Very interesting read there Art…and also about the Chinatown Fair FOBs…meaning yeah as you were telling me we gotta try to hold a tournament there but you and me understand that the best might not be there because they might undercut one another to get that cash and we dont know not understanding the language…
Shiki, add Football (Soccer) to your list of things the USA doesnt like that everyone else does.
I think people need to look at these games differently. Treat them as new games, instead of games that were ‘passed up for a reason’. I mean, I used to say the same thing… but I was wrong, and so are you. We passed on a lot of these excellent games for totally arbitrary or random reasons like “too many games came out that year” or “it looks silly”.
If you are craving something new to play, and fighting games are not coming out often, look to the past. As it turns out, there are quite a few treasures to play as if they were brand new.
Look at WHP. No one in the states knew how to play this game at evo. Even the people trashtalking my win had NO IDEA what was possible in the game and were making shit up. After scouring the entire internet for recourses on the game, and match videos, its looking more and more like no one in the world took the game seriously. Even the japanese WHP megasite is full of misinformation and ‘dated’ tactics.
Its time to view these as new games.
Shiki - your lists are grossly inaccurate. If you’re saying that Primal Rage had a serious tournament scene, which is what we’re talking about, you’re high as motherfuckin’ kite. If you’re saying “some american somewhere played it once,” well, grats on making a pointless list that’s still inaccurate.
Heh, I was wondering when you were going to chime in. =)
I’ve already mentioned that 98 and NGBC are the most obvious choices currently. Garou is intriguing, but the interest hasn’t been there at most majors and other games have made a stronger push as of late. Not sure what to make of it.
And agree 100% on Breakers Revenge. I talked about this earlier in the thread, but that game is the EXACT fucking definition of “side game”.
Yeah, bad players make damn near anything look wack, especially combined with the ugly visuals of some of the games. There are high-quality international matches available for just about anything we would run, so that would be where to look for a more complete picture.
Heh, I think it’s because Street Fighter was so well-known back in the day that people who weren’t hardcore gamers could stumble upon the competitive element, and they stayed in the scene and spread the word to their friends over the years, etc. Nowadays, this is very much a niche genre, so unless you have friends in the know, you kinda have to be a huge fucking nerd to even have heard of some of these games (I guarantee you the majority of people who play video games don’t even know CvS2 exists), much less learn about the tournaments for them. The Japanese are probably the biggest weirdos of all, though, for whatever that’s worth…
Individually, this is spot on. It’s ridiculously hard to become good at 4+ games unless you live in Japan.
It’s just that a lot of people play a couple games, but usually not the same ones, so it becomes problematic to decide what to run. There’s a regional element to it, too - RB2 is stronger in the South, Garou seems to have more of a presence on the West Coast, etc. But I admit that this may be one of those situations where trying to find a “third way” will be worse than making the tough decisions.
Thanks,
Josh.
I remember that Blockbuster or some other company supported a big fighter tournament that had Primal Rage along with Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat, etc.
I even still have a GamePro from 1993 in which Blockbuster was sponsoring nationwide tournaments in SF2: Champion Edition and Clay-fucking-Fighter.
Yes, I wouldn’t neccessarily call these “serious scenes”, but I can *guarantee *you more people in the USA played Primal Rage and Killer Instinct in 1994-1995 than KOF 94’ or Fatal Fury 3.
So, I ask you…WHERE was the exposure for SNK games to create a serious scene?
I know a bunch of dedicated gamers that when SF4 was announced, said “There was a third Street Fighter?”.
3rd Strike is the most popular 2-D fighter in America, and most gamers don’t even know it exists.
I know a bunch of people that thought Primal Rage was dope and want (gasp) another one.:wasted: No BS.
The “how come nobody played these games in the first place” argument reminds me of Guns, Germs, and Steel and what that tried to do with the topic of race.
The main thing I got out of that book is that the answers to “why did X succeed and Y fail?” questions are almost never obvious, and the most obvious explanations are usually the least correct. Thus, I’m not inclined to buy into “the games just suck”.
Arturo actually gave one of the good answers already - the SF crowd was quick to use the Internet to its advantage. To bring in an example from another realm, this is also one of the reasons Boston sports teams tend to be more well-represented in the media than others - the first and most well-known online sports columnist (Bill Simmons) is an unabashed Boston homer, two of the most successful recent NFL websites (Cold Hard Football Facts & Football Outsiders) were founded by Boston fans, etc. Chicago is a larger media market, but Boston gets more coverage and has more numerous online fans even when they’re not a threat to win 3 championships, and part of why is that the Boston crowd was the first to jump on this bandwagon.
With fighting games, this wouldn’t have had much of an immediate effect on the general audience, but it would have greatly helped the scene to reach a higher level and organize tournaments. It also would have given these games a better lasting reputation.
Other possible factors:
Capcom got there first: The first-mover theory, often criticized nowadays, rings true in this case.
SNK made a poor first impression: Art of Fighting, Fatal Fury, and World Heroes all paled in comparison to SF2. Their games improved over time, but it’s hard to change people’s minds.
Graphics: SNK was always lagging behind Capcom in this department, except during the time of the original Samurai Shodown (which was their first big arcade hit, if you’ll notice). Garou was too little, too late. Very important hook for many people, obviously.
Anime style: SNK’s fighters were the first to show such a degree of Japanese pop-culture influence, which just weirds out people who aren’t into that whole shebang (myself included, honestly). Still to this day, many players are turned off by this, and if you’ll notice…the most successful American fighters tend to be the less anime-influenced ones (SF2, MK, Tekken). These aesthetic factors made SNK games look cheap and second-rate to most.
No console presence due to the Neo’s ridiculously high prices: At least Capcom ported most of its fighters to the major consoles, allowing those without an arcade scene to experience them a bit. SNK was only able to do this with a minority of them, and their ports were often terrible. This became especially critical as arcades started dying in the late 90s. Speaking of which…
Some of SNK’s very best games were released after arcades jumped the shark: '98, RB2, and Garou all fit into this category. 2k2 even more so, obviously. And then you have SS5 Special, the very last Neo game ever made.
SNK was very hit-or-miss, and it’s easier to spot a bad game than a good one: One bad experience can turn people off from a company forever, and SNK put out a lot of stinkers that probably did just that. World Heroes Perfect is a, well, perfect example of something that never had a chance regardless of its own merit - the previous games in the series were rather weak, the aesthetics were unappealing to many, and some of its depth would have taken far too long to discover without vids. Really, Samurai Shodown was the only one of their franchises that they did well right off the bat - everything else took a while to develop into anything worthwhile, and by then it was too late.
In short, a combination of bad decisions and bad luck meant that the hidden gems would not see the light of day. The graphical inferiority and the early failures really stand out to me…
Any other thoughts?
My thought is that KOF '98 UM better be good, because KOF '98 can possibly get a resurgence in America (Where I live, so I care about it) if the port is good…SFA3 and Alpha Collection was far too late (SFA3 came out in 1998 IIRC).
Without gameplay Perfect arcade ports (which didn’t exist for SFA3 or KOF '98) then in these days of Arcade death there is NO CHANCE for a competitive scene in a game in the USA. SFA3 deserved a LOT better than the quick death it got in the states, it still deserves match play, and so does KOF '98.
Josh - Great book, and I agree both with your translation of its ideas to the discussion at hand and the factors you came up with. I don’t mean to say that no snk games are worthy of tourney play, just that most probably aren’t, and trying to play so many games is only going to make the determination of which category each game belongs in harder.
Even if there really are 5+ games that are tourney-worthy, that still doesn’t mean the average player is able or willing to learn them all at a competitive level. A determination still needs to be made as to which games are both good enough and popular enough to support a scene. These are not mutually inclusive, and obviously quality is subjective (although I think there are gameplay elements which provably increase or reduce a game’s quality, such as the fact that parries reduce gameplay diversity in 3s, which is pretty objectively bad). Personally, I think Vampire Savior is superior to 3s, however VS simply doesn’t have the popularity here to sustain a scene. In general, players want to play games that have diversity (not necessarily balance), depth, “fun”, and that they find at the least aesthetically acceptable, and hopefully aesthetically pleasing.
On that note, I think graphics are going to be a serious hurdle. The foundation of tournament play is a robust engine that provides for deep and interesting strategies and tactics. However, if a given player doesn’t like a game on the initial aesthetic level, it’s going to a hard sell to get them to the point of appreciating great gameplay.
It’s funny, the anime-style that turns some US players off is the primary reason there are so many fanboys.
One other thing I’d like to say:
If you guys are going to rally behind one game, I suggest waiting for KOFXII to come out. Just an idea.
The fanboy thing. I think it’s partially SNK games that got me into anime. Then again, there were some weird people playing Samsho back in the arcade back in the day. I got sucked into weirdness easily when I was young.
The SNK scene had a Mailing list but not a newsgroup- they never could get a newsgroup approved…
If you want to see some posts from it, look up mai.rinoa.nu has some old KOFML stuff
Right on man I am starting to wonder if we know more about WHP than the Japanese…like NGBC…
I dont agree with you…Why? ** If graphics are the case Why are people still playing Super Turbo??? ** If graphics are the case why is Mexico still playing 2k2???
If graphics are the case WHY ARENT PEOPLE PLAYING ART OF FIGHTING 3 or Last Blade 1???
See my logic…that disproves that argument to a degree…All newer SNK games are going on the new hardware anyways.
You wanna talk about graphics??? No one is complaining about graphics for ST even BEFORE HD was announced…I think thats another faulty argument…
People play what they like all there is to it…be it Breakers Revenge…3s…Tekken, SoulCal, Halo 3, Tecmo Bowl… or DEAD OR ALIVE…
ST does not draw much in the way of new players, most of the people who are serious about it have been playing for a really long time. Clearly that’s one of the main reasons behind STHD, to try and draw in new fans with updated graphics. Besides which, ST gets a pass, it’s basically the original great fighting game, not to mention that its graphics are better than a lot of snk games which came out after it.
Graphics help new games, not old games. SNK games are for all intents and purposes new games in many cases to the US, even if they are 10 yrs old like 98.
As for knowing more then the Japanese in NGBC and WHP- a lot of that is because the Japanese don’t take those games seriously, the same reason we’re better in MVC2?
Given equal interest, the Japanese will usually be better due to their inherent advantage of population density. (Basically they aren’t so spread out like we are that their knowledge expands faster) When a game is completely known like ST- their advantage mostly evaporates.
This is why I think the best chances for an American to take an SBO title are the first and last years a game is run.
Just to throw something out there regarding the whole playing-multiple-games-or-focus-on-few-games perspective: let’s use NGBC as an example. The best group of players for this game is no doubt the Triad group from NC. Now, they are very talented players and they do play a variety of games, but the main focus as far as SNK goes is NGBC and some XI. That should give you something to chew on for the side that advocates multiple games.
Same goes for WHP and Josh/Keits and their efforts to raise the game into the limelight.
I’ve just been focusing on KOF reg a till XII comes out. Also looking forward to reg a2
Okay and what does that mean? That means nothing to me…So you saying just because The Triad only plays NGBC and KOFXI we should follow their footsteps and ride their dicks?
C’mon now you know better than this… Thats like saying just because Daigo plays Ken and Justin Chun in 3s everyone should do that…
That has no weight whatsoever…
Only thing it has weight on is what Deathscythe was saying-…
Whatever creates drama creates a scene…like me vs. The Triad in NGBC is partly a MAJOR reason for NGBCs growth as a scene…KOFXI has drama too…
The other games might not have drama but to say lets do it just because The Triad does it is the funniest thing I’ve head all day long!!!
:lol:
LOL @ DG’s reaction. Are you really going to argue against NGBC and KOFXI because the triad plays them?
But I can flip that with SNK…you got games like NeoWave, KOF 94 Rebout, all that stuff that has upgraded graphics to try and bring people in…but they still aint playing it…
I bet if ST HD matter of fact is too different from ST people will go back to HD…look at HSF2 AE…