Tekken Unpopular in America

Current Fighting Games Tekken
1

Why is Tekken so unpopular in America? People bash it left and right like it punched their mama or some shit. Meanwhile, SF get’s praised no matter what they do wrong =\

Outside of America I hear Tekken is alot more popular, but nobody in the USA seems to give a shit about poor old Tekken. Was like that in Oklahoma and when I moved to Florida. I was mocked by the head of the video game tournament scene for liking Tekken… alot when I lived in Oklahoma, which is just stupid. Now I hear most people here in South Florida don’t give a shit about Tekken either. WHAT GIVES?! I weep for America =\

I don’t understand why people don’t like Tekken more…to me, its more fun than any other fighting game I’ve ever played. The Tekken series has been the most popular fighting franchise worldwide, therefore does that mean America is just full of elitists or something?

I hear it has something to do with it being 3D and USA prefers 2D. So does that just mean people prefer dumbed down nostalgia over innovations? (Would explain alot. I hear people complain about SFIV JUST for having 3D Graphics…its like “…seriously?”) Though I’ll throw this out there, even though I feel SF is boring now a days, I still highly respect it for what it did with SFII and am glad SFIV came out. Hell, I still find Alpha 3 some fun. I also love playing MVC3 (for better or for worse.)

Also:
I’m hear people saying they think TKXSF will sell alot worse than SFXTK. Why? Most of the Tekken characters in SFXTK don’t even play like they do in Tekken! Not just because of the switch to 2D, but more reasons than just that. These aren’t 2D Tekken characters…this is new 2D characters that LOOK like Tekken characters, with a small few of them actually playing like 2D Tekken characters. Won’t people be excited to see Street Fighter characters in full 3D? I’d hope that’d appeal SOME to people, alongside the fact the Tekken characters will play like they do in Tekken. (Making it alot more appealing to me) So is Tekken just hated THAT BAD, that the one that’ll play like Tekken won’t do well? I just don’t see what is wrong with Tekken in peoples eyes in America that the rest of the world doesn’t agree with. Tekken is awesome.

So what gives?!

http://789chan.org/L/src/130103674850.jpg

2

U.S. does care about Tekken. People still play it, just not as much when compared to the first year or so when the game was brand new. Like almost anything, interest dies down as time progresses and other games get released. TTT2 and possibly TxS might light a flame under peoples ass to play Tekken again, but only time will tell on release day. Unfortunately, his site might not be the best resource for your Tekken needs and the like. ATP, Tekken Zaibatsu are good coices.

EDIT: Shouldn’t this go to FGD?

3

I was thinking about trying Tekken Zaibatsu…though I already registered here so I guess I just don’t wanna have another site to add to the massive list of sites I’ve joined…guess maybe I should. Also, if its in the wrong section, feel free to move the thread mods.

4

Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t SF come out first, then it was Tekken? I think that could be why. I mean, Tekken is well known and all, but I think it has something to do with the arcade scene and people growing up with it, but don’t listen to me, I’m just firing shots in the dark.

5

To be honest…A lot of other fighitng game aren’t consider to be taken as seriously as Capcom games.

Not MK9
Not Blazblue
not KOF13
Not Soul Calibur

So the real issue that Capcom games have compete dominance in the USA.

6

When it comes to competitive play, Capcom games dominate in the U.S. It has always been this way, and it will most likely always be this way.

When it comes to overall sales, the Namco fighters (Tekken, Soul Calibur) and Mortal Kombat sell a lot more than Capcom fighters (aside from vanilla SF4, which sold that many units based on nostalgia). So Tekken isn’t unpopular to people; it just doesn’t have the competitive following that the Capcom fighters do here.

One thing I can say, though, is that the Tekken players we have are really good. As in, they consistently match up and even beat the Koreans in it. How often can you say that about Street Fighter?

7

^ If you’re talkin’ about Korean problems, I feel bad for you son, Latif got 99 problems but a Poongko ain’t one. HIT ME!
…Or Daigo… Or Valle… Or Rokido…

… Another thing is that Tekken is legitimately a more difficult game in the more “basic” areas of competitive play imo. You HAVE to know some frame data these days just to poke. In sf you can get by without that.

Movement- There is a level of movement execution that is about as difficult as this side of melee. YES I MENTIONED SSB AS BEING A FIGHTING GAME, COME AT ME BRO. lol.

But it’s so easy on a low level that most people just stay there and play casually. I think that’s the thing.
A game being popular is also deeply rooted in the culture and economic situation of an area.
I think some areas didn’t get sf2 and had their boom when the alphas hit.
Other areas were more kof centric and played roms on mame machines for 10 pesos or whatever because it was cheaper.

8

I think your blowing this out of proportion.lots of people play tekken.just that there are a lot more verbal street fighter fans here in the states.and people bashing it are most likely brainwashed fan boys that believe if capcom didn’t make it then it probably sucks

9

People are made to play an obsolete version of Tekken once again. They did that to us with Tekken 6, they do it again with TTT2. So people play TTT2 on arcades, but the arcade-less world has to wait for more than a year. That doesn’t happen with modern Street Fighter games.

Also, my opinion is that Tekken is getting worse and worse. I loved Tekken 5 DR, but quit just a few weeks after Tekken 6 release.

10

Well My take on it is that the 3d community in general or the non capcom community is just not as hungry here in the states. The community puts out content all day every day this stuff is what brings players in and keeps them in theres no 3d community figureheads for 3d like there is for 2-d. The Tekken scene has no equivalent to Valle, Mire Ross, Justin Wong, Seth Killian, Maximillian etc. Not just players but people who put out content and are constantly promoting the game and the community. I mean theres RIP, Aris, and Filthie Rich (to an extent) but really who else? Thats the main Issue is the Tekken scene isnt pulling in the 09ers or generating their own equivalent. The game itself isnt getting promoted either. I mean TTT2U is rumored to be dropping as early as September Namco needs to be plugging a US Gamestop tourney equivalent or at least get some damn flyers in the stores last time I went in there they didnt even know the game was around the way. Other than Capcom and Squeenix no Japanese companies know how to promote over here though even Sony is guilty of pretty much just releasing shit.

11

And yet when I try to find a Tekken Scene, I never found one. Even the fighting game scenes here in South Florida are mostly Capcom fighters from what I’ve found so far

Agreed. I loved 5:DR but 6 is shitty by comparison (it’d be better than DR if it weren’t for Bound and the extended length in combos/juggling), and I’ve heard TTT2 is worse =\ I hope TKXSF is better because I have been looking forward to that more than SFXTK.

(I love Street Fighter don’t get me wrong, but I like Tekken more)

12

I’ve read through the majority of these post’s and feel a little sorry for some of you, as here in London the community is a good size and growing. A lot of people arrange sessions at other peoples homes, in public venues like HMV Gamerbase and there are competitions that get put on. I love my 2D beat em ups, which is what I started on, but it’s all about Tekken for me.

Check our group on Facebook for the upcoming tournament - Lionz Den. Just because you don’t live in the UK, doesn’t mean you can’t talkTekken with us! Spread the word of Lionz Den like it’s Jesus.

13

Shrugs…I love Tekken and can’t wait for TTT2. Maybe NB needs to release a new version of Tekken every 6 months and tons of on-disc “DLC”. There sure as hell isn’t anything wrong with the fighting aspect.

14

Stopped reading at mention of smash bros… :wink: Nah, I agree. And yes, smash bros. (at least Melee) is a legit fighting game.

Anyways, as to why something is culturally popular somewhere is a question that can’t be answered. It’s like asking why soccer is popular in Europe but not here, etc. I mean, socially speaking there ARE reasons to these, but no simple answer. People grow up and adapt to the communities they are in, so if their friends and local scene is into capcom fighters, they will probably get into it too, not to say that they wouldn’t do the same if they were raised in a different community. It also doesn’t help that 10 year olds on youtube/srk threads argue about “wah street fighter/tekken is for noobs, tekken/street fighter is way better cause wah” so naturally people get defensive and start hating on the other game.

I love both games. I like Tekken a slight bit more because I feel there are slightly less skewed matchups in it than Street Fighter. While obviously there are tiers, I don’t feel there’s any completely one-sided matchups like Blanka/T. Hawk or Guile/Bison, etc. in street fighter. Sure, some characters generally have better tools but I don’t feel anyone has any elements that completely shut other characters down.

That’s just my opinion though, still good games. Anyways, cool story me.

15

I found that tekken is very wide spreaded on a casual level. on a more serious level it feels like it hit a bit the dust with Tekken 6. I was a die hard tekken fan once, had thousands of hours in T1-4, but it gradually got worse with 5, with 6 being a complete turd that completely shooed me away. the wall was worse enough, the groundbounce + groundbreaking + rage mechanism just went over the top.

It also attracts less new players as it gets more complex and complex with more and more character, with more and more moves. That’s not a bad thing per se, but sometimes you need to “compromise” and then build from there again. If street fighter would feature every character ever included in a street fighter game with all moves they ever had, along with all mechanism you have ever seen in one of those games you’d feel that it is overloaded too.

On the other side Tekken also lacks “innovation”. It’s basically the same game with a major update, but it never really feels “fresh” and “new”. that’s not really a bad thing to me, but it’s noticeable.

on a side note, not that it does matter, but why does tekken 6 look like tekken 5? that’s a whole generation of hardware in between those titles. >_>

16

I will agree that Tekken lacks innovation, and that sometimes it can feel bloated. Street Fighter usually has a different, varied cast with every major iteration. However, you got to strike a fine line between bringing back characters that people love without making it too much. As far as I recall, Tekken 6 has a smaller cast than KOF13, so I dunno.

As far as the graphics… I don’t really see the big deal. Yeah, they did mostly reuse the animations from 5, but games like KOF are much more guilty of this. As far as i recall, KOF recycled the same sprites animations for plenty of games, and even 13 uses 12. The graphics, aside from the animations, are nice I think. I mean… with each generation of consoles coming out, the difference in graphical capability is not gonna be as big as the previous leap. I mean, compare going from SNES to playstation, then ps1 to ps2, etc. the leaps were a lot bigger. I don’t think T6 is a graphically bad game at all, it’s nice and fluid. I don’t really give a shit about the graphics, but that’s just me.

I don’t think T6 was THAT BAD, I just feel like it’s the innovation like you spoke of. The way street fighter plays, lends itself to more unique mechanics going, since the animation and whatnot is based around characters cancelling into moves and doing crazy stylish stuff. I mean, imagine making some sort of FADC or wild mechanic in Tekken that interrupts people’s animations or does crazy things, it just wouldn’t fit in I feel. The style of Tekken is, at least in comparison to a lot of 2d fighters, more down to earth and about vaguely realistic martial arts, not jumping 20 feet in the air, doing jab hitconfirms cancelled into flaming uppercuts and whatnot. Again, this is not said as a ‘negative’ to street fighter at all, since that is the basis of it. Wild, stylish fighting that can still be broken down to a science, but gameplay wise is completely different. The bound mechanics and rage system WERE namco’s attempts at innovation/changing the system and the response as basically been “why bother? It was fine before.”

I don’t think casuals give two shits about how complex characters are; I think casuals like it cause it IS easier at a low level to button mash and have varied strings come out. Casuals by definition won’t know how many moves have been added between iterations cause they most likely don’t look up that sort of information. And yeah, I do feel like casuals like Tekken more cause first off, Tekken has been more consistent with its releases (whereas street fighter kinda fell off the mainstream view until sf4) and cause of the aforementioned ability to mash out and look like you’re legitimately fighting.

Anyways, I’m curious if it’s still the #1 played fighting game in Japan. I’d like to see some of those arcade rankings again.