Although I grew up playing fighting games casually on SNES and Dreamcast pads, by 2004, I had been playing competitively entirely in arcades for about 3 years. During the school year, I played at the Bearcade; when I was home on break, I played at Interface Arcade and Family Fun Arcade. I didn’t need my own controller, because wherever I played, I was playing on American arcade cabinets with Happ sticks and buttons, the real chunky kind, with the buttons spread out like side dishes that would ruin each other if they mixed. I didn’t have a stick. Almost nobody I knew had a stick! Why bother, when playing meant playing on an arcade cabinet?
In 2005 I went off to law school in Washington DC, where the arcades had already died. They had players, but the scene was entirely console-based. I borrowed sticks when I could, but I finally needed my own. The most popular sticks back then were from a business called MAS, which was making them out of their garage and selling them for hundreds of dollars in early 2000s money. I had to find a different solution. I knew a little about electronics and woodworking thanks to some programs my dad and grandfather had taken me to and thanks to some experimenting around the house with my mom’s help, and I’d always liked tinkering. So, I thought I’d make my own!
I’ve been making sticks on and off ever since. I’ve made some pretty ones, some intentionally ugly ones, some innovative ones. I like sticks in part because they’re what I play the games I love most on, for sure. But what matters to me most about them is that, there they are, in person, in the physical world, just as real as I am. I can touch them and feel them and know that they exist in their current forms because I shaped them so. Making stuff!! What a joy. One of the many beautiful things about fighting games and the fighting game community is that there are so many ways to get involved, so many aspects of the fandom to take part in and contribute to. I could have stopped making sticks years ago. I don’t think I’m ever going to.