Sega made Virtua Fighter, some argue that’s one of the deepest games.
On the tournament thing, what really matters is how good you are compared to the quality of people you defeat. If you can beat the best on a consistent basis, then you belong up there with them. The tournament itself is more of a formality. Never been one fond of hyping stats and numbers. I’ve played competitively on LARGE spectrum of games. Some have smaller base which don’t have the tournament scene of others, but still have lots of depth. I don’t like people who are ignorant and try to sound smarter than they are (scrubs) either, but I’ve never liked the other end of “if you travel and play at tournaments for money (a paltry amount anyways) then you don’t know anything about games and your opinion doesn’t matter” either.
That said tournaments are often a great way to gather large numbers of skilled people so they do have that benefit.