« Meet the IPLAYWINNER Staff »

Dear readers, please welcome the latest additions to the IPLAYWINNER collective, Carlo Dela Cruz (The Phantomnaut) and Paul Dziuba (SuperFX). We wanted to introduce you to the newcomers, as well as the cadre of contributors that help us to produce content from a variety of perspectives.

After the break, check out bios of the new recruits and some of the old standbys you may not be familiar with.

Carlo Dela Cruz, aka The Phantomnaut

Hailing from Elk Grove in the Sacramento, CA area, Carlo Dela Cruz may already be familiar to most IPLAYWINNER stream monsters as chat moderator The Phantomnaut. Carlo is a journalism major and a writer for Consumnes River College's The Connection newspaper. He has contributed news articles to various independent websites, including Digital Gaudium and Platform Nation. Although relatively new to the fighting game scene he enjoys playing the classics, 3rd Strike and CVS2, but is also starting to learn Street Fighter IV.

Paul Dziuba, aka SuperFX

Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Paul Dziuba joins IPLAYWINNER as content editor. A graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, Paul has been involved in publishing for almost ten years and has been writing about games for more than seven. He has written for two daily newspapers and provided content for several blogs. In addition to his duties as content editor, Paul will also be penning a recurring column, "Cognitive Dissonance," about the fighting game community, along with editorials and other articles.

Christian Hernandez, aka AriesWarlock

Christian, a Soul Calibur connoisseur, is another recent addition to the site. He was invited aboard for being one of our most prolific commenters and tipsters (and knowing way more about Soul Calibur than anyone on staff).

Aaron Pan, aka LionX

LionX is IPLAYWINNER's resident Capcom Vs SNK 2 video curator. CVS2 flourished in NorCal, and he is helping to keep that historic scene alive.

Neidel Crisan, aka Haunts

Also known as Lord Haunts, Neidel was raised on the rough-and-tumble streets of Athens, GA before moving to California's San Francisco Bay area. He has been writing about fighting games since before this site existed. One day, he decided that his efforts would be better put to use on his own site, rather than on Japanimation message boards. Thus was born IPLAYWINNER.com, and the rest is history. In addition to writing news articles, streaming, and organizing events for IPLAYWINNER, he also contributes fighting game reviews to 1UP.com.

Darry Huskey, aka Darry

Darry is known for his no-nonsense commentary on IPLAYWINNER streams and his no-holds-barred "The Salty Runback" articles on the site. Both are simultaneously lauded and despised by fighting fans around the world. Darry is unrivaled when it comes to enlightening viewers or readers with a style that both offends and uplifts those daring enough to expose themselves to it.

Erich Scholtz, aka RogerDodger

RogerDodger held it down at Starbase Arcade streaming for Competitive Online before moving over to IPW in early 2011. He is truly a jack of all trades as he helps post news, run streams, commentate our KOFXIII ranbats and everything in between. If there is one thing you can count on from RogerDodger -- much like other members of the crew -- he will always speak his mind regardless of the circumstances! 

Ryan Harvey, aka Fubarduck

Ryan owns and operates ArcadeUFO in Austin, Texas and hosts Amalgame, a Japanese-language fighting game program bridging the Japanese and American fighting game communities. He has also qualified for SBO multiple times in Third Strike and Street Fighter IV and finished in his fair share of Top 8's at EVO and the PDP MK9 national tournament.

Victor Fontanez, aka Sp00ky

Also known as Mr. Victor Font, Spooky surely needs no introduction. When the IPW X TeamSpooky partnership was first announced, nobody knew that we would end up streaming EVO 2011 to 2.2 million viewers. In addition to sharing all of his quality streams and YouTube videos, Spooky has taken pride in writing his Big Two profile series for the site.

Fersis

Fersis is a man so mysterious that not even Haunts knows his real name. As IPLAYWINNER's resident KOFXIII reporter and NeoGAF monster, he keeps his finger on the pulse of those fans who aren't just interested in Capcom's latest endeavors.

James Bardolf, aka WorstGiefEver

James, IPLAYWINNER's UK correspondent, keeps readers informed of happenings across the pond. He also runs the ARMSHOUSE stream, which features top-notch European fighting game action and innumerable occurrences of the phrase "Oh my days!"

Vince Ingenito, aka W.K.

Vince is a New York native who drove across the country to San Francisco, checking out different arcades and game centers along the way. His EVO Roadtrip series of articles was the result of this unique experience. He contributes to IPLAYWINNER while doing freelance news and reviews for IGN and TotalPlaystation.com. Vince originally fell in love with Yie Ar Kung Fu in the arcades and has been playing fighters ever since.

Rodney Desjarlais, aka FuriousRGD

A Blanka player from South Carolina, Rodney is a longtime contributor to IPLAYWINNER who completely helped shape the site in its early years. A true unsung hero, he put in a ton of work on the many revisions of the Super Street Fighter 4 guides. Also a recent father, he always helps out IPW whenever possible.

Carmine Macchia III, aka Carmine

Carmine was always a sort of amateur video game news disseminator. His first digital publication was an XBand profile called DaNewz (hey, it sounded cool in '94) that had a strict character limit and contained such revelations as "Goro playable in MK Trilogy!" He started blogging about games regularly in 2010 as an exercise in shaking his two-spaces-after-every-sentence habit. After a year of daily practice, he joined IPLAYWINNER as a news editor. Sickeningly meticulous about grammar and punctuation, he has also taken on the self-appointed role of site-wide copy editor. He has recently been less active on the site due to such obligations as his impending fatherhood.

The Rest of the IPW Army

There are many others that contribute or helped to make the site what it is, including TheShend, Giby, Arturo "Sabin" Sanchez, Harrison, Rom, Kumo, Pherai, Coopa, Magus1234, IPWDeuce, Min, Reno, Crackfiend, Chris-tan, and Onikage. Then, there are the guys that help out with video, streaming, commentary, and other content production like Chris Ceglia, Max Blumenthal, Marden Blake, A_Rival, Richard Li, Hellpockets and more. It's impossible to list everyone, but please realize that a ton of people work incessantly to bring you top-notch FGC content every single day!