Can a new FG make it big?

Classic Fighting Games Skullgirls
41

the real problem comes down to the size of the community. people play the current top games (sf4 and mvc3) because they have a large player base and it is easy to quickly find a match online that does not have a terrible connection. i know that i played mvc3 over sf3 despite the fact that sf3 is my #1 favorite game because it took me forever to actually get a match that was playable in sf3. people want to play the game that is popular, go to any tournament, there will be huge sf4 and mvc3 brackets and maybe a small round robin for any other game being played.

the community groups together, sf4 was the first new game in a loooong time and played off of steet fighter fame, so it easily attracted tons of people. mvc3 did the same thing, name recognition. after name recognition got the player base set up, people dont leave because they know that they will be able to find games because its where the people are.
skullgirls have a double wammy of having no name recognition and not having the comfort zone of a large player base.

i really hope it does well, but i think it will be a struggle. maybe after it gets featured on some tournament stream it will pick up but i dont know how many people other than the posters on this and dustloops sg boards will actually buy the game at release.

42

Since we are finally in a position to possibly have at least a tiny influence on how a FG is made, I hope the SG developers will see this and agree.

Given that SG needs to claw its way up to popularity, they need to do everything possible to help players find each other. I’ve said this kind of thing in other threads, regarding FGs in general.

Just having GGPO isnt good enough. The most important thing is matchmaking. All the GGPO in the world won’t help if you’re matched with someone half the world away, something that becomes more likely in a less-popular game.

Previously I’ve suggested things like ingame regional chatrooms/channels. You can imagine all the players in SoCal or Melbourne or whatever hanging out in the same chatroom, challenging each other to matches, spectating games, congratulating and trashtalking. It’s the closest thing to the arcade feeling we can get online.

Another alternative might be for the game to be aware of all players online, (regardless of whether you are currently playing them or not), and for it to remember people who have good pings to you and prioritise them in the future. An extreme use of this feature might be leaving your console on for a month with SG logged in - a month later you’ll come back to a fairly complete list of all the nearby active players. SG will always show their lobbies at the top of the lobby list, will prefer to match you with them in quickmatch, make it easy for you to add them to your friends list, etc.

A final idea is match queuing / requests. The game detects that someone from your “good ping players list” is online, but they are currently in a match. When you go to search for an online match, the game offers instead to put you in a queue to fight that person next. He is notified that someone is waiting for his next match, and you can wait in training mode. Details have to be worked out, like whether you can queue for multiple people, and thus play the first person that finishes - the other players are informed that the person waiting has found another match, etc.

It would be really interesting if the SG devs can provide insight on just how possible these things are in the current console environment. As far as I know, from my very limited brush with PS3 development, anything is possible, just that you might have to write it yourself from scratch if the SDK doesnt provide it. Since the SG devs are on the frontlines (salt mines?) right now, they might have a clearer answer - I’m really curious.

43

I’m under the impression that they wouldn’t be able to do most of what you just suggested because of the rules that both console companies have in place governing how the search results are displayed. Hopefully I’m wrong, because I like the idea of a good ping player list.

44

I’m not sure there are any rules, although I dont really recall. I do remember that the SDK makes you fetch sets of 50 (or so) players/lobbies at a time, and there are rules saying how often your game is allowed to refetch/iterate through the list, to prevent games from hammering Sony/MS’s servers.

I’d also imagine pinging every other player in the game to be somewhat impractical.

But I dont think theres anything stopping someone (at least on ps3) from not using Sony’s stuff and running their own servers. The ping problem could be reduced by getting players to specify a region and only pinging others in the same or nearby regions. Although its possible that those games/companies that have run their own stuff have gotten Sony/MS’s special permission to do so, which might not be available for a small indy dev.

I’d love to find out the details. Do the SG devs read this forum? Is it rude of me to PM Mike Z and pester him?

45

Yeah they do. Ravidrath and Mike Z are here fairly often. I’m unsure if it’s a question he can answer but Mike Z answers a lot if questions in the Q and A thread. I’m almost positive this topic was covered sometime in the past but I don’t remember the details.

46

Sounds like Steam groups. If the game comes out on PC multiple groups should be made for the four different regions of the US(this may not even be necessary if the matchmaking and netcode are as good as BlazBlue), alongside an international steam group and a dedicated US group. That idea is neat, but it sounds a little grand for them as of right now. I bet they’d have some crazy stuff to implement for a sequel due to all the ideas we’ve thrown at them since they made the Q&A thread.

You may want to ask them whether or not that is possible in the Q&A thread since that is where they look for the questions.

47

Wow, 4 groups for the US and one group for the entire rest of the world? :wink:

48

Americas general
Asia general
Europe(includes Australia) general

Done

49

Hah, you’re not thinking it through. If the point of these channels is to help people find opponents with good pings, why would Australia be with Europe? Anyways, you’re going to need many more channels than that anyhow. The important thing is that you can choose to view any channel, and you can also be in multiple channels. Eg. I can keep an eye out for fellow Australians, whilst hanging out in the more popular Asian channels, where the pings might be tolerable.

The steam group system is nice because you can make custom groups - dustloop group, SRK group, etc. I think the best system is for the game to ship with some predefined groups for geographic areas, intended to help people find good pings, and then also allow for custom groups for player communities.

50

I think It will really get much bigger, especially with the continued dlc character support. Because It isn’t just attracting fighting game fans, and people who would naturally become fighting game fans anyway, but it will attract every anime fan, and everyone who has an artistic sense whatsoever (Like me; that’s why I knew this would be big before they even had a playable game). Even if you dislike the art style, you can’t deny that the game has originality, and unique designs. That’s one of the main reasons the game is so big already, because of the awesome art. And then, someone shells out 15 bucks for the game to just try it. Then they get the tutorial. Tutorials, for new fighters, should try more to inspire the gamer to be better. They’ve been nothing but frustrating to people who haven’t been here since 2000 (Again, like me). If they do the tutorial right, they can attract Casual players, and keep them buying their new characters. Which will, you know… be good.

51

I don’t know if you have any experience with GGPO, but I can play games just fine with people from other continents. I’d hate players to limit themselves to playing people close to them, especially when you have people who will not have a local scene.

52

“The important thing is that you can choose to view any channel, and you can also be in multiple channels. Eg. I can keep an eye out for fellow Australians, whilst hanging out in the more popular Asian channels, where the pings might be tolerable.”

It doesnt limit anyone - you can choose to be in whatever channel regardless of your actual location. The purpose of the feature is to help bring people together.
Even if you’re mostly playing people from far away for some reason, being aware of someone nearby is a special case for FGs, because they are intended to be played offline.

53

I see this game having the potential to become the fighting game’s “League of Legends”. LoL was, at its start, laughed at by the loud crowd for looking “colorful and cartoony” The loudmouths were, of course, Heroes of Newerth and some DotA players.
However LoL have ended up being the most successful moba game out there, even more so than DotA one ever was at its peak.

So what did Riot Games, a band of nobodies ( Except for the guys who came from the dota crew, very much like Mike Z comes from the FG Tournament crew) do that made it such a success? They did a bunch of things right that attracted a larger playerbase ( Removal of the deny system for example). Being a Free to play option (very much how SG will be relatively cheap compared to the €50 fighting games price tags).
But most importantly, Riot Games themselves listen to their community and took action were it was fit. Both from the high tier players to the common casuals. Riot members were all very active on the forums during the beta period to make sure the release would be as good as possible.

And, the RevergeLabs’ crew is doing the same, listening to the gamers of the game is a huge plus and gives a lot of credibility. Many players have complained for years of CoD’s infamous Grenadelauncher/noobtube. But the makers of that franchise does not care.

So yes, I think Skullgirls’ can make it big. It just requires a few things:

RevergeLabs keeping on listening to their fanbase and staying in touch.
Devoted gamers that can give it huge, free commercial (Imagine if someone like TotalBiscuit or DarksydePhil would post videos of them playing this)
Effective commercializing on the internet.
Enjoyable tournaments. ( You guys gotta get that guy Fanatiq to commentate more in the future. He’s a blast to listen to!)
A pinch of luck.

But I am certain that RevergeLabs knows how to market their game.

54

I think we should also make a topic about how we can make it big.

55

Have it at tournaments and have some place for weekly streams on a good connection. Hell, even bi-weekly streams of two hour length are good enough. Pair those with Reverge’s forum friendly approach and a Steam PC version that appears on sales for maximum impact.

56

That I hope Skullgirl community plan on making big events like Yipes’ Curly Mustache Vanilla MVC3 tournament. Even if Skullgirl isn’t as living to the hype, I hope people try to branch out of regular tournaments.

57

Yes his “WTF is …” vids give some indie games alot of good attention, BUT there will need to be a PC version of the game so he can give Skull Girls the treatment.

58

I think this game has a good chance of becoming big. This game has received coverage on most mainstream gaming sites like gametrailers, ign and kotaku. People who have played it loved it. Actual good tutorial. The biggest thing in its favor which was said before is that it is a indie title with some buzz and people love indie games.

59

Its usually a little bit harder to convince someone to actually spend the cash on the game, even if they see it in action and love it. That hurdle, however, should be pretty small after release. As has been proven time after time most people who actually try the game and have it in their hands tend to like it a lot.

60

LoL is balanced around mid-level play, which Mike has been clear absolutely won’t happen with Skullgirls. That right there makes LoL’s success unrepeatable, I imagine. All the constant patches probably do a lot to maintain interest in LoL too, while Mike apparently intends to take a more traditional FGC “let it rock” approach.