’s Rocket Science, it’s really not. On a whim, I ordered the following tools off Amazon and got to work.
1x Large Ruler
1x Exacto-Knife
1x Circle Cutter (Compass style)
1x 6mm Hole Puncher
1x 8mm Hole Puncher
With the cost of printing, all of this cost me about AED 120 or about $32. I would go on to use these same tools for other artwork, so they ended up paying for themselves.
Marketing and Result
Once the artwork was printed, cut and installed inside the controllers, I got to work on making a small advertisement for the event. With a few nightlamps and my cellphone, I spend a couple hours in my living room shooting pictures and clips for the ad, and with a few minutes spent figuring out Capcut, the ad was ready (see below).
In May, I flew out from Dubai to Chennai with both controllers in hand, ready to present them to the tournament organizers, so that they could present them to the winners on the day of the event. A Ryu player won the ‘Rising Star’ controller for placing 4th at the event, while beating some stronger players on their way (including yours truly).
The second controller was given to the winners of the Anime Quiz contest. However, since I had to play my matches, I couldn’t be there to witness it.
The Future
The Versus Festival 2024 was largely a success. The organizers went on to create and organize Versus Habba 2025, an event that was even bigger in scale, and had international participation.
Creating artwork for TVF’s controllers was super fun for me, and got me to reconnect with a creative hobby that I had kept dormant for many years. I discovered that there’s a demand for cheap fighting game controllers among all my friends in the FGC, and that I am uniquely qualified in the community to create exciting personalized artwork for their controllers, which I have done many times since TVF 2024.
Key Points:
Controller(s):
Haute42/Cosmox T16 (x2)
Modification(s):
Artwork creation, printing and cutting
Credits:
Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga), sephi22
