Lately, Ive been hanging with small but dedicated group of fighting game enthusiasts in this city, one of them being the manager at a local EBGames. When Dead or Alive 4 came out, he decided to put the game into the XBOX360 display at the store, hoping to draw a small crowd of people in. Though quite a few people did gather around the display and had some fun with the game, most of the younger crowd of customers only had negative things to say about the game, like how all fighting games were “too short” (whatever that means) and retarded, and how DoA sucked for not having any blood and fatalities like Mortal Kombat.
Okay, I know that DoA isn’t a great example of a good fighter, but still, hearing those kids talk about fighting games like that really got on my nerves. A few days later, the district manager asked my friend to get DoA out of his display because ot was “too much of a niche game” and put a game that “everybody” would enjoy instead, being Project Gotham 3.
The same crap happened last year when he put Capcom Fighting Evolution and Street Fighter 3 on the XBOX display, but it was even worse, since those games were 2D.
Heck, I even heard some customer at the store say how “Soul Calibur III sucked because Link wasn’t in it”
I’ve been wondering how could fighting games became so unpopular with the younger generation. I remember when I was 14 and sat my eyes on the Street Fighter II machine for the first time… I just couldn’t get the game out of my mind and would even skip school to play it. And everybody around was into it as well. My interest in the game only grew as I got better and better at it over the years, slowly spreading to other fighting games, both 2D and 3D… I don’t even think my interest reached its apex yet.
So why are those kids so repelled by fighting games? I’m pretty sure it’ not their old school nature, since DoA4 doesn’t look anything near old school. Is this something that GTA taught them, that you need to be violent and “realist” to be cool? Or is this because nobody cares about learning to play a game anymore?