The story of Lahti FGC
Lahti FGC was born when a couple of friends put a PC on the table and asked: "wanna play?"
Beginning
In September 2024, Heikki Kaperi and Nitesh Gautam decided to found a "video game club and board game club" at LAB University of Applied Sciences. The idea was simple: to create on-site gaming activities open to everyone.
In October, at Lastu ry's Hobby Fest event, YaBoiSpades happened to walk past the booth, noticed the fighting game setup, and sat down to play. A few matches of Skullgirls 2nd Encore — and that's where it started.
In November, the first video game club weekly was held. Spades joined, and together they mostly played Divekick.
Kaptam Gamers is Born
Around the turn of the year, Heikki and Nitesh gave the association the name Kaptam Gamers ry — Kap(eri) + (Gau)tam = Kaptam. Nitesh summed up the idea: "We are a democracy. We are doing it for the people."
On January 31, 2025, the first fighting game tournament was held. The game was Tekken 3, running on Spades' own PlayStation Classic, which was on loan for a month for practice. There were nine participants. The atmosphere was great.
Weeklies and New Faces
The weeklies continued every Friday at the Käkikello lobby of Lahti Science Park from 4 PM to 8 PM. More tournaments followed:
- March 7, 2025
— Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo
(Funz) - April 25, 2025
— Street Fighter 3rd Strike
(Mangustus, Keijo)
At this point it started to feel like people were emerging from the woodwork with the thought "I heard there's a fighting game community vibe here". At the same time, I was thinking about how to take things further.
Lahti FGC is Born
At Puolenkuun Pelit, we set up two stations in the shared gaming space that anyone can play while the shop is open — drop in, drop out. At the same time, we decided to start weeklies for fighting game players on Sundays from 2 PM to 5:30 PM. The name, at Spades' suggestion, became Lahti FGC.
The first Lahti FGC weekly was on June 29, 2025 (with posters made by Funz). Attendees: Heikki, Spades, Funz, Nitesh, and Noah. On the second week, Velho, Mangustus, and Epidermid joined (who heard the BlazBlue sounds). On the third week, Juuso.exe, MLI, and Keijo joined.
On August 7, 2025, a Street Fighter 6 tournament was held at Puolenkuun Pelit. Six participants, round robin format. Finals on YouTube.
On August 9, 2025, the Kaptam Gamers Discord server name was changed to Lahti FGC. Most of the discussion was already related to fighting games.
Science Park Tournaments
In fall 2025, the Science Park tournaments continued:
- September 12, 2025
— Tekken 7
(13 players, 22 people present)
(ShadowJesus and m0thman) - October 24, 2025
— Vampire Savior
(8 players, 11 people present)
That same fall, we took part in LAB's student fair, the Game Över 2025 event (where Angery found us), and the Re:Install 2025 event, one of Finland's biggest fighting game events.
Saimaankatu 6
Through the Game Över event, we found out that at Saimaankatu 6 you can organize events as long as they are open to everyone. We decided to move the tournaments there (easier place to get to).
- December 27, 2025
— BlazBlue Centralfiction
(20 players, 22 people) - March 14, 2026
— Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising
(11 players, 20 people) - April 11, 2026
— Ultra Fight Da! Kyanta 2
(8 players, 12 people)
In between, there was also Winter Assembly "Assymylly" and Restomeet 2026.
Present Day
At the Lahti LAN Party event, Juuso.exe got so excited about Unreal Tournament 2004 that we decided to organize a Boomer Shooter Night event. The first one is on July 3, 2026.
Today, Lahti FGC is an established weekly community where new and experienced players meet around the same table. Weeklies on Sundays at Puolenkuun Pelit, tournaments at Saimaankatu. Always room, even if you just come to hang out.
