Fighting games and the GTA generation

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
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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?

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Kids want to play what they see on MTV. Kids also think that blood/gore/sex makes them seem more mature. Most 2D games don’t feature any of this (except mortal kombat, which IMHO you could’ve had the same argument about 10 years ago) and therefore does not appeal to them.

Although, after playing DoA4 on XBL (for the first, and the last time) I would have to assume it appeals to children from the conversations I heard.

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Plus, MK Deception is a scrub ass game that any kid can pick up and play. It has probably half the learning curve that DOA4 does.

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You’re right, MK stole a lot of Street Fighter’s thunder in the early nineties, but somehow, Tekken (especially Tekken 3) managed to become everybody’s favorite fighting game near the end of the decade around here, and it didn’t have any blood or MTV appeal, or whatnot…

I haven’t tried DoA4 on LIVE… (I’m not a big DoA fan, for starters, and ? don’t have a 360 anyway) was the crowd that bad? It seems the only online fighter I managed to have a few good matches in was GGX#R …

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What you speak of is simply the effects of the “console-only” generation. It’s not that fighting games became “less cool” or worse or anything like that. A lot of kids around 12 to 14 years of age now probably had a Playstation 2 or better system as their first video gaming experience.

Since most of us “older” folk experienced our first video game at an arcade, we based a lot of our values and expectations for a video game on arcades. That includes fighting games having competition, and things of that sort.

However, because a lot of younger kids first video game was probably a current or just previous generation console, those expectations are a lot different. They are looking for things like graphics, popular musical score, recognizable characters, longevity/replay value, and something easy to play with friends. These are the values embedded into current and next-generation console-only titles, so it’s no surprise that you’ve already seen the effects of this generation gap during your job. It’s not to say that the new generation is worse, because I enjoy a lot of console games just as much as anyone else–but what else would you expect with arcades not being popular anymore?

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Tekken is the new gens. SF

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I don’t think fighting games in genral is unpopular, just the 2-D portion of it. The new genration of people love top tier graphics.

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It’s so sad to see all the arcades close down. Dez, aside from St Jean and Galleries… do we still have decent arcades in this god-forsaken town?

(Next time you pass by the store, bring a baseball bat)

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Dun blame GTA, blame America.

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Same Story

Well, Dez every word u have said is what happens here…
but before that I’ll have to say somethings…

Before several months I’ve got a Gamepro mag and I was reading the fan messages, and I read about some Latin-American dude who’s 39 yrs old. And he complains about games these days saying:“Today’s games are too long and difficult that I don’t have time to play it, save checkpoints are so far etc…” That’s not My point till he said:" Why don’t games these days be as good as fighting games"!!! I thought he missed the Old Damn-Good days, till he continued:“They are too short and somebody who’s busy like me can play it”… ( I wan’t ur Comments)

O.K too short if you play the stupid (ARCADE MODE/STORY MODE), thank god we have fighting games, I like it when I spend hours on mastering a techniqe, staying the whole night practicing on a combo, shoutin’ when I miss the timing a move in a combo, the adrenaline pouring into my head while me and my friend having a tiny line at the health bar, and alots of GOOD TIMES!!! thank god we still have it, and other people don’t know the smell of it…

well, Idon’t like 3d games, I like GG, KOF, and maybe 3s.

I’m living in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and we were having 3 arcades ONLY, one in every main city, I was 8 yrs old I was going to the arade and everybody was in (14-20) I was putting a coin just to sit in front of the screen and take the honor of playing it (I was stupid), I remember playing SF2 on the SEGA GENESIS even my Father was excited he spend a lot of hours playing it with me I was 5 yrs old maybe or near to it, Now all the three ARCADEs closed but the guys still play 2d games, some of them have Married and have got children, some of them are now in 20’s (those who was 14 that time) I’m now 16 yrs old and I’m loving fighting games MORE AND MORE…

so in the end of my long talk… the story is the same eevrywhere except in Japan…

We have a new generation of guys who are as same as my age (16 yo) but not like the OLD SCHOOL…

P.S: SORRY about telling my life story:lovin:…

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Hands down the worst XBL experience in my life. This game puts Halo 2 to shame regarding sh!ttalking and whining. I imagine it’d be fun if you played with a group of friends, but between the constant babble and people dropping, Even after a few beers I still found it intolerable.

Actually makes me appreciate the SFAC XBL crowd a lot more.

I still don’t understand Tekken or the appeal, but it is a fairly solid game. Just not my cup of tea.

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whisper Guilty Gear whisper

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I really like Tekken, especially Tekken 5. It’s my favorite 3D fighter, even though I still remain a 2D fan first.

Bah, you can say I like mostly every fighting game series out there aside from Mortal Kombat. I even had some moments playing DoA with the guys.

Hey Valaris! This is the first time I run into you on Shoryuken! :wink: (Valaris actually works at the EBGames store I mentioned earlier :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: ) And you’re right. This city is a god-forsaken place as far as arcades are concerned. Next time I drive to Montreal for my monthly arcade fix, I’m bringing you along.

(Man, how come I’ve been here for a whole year longer than you and yet have a negative rep while you’re doing rather well? :stuck_out_tongue: I swear I haven’t done anything wrong so far…)

**GottMitUns **, I’m pretty sad to know the situation is the same in your area. I thought that was only limited to North America…

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I think GG is a little too weird for American kids - not to mention they’ll never get all the 1980s hair metal references.

But does anyone know what the sales of the DBZ fighting games have been like? I’m wondering if maybe one reason the younger crowd dislikes the older fighting game series is that they just don’t understand the characters, because they’ve grown up on cartoons like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, DBZ, and so on, which have character design that is distinctly different from the older cartoons that influenced the generation of 1990s fighting game designers and players.

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for me… arcade > console anyways.

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Another reason the District manager might have asked us to remove DOA4 is because we were playing it too often rather than working?

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Most of the typical US audiences are artistically challenged anyway. See “Wind Waker”.

Hey, we grew on cartoons too! What about the Transformers and TNMT? I don’t know how the character desings would change anything :wink:

As for the Budokai games, I don’t know, but I have an acquaintance here who hates fighting games, and yet loves Budokai :stuck_out_tongue:

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i thought the transformers were originally japanese… or at least that’s what i was told… never a fan of that series…tmnt forever

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and japanese kids will???

anime kids love the game afaik

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:lol: Hair metal? Most of the references in that game are to real fucking metal, and not all 80s either.