Why Street Fighter 2's Intro Was Changed in English

The intro to Street Fighter II is something that's been seen by millions of people all over the world. As a reminder, prior to the Super Street Fighter games, the intro will usually show 2 generic fighters squaring off and then the white fighter punching the black character. However, did you know that in some English versions this iconic intro was changed, and it was all due to the Japanese intro being perceived as racist? Capcom's director of marketing, John Gillin, spoke about this in a 2014 interview with Polygon. To quote: "And you realize that the entire crowd surrounding these two is white. So you have all these white people, and there's this white guy facing off against this sole black guy and the white guy takes a swing and catches the black guy right on the chin, and the black guy goes down and everybody's cheering." "And the letter I received was from an African American gentleman who was distressed at the racial overtones of that. And it was funny, because I had never really noticed that, but upon looking at it, it was like, "Wow." And the Japanese culture is a little bit different than ours as far as our history and all that, and the sensitivity to those kinds of issues. And so I immediately wrote him back and told him I was very sorry about that, that was something I would raise with our headquarters. And I did. And you know, by that point in time, the game had already been out in the market for awhile and there was no way to change it. ... Whether it was intentional or not, I don't know. But it was interesting." So, as John explains, the fact a black fighter was hit by a white fighter, in front of a white crowd, was perceived by a player as containing offensive racial overtones. John, being Capcom's director of marketing, saw this letter and raised the point up with his bosses. Nothing could be done at the time due to the game already being in circulation, but Capcom would actually change the intro in some later versions. The earliest known instance of the new intro is in Street Fighter II: Special Champion Edition for the Sega Genesis. Here, the black fighter was replaced by a new white fighter, as shown on screen now. Interestingly though, the intro still shows the original black fighter in the Japanese version and this is despite it being released at the same time as the Western versions. Whilst clearly being seen as an issue at the time, it appears that Capcom no longer feels this is the case. In 2016, Capcom added the characters to their official website - complete with names and bio information. It turns out that the black fighter is called Max and his likes include "Himself, gambling and shiny things", whereas his dislikes are things that are "plain". The white fighter on the other hand is known as Scott and he likes "street fights" and dislikes "caterpillars". It's also worth pointing out that in some other later versions of Street Fighter 2, Max is shown but with a much lighter shade of skin than before. It's not known if this was due to the perceived issue but it's interesting to note how Scott looks identical to previous versions. What do you think of these changes that were made to Max? And how do you feel about the fighter's identities finally being revealed 25 years later? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments below and, until next time, thank you for watching.