Since SFV cameo out anyone else, on the local level, experience a significant drop in attendance to weeklies and monthly events? I know national tournaments are doing fine with turnout but I want to know about other people locals.
Sharp rise, then complete disinterest. MKX still pulls numbers. But there’s a paradox…
We did a survey of around 50 people across our country (we have a small scene) which contained questions about tournaments etc. From casuals to tournament vets. Hardly anyone from the MKX scene participated. For some reason they see themselves as a distinct group. That’s the paradox. We organise tournaments for many different games, but the game that pulls the most numbers don’t want to be seen as part of the local FGC.
SFV players were mostly noobs with no tournament experience. Veterans wanted more of the older classics to be represented - ST, 3S, 2k2, SCII etc. Lots of requests for Guilty Gear, but hardly anyone plays the game locally. Fair amount of requests for USFIV and UMVC3. A few requests for SFV not to be represented.
SFV nearly killed our local scene.
Our local scene is just big enough to support two active tournament games; from 2009 to 2015 SFIV was always one of those. The second game was Tekken 6 or Tag 2 most of the time, with SFxT, UMvC3 and MKX each getting one tournament, depending on how bored people were with Tekken (and how bored people were with those games). There’s also been a small amount of side tournaments with ST, Xrd, 3rd Strike and Persona 4: Arena. The attendance numbers were dwindling at the end of SFIV, but even at the end, pulling 50 people for the larger tournaments were a common occurrence.
SFV, however, was met with very mixed opinions, and the expectation that it’d revitalize the scene was not met at all. Nobody ever bothered organizing more than one tournament. 20-something people showed up. Me and a couple other players organized an Xrd-tournament after that; a game that really didn’t have a scene before, but we still managed to pull the same numbers as SFV. Furthermore, there’s genuine interest for the game here; we’re planning both an online and an offline tournament in January now, and we’re expecting a decent turnout in both of these.
There’s a slight resurgence in SFV-popularity now that SFV dropped (one of our best players has stopped loudly complaining about the game, which is a plus), and Phenom doing so well is a great inspiration for the few new players SFV pulled, but in general most people are now either playing Xrd and/or waiting for Tekken 7 or MvC:I.