There is a famous book that examines very successful people. In the book the author argues that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill. This includes Tiger Woods, Jordan, Bill Gates, and others. The reason you see the same people doing well at different fighting games year after year is because they are using skills they have mastered through tens of thousands of hours of practice and experience.
You must have missed the part about his VO2 max being off the charts. The basketball can be explained, but doctors have never seen oxygen levels like that. Clearly that is genetics at work.
There’s also something to be said about how WELL you practice. You can play SF4 vs CPU for 10,000 hours and not be as good as someone who has logged 500 hours in an arcade. That’s why certain areas (especially Japan) seem to be “naturally” better than America. They have no genetic advantage, their practice is just more efficient than ours, so even if we play as much as their die hard players we won’t get as good. Their talent is always in Tokyo arcades. You can find all the greatest players in that one city on any given day. Our best players get to play each other once every few weeks at best (online doesn’t really count).
Why do you think 99% of the best players in the big games come from the big cities? Do you think it’s something magical in the water that makes it so California players are naturally better? Or NYC players? You’d be a fool to think so. They simply have access to better competition than someone in North Dakota.
Quit making excuses. The reason why you aren’t that good is because you lack dedication. Pure time isn’t enough. You have to completely dedicate your LIFE to be as good as the best.
Yeah I missed that, then your right about genetics playing a big part. However I can’t see how genetics would give you an advantage at videogames unless you were playing midgets whose hands were too small to press the buttons or something.
I wasn’t aware that I was making excuses. Was just stating facts.
I think talent is a factor, but not what makes one person better than another. Practice and dedication go a long way. If a person practiced hard core for a good length of time, then yeah they could probably be a very good player. However, talent is required for the next level. That’s what sets players like Daigo and Justin apart from the other really good players out there. Just my opinion of course.
Exactly. Genetics plays a much bigger factor in physical things than mental. Unless you have a learning disability or your reflexes are abnormally low, you most likely are on an even level with the top SF4 players. You just need to practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Play in tourneys even though you know you’re going to lose. Go to an arcade and get perfected by the local pro.
People in this thread arguing that it’s just natural are just making excuses for themselves. Play to win.
OH BY THE WAY. As for the whole “why does it seem like Daigo and JWong can just pick up a new game and win?” question. Once you get good at a particular game you’ll understand. With fighting games the skills carry over from one game to another. Look at MvC2 players. It’s almost impossible to do mixups on the best MvC2 players because no matter how crazy the mixups are in some games, they probably pale in comparison to MvC2 mixups. It’s hard to outpoke professional SF3 players because that’s one of the biggest things you learn from that game.
Why do you think everyone recommends you start learning fighting games with Street Fighter 2? It’s because half of all modern fighting games are based on the template that SF2 layed down. Getting good at SF2 gives you the basic tools to do well in all fighting games that came after it. From tick throws, to zoning, to poking, to comboes.
EDIT:
Not exactly Tragic. You said you thought you don’t have the “it” factor. But there is no it factor. You live in Mississippi. How many times have you played a top level player? How many of the east coast tournaments have you went to?
Try to use Occam’s Razor. Look for the obvious reasons why you’re mediocre instead of trying to contribute it to some mysterious “it” factor.
All right, let’s examine what makes a good SF4 player.
1: Memory/muscle memory. Obviously, the ability to maximize the damage from every opportunity with a combo is key to good SF play. This is something that comes with practice, and some people do take to it faster than others. Spacing, matchups and more… This is all information that has to fit in your brain.
2: Reaction. This can also be trained, and is actually part of the memory/muscle memory thing… Knowing how to respond to certain situations (say, a jumpin) is one thing, but being able to put that knowledge to use in time is another matter. Did you get that hit-confirm? Which jumpin angle corresponds to which antiair (unless of course you’re a shoto and can just keep track of whether your DP is going to hit or not)? You can train yourself into reacting the right way, but you still have to react in time.
3: Mindgames. You don’t win matches just by reacting. Unless you’re playing against people against whom you can do certain things for free (for instance, shotos still get free jumpins into blockstrings against me from a certain angle, and they abuse it to no end online once they find out), you need to outsmart your opponent. You need to read your opponent. It’s something that takes training, but it also takes observational skills. You don’t get that just from playing Street Fighter 4.
In short: It’s a mix of talent and training. Much like anything, really 
Hahahaha, that’s a funny thought. I guess my point is that some of the top level players could have naturally better reactions or be more dexterous with their hands naturally. Practice and dedication play the huge majority in determining your overall skill, but some people are just naturally better.
I do think though, as time goes on, the advantage genetics would give you decreases and decreases to the point where if there are advantages present in players like Daigo and Justin Wong, when they play each other the advantages they may have are meaningless compared to the hours they have put in.
That along with the mental capacity to identify patterns and/or “predict” what your opponent will do.
“Talent” is a pretty broad term. Some people will be naturally more dexterous and have better reactions but these are also things that can be trained. Basically, I agree with CZ that as the level of play increases these natural factors decrease.
You can train your reaction time through experience by being able to recognize movements, situations, and patterns. You’re not really making your reaction time faster, you’re simply reacting earlier. Dexterity is also relative to practice. It’s a matter of learning your tool, in this case, a stick. The same way that anyone who plays an instrument can play a tune blindfolded, the more familiar you get with your stick, the less time it takes between the thought of “push FP” and actually pushing FP.
But, yeah, if you take two people with no experience, one with great reaction time and one with terrible reaction time, and put them in front of a new fighter with a new controller, then of course the person with better reaction time (talent) will have a big edge.
That’s kind of like saying “Smart people will do well. Dumb people won’t.” I think that’s kind of a given, but yeah I guess that’s another form of genetic preference.
As some other people have said, quality of practice, amount of practice, past experience, and determination, all factor into the speed in which you learn. However, theoretically, if there were an infinite amount of time for people to perfect their game, then execution wouldn’t even be an issue. It would all just boil down to mind games and leveling exercises.
Why is it tall skinny guys make good runners?
Why is it that big bulky guys make better linemen in football?
Why is it that some people seem to naturally have their brains wired for math?
The fact is that since no two people (except twins) are exactly alike that our bodies are all wired in different ways. So by that alone some of us are going to have natural ability to perform tasks better than others. That is just simple physics.
Now it still takes a lot of time and work to sharpen an attribute, but when everyone has sharpened their skill levels to their max then those with the natural attributes will sit up top because of that little edge.
Mendelssohn was the same. In fact, for upper classes musical education was standard and every child would be encouraged to become active in local concerts etc.
But the two main child prodigies were Mozart and Mendelssohn (whose reputation was destroyed by rampant anti-semitism) but I digress…
Talent is an innate thing, I’m an average (below, if I’m honest) player and no matter how hard I practice and how many hours I put into the game I will never reach the levels of Daigo or Mago et al.
Nice article.
WTF?
Well put and true.
Daaaammmmmmnnnn! That kid would break my ankles.
My two cents:
Talent and how the brain is wired. But an average joe kinda dude can put in the hours and practice to be second place to someone who’s done the same but has talent on his side.
Yet it still doesn’t factor in that I am not going to be able to shove around a guy with equal training who has 150 pounds more than I do. The equations derived from Newtonian physics explain it quite simply.
F = ma
K.E. = (1/2)mv^2
p = mv
Basically I would have to run twice as fast as a guy twice my weight to have the same momentum. Likewise if our brains are wired differently they are going to have different properties.
As much as we would like to think there are certain physical attributes that add to a person’s success. However it still takes a massive amount of training to proficiently use our talents.
Well…that and keeping an eye on the tiers. You can dedicate your entire life to playing Fei-long and then when you’re 80 fight Daigo, who’s still using Ryu by then and i believe you still won’t win…
Damn i actually think i understood part of that equasion…only where did you leave your a?
They are 3 different equations that describe 3 different properties of objects in motion. You have force, momentum, and Kinetic energy.
a = acceleration
v = velocity
m = mass
p = momentum
F = force
K.E. = Knetic energy.
How did we go from Street Fighter to physics?
Talent definitely exists, but practice and dedication can overcome it. End of story for me.
Some people are prodigies, I wouldn’t call Justin Wong one, I’d call him a nerd, just as we’re all nerds. some people would be good at chess.
It has more to do with how well your brain adapts to a situation, and you can improve. Some people are born to Drum because they have a natural rhythm that translates into drumming.
Eh I wouldn’t say being “l33t” at street fighter is a born trait
Tiers < skill. You seem to be implying that if you were much better than Daigo with Fei-Long than he is with Ryu then you’d still lose. Not true. If you were better you could still overcome the tier disadvantage.
I have two problems with this reasoning. First off, yes genetics play a fairly large role in PHYSICAL activities. As you said, it’s simply physics as to why some body types are good in certain roles. However I fail to see the connection to fighting games.
As for your whole “some people are just naturally better at math”. That’s a load of crap. I SUCKED at math in high school, regularly getting C’s. I couldn’t understand Calculus at all. Part of the problem is I would never do my homework. But when I got to college I rededicated myself and spent hours upon hours doing homework and I pulled straight As through Calculus 4.
Why do some people seem to struggle less? For the same reason Daigo can pick up SF4 and be good, they’ve already put in the work. They’ve already developed the basics. Just like if I had studied more in high school I wouldn’t have had to do hours of studying to get As in college.