Can someone answer this question? Just wondering…
possibly since they’re not exactly popular in america. not a big enough fanbase? honestly, i think KoF2k2 (2k3 = weak imo), and i haven’t played that new one yet, should be in there, and shit like sc2 shouldn’t.
just my .02
2k3 got a vote for beaing broke because of a char. named duo lon. which has in infinite and has been known to get baned from tournies…
funny how that gets crappy response in america when you can do infinites in MvC2, into supers, into unblockables as well and nobody complains. crappy game to me MvC2. my .02
its major only in mexico and europe, phillipines,UK etc.
You forgot to mention its SUPER huge in Japan…
Did you even play KOF 2k3? Duo Lon is like ST Akuma in ST.
there has to be a community that has decent sized tournaments before it is even considered for evo.
I would love to see some KoF tourneys in my area, but I do not think that the following is big enough for a major tournament (I.E. - Evo). Also, there’s a new version or two every year, so who’s going to be the judge of which version gets played at what tournys and which characters/glitches are banned etc… etc… It’s just too much stuff to keep track of for such a small scene. And remember that this is opposed to the Capcom games that are generally more well known and more widely played and only come out every 3 years or so. There’s basically ST, TS, MVC2, CVS2 GG, and now CFJ??? and the 3D fighters that get played here in tourneys.
My .2
I agree with wizard I made a feable attempt to make things happen competitively for SNK games but I just don’t have the time anymore. If you’re interested in helping me organize I’m still up for it. Hit me up at deaddogsamurai@fierceslash.com
FYI there was a tournament at Evo for a number of SNK titles in the gaming lounge however there wasn’t anymore than 20 or so participants per game. I personally couldn’t make it due to airline problems. (Some haters will tell you otherwise) But I hear the participants did enjoy themselves.
Here’s a trippy thought SVC had the MOST participants…think it was 23.
It still stands in order for a community to be noticed it needs to get it’s head out of its ass and represent. SNK peeps don’t. For proof look at the numbers of people who said they’d show up for the fierceslash revolution at evo and maybe 5 percent of those people showed. OOps my bad the proof is gone I edited the “list” and erased the signup list sometime before the tourney because it was inaccurate.
The SNK peeps are out there though, it’s just that there aren’t enough of them or they don’t want to travel. I know probably 25 hardcore SNK peeps right near the state of DE. But they won’t go to evo, so go fig.
cosign. I seem to remember inkblot posting a rather thorough explanation about this a while back.
–jedi//.
Decent sized tournaments BEFORE consideration? lol Explain Vf4. Never even had a decent sized scene in the US. It’s smaller than kof in popularity here, even on this site.
Or can it be mad popular in Japan? Is that it?
Apoc.
but what is the reason for the lack of popularity in the usa? overshadowed by sf? what happened/went wrong?
Americans’ Capcom faggots.
If people stop loving so blindly anything Capcom releases…
My opinions/observations:
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Graphics. People considered KoF graphics to be inferior to SF games, and for the longest time, they were. It wasn’t until Capcom started doing the dream match stuff that KoF’s consistency didn’t look so bad anymore. (I’m of the opinion that KoF2K2 looks much better than CFJ, and that Garou still overshadows everything Capcom’s done since 3S and A3).
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Exposure. MVS cabinets have like four games on them, and newbies play for fun. Metal Slug is way more fun in a casual environment than KoF will be just because fighters, by definition, require a lot of effort to learn and master. That and it wasn’t until recently that we got decent PS2 adaptations of KoF games; the DC ones were passable, and the PSX ones blew chunks.
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Gameplay. Diehard KoF fans I know think SF is boring. I personally think KoF is fun, but its depth lies horizontally, not vertically; while you have a large cast, there’s only so much variety to be found amongst them. There’s never any mind games in the countless matches I’ve played and watched since 1998, it’s always about landing your pokes into combos. Wakeup rolls kill okizeme, IMO, and rolls/high jumps/low jumps kill the meticulous spacing issues SF is famous for. KoF is much more fast-paced but it can be rather detached to play once you start memorizing the situations your character gets into and the possible combos/counters they can do. That and KoF characters lack variety in design; while Angel and May Lee are innovative, why do Kyo/Iori and the Kyokugens all play in similar fashion? Not to mention that aside from the yearly “gimmick”, KoF’s always played the same: it was Extra for the old games, Advanced/Extra for 98, and every year they change some little thing, like back rolling and strikers in 99, new strikers in 2000, that lame ratio system and wire attacks in 2001, HSDMs and the old-style gameplay in 2002, and the new tag system in 2003… there’s not enough new-ness to really keep anyone but hardcore fans to keep going in between the permutations.
There are a number of reasons…
Accessibility. Most arcade owners know that an MvC2, CvS2, or whatever hot SF machine will generate money. They’d be more skeptical about KoF machines, because seriously even at arcades I frequent WITH KoF machines… the traffic they get is probably 10 times less. For the most part at an arcade, an MvC2 machine on a weekend, or at least a peak time will have traffic pretty much until closing time. Not so with a KoF machine. Every arcade I see with a KoF machine… that machine always has idle time, unless some guy is playing against the CPU. Thus, there will be more arcades that will not have a KoF machine, but still have an SF machine. When there are fewer machines, there is less accessibility and not as many people begin playing, and then there isn’t much motivatin to really play it competitively.
First mover advantage.
Brand equity.
Capcom broke out with SF2, everyone flocked to it, everyone loved it. Whenever you think about a cola soft drink, what’s the first name that comes to mind in 98% of the population? Coke. Whenever you need a paper tissue to blow your nose, what’s the name that pops into mind? Kleenex. Whenever you need to use a yellow sticky thing to post up on a board, what name do people think of? Post-It. Whenever you need to make photocopies of something, what name come to mind? Xerox. Whenever someone mentions “fighting video game” in the US… what name do most people relate that with? SF.
Capcom broke the mold with SF2 in the heyday they struck first and struck gold. KoF came later as a follower, and while it does good internationally, because fighting games are still popular offshore… the presense of so many other games around here by US companies caused the fighting game interest to die down, and the followers took the hit harder. There’s probably debate of “which game got released first” but it doesn’t matter because SF2 made the biggest impact. While the SF scene is pretty bad as well, they still get mentioned because they’re still living off of the brand equity they created from their success when they had SF2.
The fact that Duo Lon has an infinite in KoF2k3 doesn’t make people stop playing it, because people still play MvC2 even though they fucked up and got AHVBed 3 times and it’s all due to the brand equity status that Capcom built up from the beginning.
No one really cares about “graphics” or “gameplay”. Those things aren’t exactly the straw the breaks a camel’s back. People still eat McDonald’s despite the fact that there are probably many other better, cheaper, healthier alternatives. The graphics can continue to suck, not get any better, but the mindset ever since SF2 is that the success of it made people more trusting of whatever new game comes out because it’s the same company, so they give it a better shot. When CE comes out “Ooo you can play as the bosses!” and it’s just that the strong hold they had over the market is what allowed people to stick around and not really lose too many fans to their competitors, because KoF was merely a follower, and people were just too used to playing SF. The fighting game market was already established with the presence of SF because Capcom obviously struck first and stuck the strongest. While KoF was new and tried to be more innovative, the differences it had from SF didn’t detract enough SF fans away from playing SF.
More than 90% of people browing the internet use IE. Many users of Firefox, Opera and other browsers will argue strongly that they stopped using IE, saying IE sucks and everything. Everyone still uses Windows, and Linux users will admit proudly they use Linux, saying Windows sucks and everything, and arguments against Windows and IE are clearly valid. But people will still continue to use those products, because of the strong hold the company has over the market. That’s what Capcom achieved with SF2.
To me, in the US, SF = Windows, KoF = Linux.
Please don’t compare the gameplay with Capcom “latest” games. It is not like Ryu/Ken/Akuma/Sean/Sagat and Charlie/Remy/Guile… are very different too.
I guess vf4 just gets “respect.” While SNK doesn’t. But what I will say at least the places that I know have VF4 groups they meet all the time and are very public about wanting competition. SNK peeps from what I’ve seen even in my circle, generally don’t care to play people from other areas.
No it hasn’t. ESPECIALLY not 2k3. If you try to play 2k3 like '94 with tag you are going to get fucked up hardcore.
The main reason I think is because peeps in the US are so blinded by anything Capcom - MvsC2 being a prime example as the US is the only country it is REALLY popular. Another reason is for some reason SNK communities dont seem to be very social etc… towards each other whereas Capcom people do. Even here in Australia there is a much larger KOF following in the arcades than SF, however the SF fans actually have a strong community and have montly and national tournaments whereas the KOF bunch just wont seem to get together to make something work…I have tried on several occasians to start up KOF tournaments but with little progress.
Just my 2 cents…
94-95 is different from 96-97, which is different from 99-2001 which is different from 2003. More than enough change, considering it is (was) a yearly game. Considering how the scene hates change, its surprising there are four “engines” in the series.
Down here people only play KOF (the game with most tourneys) and to a lesser degree, GGXX. In the US, it seems SNK fans dont like mixing themselves with the “fanboys”, which is a very stupid, stuck-up attitude. The “fanboys” may know how to play too, but they prefer to ignore that for some reason.
They might, and you’re right there’s no reason to seperate the fan from the competitor but the problem lies in the fact that a tourney scene will never get started by fanboys. We’ve got plenty of SNK fanboys, just not enough SNK competitors.