Fighting Spirits: The Men Behind the Combos

I don't exactly remember it like it was yesterday, but I recall sending James "DJames" Goddard an "XMail" in 1995 as a high schooler. At that time, I'd spent most of that summer completely engrossed in XBAND, one of the first widespread online services for console gaming. When I wasn't flipping burgers at my first job, I was pulling brutal fatalities on the finest Mortal Kombat II players across Atlanta as "Nas Escobar." I knew Goddard thanks to my love of Street Fighter II's multiple incarnations and the fame he'd gained from being the first American to design a character for the series. More importantly, he was the lead designer of Weaponlord, the first fighting game built with online play in mind. With Street Fighter's return a few days away, I decided to reach out to the designer who kicked off online fighting games as we know them.

Goddard now lives in Chandler, Arizona, where he founded Crunch Time Games in 2003. "Dr." Dave Winstead, Goddard's long-time associate, joined in 2007. Crunch Time is a small studio largely composed of students from AUT, where Goddard currently teaches as a professor of game design. Their most recent game was Shred Nebula, a mostly student-created space shooter that released with little fanfare last September on Xbox Live Arcade. But Goddard's legacy as a fighting game designer follows him throughout his 18 year career in the gaming industry. Although Winstead has gotten less press than Goddard, his resume is equally as long and impressive, having worked on Super Street Fighter II Turbo. I spoke with both men about their long careers spent designing characters to beat the crap out of each other.


"This friendship may have been based on convenience, since by getting Dave aboard, I got to go hang out at his house and play stuff for free. Eighteen years later, still hanging out," says Goddard. Winstead's career fired up as one of the early editors at GamePro, while Goddard bounced from a game tester position at Sega. "I only lasted about 3 months, probably because I was too much of a gamer for my own good, and I was told that I should probably stop talking so much about Street Fighter," he says. He eventually landed a position at Capcom, where he worked his way up the ranks rather quickly. Winstead met Goddard while trying to get hands-on with a Street Fighter II arcade board for coverage, and a friendship was born. Eventually, he landed a job at Capcom as Championship Edition was in the works in the early 90s.

Both men were heavily involved in Super Street Fighter II's evolution. Winstead worked on the second iteration, Super Street Fighter II Turbo after Goddard left the company. But it's Goddard's character that's gotten him name recognition among Street Fighter fans. Jamaican brawler Dee Jay was the only Street Fighter character in SSF to be designed by an American.

As the series has evolved into one of gaming's most storied franchises, the mythology surrounding Street Fighter has cemented a bit more. I'm quite sure that Capcom's not keen on releasing its entire book of secrets, but I wanted to know if Dee Jay had any sort of crazy backstory beyond his trying to jump start a music career. In the early 90s, the lore behind Street Fighter II was more "fly by the seat of your pants" than any of the anime sequences that people will see in Street Fighter IV.