Well, 3rd Strike came out in 98 and no one cared about it until we started losing to Japan, so maybe that would be taken into some account as the game didn’t get real serious until the time in question and by then, we supposedly didn’t get these games that apparently everyone forgot about.
You have to account for the fact that some places didn’t even have scenes nor did they want them. I remember reading a post about how his town was devoid of any scene except for like 5 people on a 3s cab, after Sf4 came about, buncha new people got interested and branched off to other titles. Don’t give me bullshit about how SF4 didn’t revitalize the scene, becuase as far as I am concerned, it actually re-opened the public eye to fighting games. Whether or now some people stick with it, it’s pretty much a retarded claim of jealousy to say that Sf4 didn’t help out AT ALL.
I don’t think anyone would argue that SF4 wasn’t a shot of adrenaline for the FG scenes outside of some countries.
But saying there were “no games” and “no playable games” during whatever time span is ignorance.
Well heres the thing, that’s just an easy out- ‘sf4 fanboy’ is just the insult du jour, and people always try to discredit folks by calling them ignorant (it comes up in every anime game discussion ever). There was certainly a drought, and I know and played 10 billion different fighting games (or thats what it feels like sometimes). In a way all that experience makes it more obvious. I also remember when the arcades dried up and weren’t worth going to anymore, because even if they had a fighting game that was maintained, there was never anyone to play with.
It’s like roboticelf said. There was never a time when production stopped entirely, but it dropped off massively in volume and popularity.
Even now, a new fighting IP is just about impossible (only real commercial ones I can think of recently are Blazblue and Skullgirls, altho I’m not counting anime adaptations like nekonekonekowhatever).
edit:
that’s the other piece, if you’re in LA or NYC or SF or Chicago you just don’t know. It makes me think of the time I saw some guy asking Valle for advice, and he just had no idea “Just do stuff, people will show up!”
All I know is this: I played TONS more titles with TONS more variety last generation than I have this generation - and this generation is on it’s last legs.
And I’m not really insulting people when I say you are a Street Fighter fan - it’s just that if you think that there was a drought during the last 10 years, give or take… you are a Street Fighter fan. Not a fan of fighting games in general. That’s just the truth of the matter. You wouldn’t hear a fan of KOF, Tekken, VF or almost any other long-running fighter make the same claim - because for them, there was no drought.
As for the making of a scene - I live in a very small city. I can see what it takes to make a scene here - I just don’t have the God-damn time due to work and plans for starting up my own business. If your town has more than one GameStop, then you CAN make a scene - all it’s going to take is time, the ability to teach and/or convert others, and the willingness to use social networking skills.
This.
Sure you can favor one game, but you can still buy, play and support all the other fighting games out there because you genuinely like fighting games and want to see more variety and stuff.
Pretty much. If I had a small group of 3-5 people consistently meeting up and most traveled and even had visitors, then it’s possible. Doesn’t have to be THAT big. Just have good serious players who are open to trying new games out and go from there. And go outside the game. Like hang out and eat somewhere and stuff. Build friendships.
About KOF, SNK went out of business for a while!
and anyways like I said, say 2002+ just doesn’t compare. All of the notable KOFs, essentially ALL of the other SNK fighters (excepting 3 SS games and 2 crossover games), several hundred games by companies that tested the waters and then backed out for a while, all of those were from before the drought started.
Nobody’s saying new games didn’t exist, but its certainly true that way fewer different games were made, and way fewer people were playing them.
I honestly don’t see how anybody can deny that.
A partial list of games that were from before the drought:
All of capcom’s fighters excepting SF4 and MvC3 (so SF1, 5 SF2s, 3 SF3s, 3 Alphas, 2 Star Gladiators, 2 Rival Schools, 2 Powerstones, 7 Vs games, 2 CvS, Cyberbots, 3-5 Darkstalkers, JoJos, Gem Fighter all done before the year 2002)
SNK games (11 Fatal Furies, 4 World Heros, 7 Samurai Shodowns (1-4, WR1-2 PSX WR), 2 Last Blades, 3 Art of Fighting, 8 KOFs)
Sega games (3 VF’s, Last Bronx, 2 VO games, Fighting Vipers, the Golden Axe fighter, that Sonic fighter)
4 Tekkens and 3 Soul Games from Namco
3 SFEX’s
A massive assortment of other games (Shogun warriors, Zero Divide 1-2, Toshinden 1-3, Criticom, OMF2097, FX Fighter, Dynasty Warriors, 3 Pretty Fighter games, freakin’ Battle Raper, 2 QOH games, Time Killers, amongst others)
And those are just off the top of my head, only checked when I wasn’t sure if a game was before or after 2002.
Edit: I should add Stick Fighter and Violent Myth, which apparently even wikipedia haven’t heard of. Also since writing that I looked it up, if only they sorted by date… Also, I think if you take just SNK and Capcom, that’s more games published before the slump than have been made by all the companies combined after… especially if you count collections and stuff.
I knew about those, I just really don’t care about 3D fighting games. Past that you have Guilty Gear (I don’t get it, I’m sure its amazing just not my taste) and KOF games that aren’t as good as the old ones anyhow. So for me we had… Neo Geo Battle Collosseum and the Vs SNK games.
Fighting games were a fad and then people left to other games and the industry followed them.
http://www.quickmba.com/marketing/product/lifecycle/
The first 3 steps happened in the 90s for fighting games.
It was expected to fall off and decline sharply. I feel bad for SNK because they had pretty much put all their eggs in two baskets: arcade games and fighting games
SNK just made poor business decisions and didn’t evolve, it lead to them almost going extinct. Hopefully the fighting game market is stabilized now and that SNK actually explores making games for other genres and expand. I think they could be very successful in the downloadable game market (right now they are releasing their old titles though, dat nostalgia $$$).
That’s a strange position to take. So if a game has too many people competing, it can’t be a competitive masterpiece?
So, what’s more competitive, the game of polo, or the game of basketball? Basketball has more “scrubs” and bad players can play it. Polo requires more investment, so the player base has a higher average skill. The bad player to good player ratio in polo is more even, so polo is a better competitive game?
(For the record, I don’t particularly enjoy playing Street Fighter 4, but there’s no doubt there is more competition there than my favorite games.)
No Garou: Mark of the Wolves?
2000 and later, Garou released in 99
Garou is older than that, actually. I included it in my list tho’ (as one of the Fatal Furies)
Wait, there were THREE Pretty Fighters?!
What beats a turd? Two more turds of the same variety, apparently.
Sorry one year early 
as the game was actually finished on November 5, 1999. Finished not published and mass marketed.
Pretty Fighter, Pretty Fighter X, and FIST.
[media=youtube]vYwFtUG0Yvc[/media]
Fist is my candidate for the worst actual fighting game ever (fighter maker crap doesn’t count, that’s what usually gets posted)
Oh man. Fist made me wish I was playing Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer.
NOW… LOAD… ING!
Someone should do a youtube series like Mystery Science Theater 3000 with the obscure fighting games.
kofxi is such an awesome game. my favorite kof game by far.