I’ve picked up quite a few new fighters these last 4 years (almost 5 wow). SF4, SFxT, KOF13, MvC3, DoA5, MK9, Blazblue, and a few other fighting games over these last couple years.
I’m starting to think that there’s too many games out now. It really split the SF4 community that’s for definite sure, but I’m not sore about that as I kinda stopped playing SF4 anyway. I feel like it’s impossible to get competitively good and do exceptionally well with all these new fighters emerging and “keeping up” with the scene. Too much food and not enough time to digest anymore.
Back in 1999-2005 days, it was either 3S, CvS2, or MvC2, with occasional Guilty Gear or ST in tournaments. But that was it! I don’t ever remember anything beyond these 5 games that was mainly known about or played. Now we have like probably 10 different fighters… it’s like… O_O
That’s just me though, and you don’t have to agree with me. You don’t have to agree with me, but my point in this thread is to ask you…
Do you think there’s too many fighters out now? Why?
It’s only saturated if you own ALL these games and want to be competitive in ALL of them.
That assumes you keep up with everything happening within the respective game’s scene and practice hardcore.
As for me in my view point. It isn’t saturated. Why? 'cause I only play SFIV and KOF XIII. Everything else either sucks or I give no fucks about.
I’m not 100% sure how there can be TOO many FGs. Frankly, I welcome the age of having a new thing to try every couple months instead of loading up 3S over and wonderfully over.
Games that see a lot of tournament play and number of games out are different, though.
There’s a list of games somewhere in this forum that were out in that period (although they weren’t necessarily played much).
The concentration right now is higher than in the era you’re talking about but still much lower than in the golden age… I’d say we’re not nearly at oversaturation yet.
LMAO! No, just no. The 90s had over saturation of fighters. What’s happening now ain’t shit compared to that. It ain’t shit compared to other genres that are over saturated like FPS and MOBA style games. Also, having options is never a bad thing
I think there are a lot of fighters I’m not really interested in playing out right now, but are there too many games? I don’t really think so. The more games available, the more likely it is that a local community will find a game every player likes. For my local scene, that has been Aquapazza - people including myself were somewhat iffy about it before playing the game, but I am yet to hear a person who has played even a single match claim to dislike it. I suppose that if there were fewer games, lesser-known (if such can be said about a game which was in SBO) titles like Aquapazza might get more attention in the US, which would be nice, but I think choices are a good thing. Also, more good fighting games (not that all of the modern games are good, but even SFxT, of which I am far from fond, is no Ballz or Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi) mean more chances for general gamers to pick one up and get hooked, which will lead to growth for the scene on the whole.
Kind of a moot point you’re making though since there were more than five games available in the era you listed (Jojo’s springs to mind immediately, but it’s not alone). It’s just that those which you listed attracted most of the attention.
edit:
FPS is an over-saturated market, but ARTS? You pretty much have DotA:Allstars (WC3; Allstars since 2004, DotA in various forms since very early 2003), League of Legends (2009 / beta 2008), Heroes of Newerth (2010), and DotA [Allstars] 2 (unreleased, beta 2011) in the market right now, and one of those (DotA2) is an almost entirely aesthetic upgrade from another (Allstars). SMITE and Bloodline Champions also exist, but BLC isn’t an ARTS (it’s basically a stand-alone Hero Arena map from wc3), and SMITE isn’t released yet, nor has it really been looked at competitively (Having played it, it is more like a WoW battleground than a true ARTS).
If Capcom stopped it’s fighting game division again. There goes half the releases the only other company even close to Capcom’s production is Arc System Works even then it’s only one series with very few re-releases. When Capcom has 3 series going soon even more on the way and a ton of re-releases.
The only real saturation is from Capcom.
You forgetting a good number of other fighters. Tekken and Soul Cal have had their own competitive scenes that are pretty intertwined with the FGC. DOA has had it’s own scene since for the longest time now. Games like Alpha 3, Vampire Hunter and Vampire Savior were (and in the case of the latter 2 still are) seeing tournament play in Japan. And there’s a boatload of others that have had smaller scenes during that time.
No. Even if you own SF4, HDR, SFxT, UMvC3, Jojo’s, MvC2, SF3:O, Marvel Origins, Tekken Tag 2, Sould Calibur 5, Blazblue, Guilty Gear AC+, Skullgirls, Persona 4, MK9, DOA5, VF5, TvC, Arcana Heart 3, KOF13 or any other relatively new game, you probably won’t practice them all.
Pick one or two games you like the most and concentrate on them. Choosing the right game for you is the difficult part.
I have almost every fighter that came out this gen. Do i play all of them hell no i can’t practice all of them competitively. But i like each one for different reason so what i usually do is pick 1 or 2 characters stick with them learn their stuff so when i pick up the game again i got something familiar to return to.
This gen ain’t over-saturated until they start cloning each other until then lets say there is a lot of variety in fighters now
It’s not any different, 10 years ago the games were Tekken 4, ST, MVC2, SC2 and 3s and a couple of crappy Capcom games nobody play, now they’re Tekken Tag 2, SF4, MVC3, SC4, MK9 and a couple of anime fighters nobody play.
It means there are a lot of options which is good. If you don’t like SF4, there’s always Marvel. If you don’t like Marvel, there’s KoFXIII, etc. I don’t think there’s any way for anyone to be truly competitive in EVERY game that comes out, so I wouldn’t worry about it. Like everyone else said, pick a couple games and work on those, but play the others casually.
With all these fighting games coming out though is there a way to standardize which games are tournament worthy. Something that other games considered ESports like LoL, SC2, even CS its just the one game and just updates to that game but with fighters there is variety of versions of the same game. The only games that transitioned without changing the core between versions SF4->AE2012 or BB:CT->CSE.