Aloe “Ice Dew” Marshall, the Fighting Game Community Ambassador and Dev Lead, enjoys nothing more than a sense of community.
Marshall grew up playing Nintendo video games with their brother and OU alumnus, Cooper Marshall, but as they grew older, their interest in fighting games blossomed.
“I picked Guilty Gear Strive, and something clicked,” Marshall said. “I just kept playing, and the more I played, the better I got. The more people I fought, I decided, ‘Well, I guess it’s time I started competing.’”
Marshall learned about OU Esports from a visit to their high school by the current director of OU ECCI, Mike Aguilar. His talk showed Marshall a community they could exist in filled with many like-minded gamers.
Marshall knows that finding people around you to play video games with can be much more fun than playing by yourself. While they have been in many parts of OU ECCI, such as the community and competitive sides, they most enjoy having a space for getting people with shared interests together.
Being the Dev Lead and ambassador for the FGC in OU ECCI comes with a unique set of challenges for Marshall.
“[FGC] isn’t really a team-based game,” Marshall explained. “Instead of having a team of five people that we work together to win games, we have two people under each fighting game title competing individually.”
The FGC in OU ECCI operates separately from the Smash Bros. community and focuses on competitive fighting games like Guilty Gear, Tekken,and Street Fighter.
When Marshall isn’t focused on their work in OU ECCI, they have been working toward their degree in social work.
“I’m very people-oriented,” Marshall said. “I really enjoy being able to sit down and collaborate to help them. I want to empower them and help them find out what they really want to do with themselves.”
Once Marshall graduates, they will be entering the master’s program for social work here at OU. They want to work in crisis intervention or clinical therapy after graduate school. Working with the LGBTQ+ population and advocating for their rights is also incredibly important to them.
While Marshall will be sticking around at OU, they will be stepping back from their duties as Dev Lead and ambassador for the FGC. They want to stress that while fighting games are competitive, it should still be a community.
“It’s more about how we can come together around this shared interest and find important relationships between people that can last longer than the lifespan of the game,” Marshall said.
