Hmmm…I’ve only skimmed a lot of the posts instead of trying to read all of them, but that’s because I’ve wasted a lot of time as it is today.
Anyway, I find interesting that, beyond what LoneDragon has said, most people haven’t seemed to bring up any type of alternative reason for relatively low turn-out for most tournaments beyond “fear” as they (futilely) debate back and forth on why tournaments are best environment or not and blah blah. That’s fine and all, since this is asking for personally accounts or admission of fear. I merely find it interesting that people are ignoring other potential reasons.
Personally, I will that say that fear is a very low factor for me. It’s not nonexistent, but I’m both confidence that I’m decent enough as a player and confident that I won’t win that I would probably still go (not to EVO, most likely, but that’s mostly because it’s in Las Vegas and that place seems like anathema to me, but I digress) if I still thought I could have fun.
There are a Hell of a lot of other factors, though:
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[]Lack of transportation: For me, this one is my own “fault” in that I’ve never wanted to drive, which has only screwed me over when it comes to getting tournaments that are “close by” (or, rather, the closest ones possible), since most of the ones in NorCal or at Golflands and such. And, really, even now, there’s no way hell I’m going to carpool with people that I don’t know. That’s just asking for trouble.
[]Lack of arcades/neutral tournament places: I’m sure this is a lot more relevant that don’t live on either coast. It also seems that increasingly, tournaments are being held at people’s houses, which is understandable but raises the same trust issues for me, so those tournaments out. That leaves arcades that are miles away from, someone who walks everywhere–I have no problem with walking with 7 miles or such, but there are a lot of bridges that you can’t walk across in the Bay Area, so yeah–or has to take the unreliable bus.
[]Lack of time: Similarly, and this is probably most surprising thing that I’ve not seen people bring up even though Lone Dragon touched on it, is that tournaments take up both a lot of time and most of people that go to them have jobs. I mean, unless you’re a hustler, it’s likely that you if you have the constant money to go to tournaments that you’re going to have flexible enough hours to go. Yes, this even applies for weekend tournaments for a lot of people since some people have to go to work on the weekends, shocking I know–I am usually one of those people, though my schedule is probably shittier than most because it isn’t constant AT ALL. Tournaments similarly eat up a lot of time and a lot of that time, as LoneDragon has said, ends up being for nothing even if you do advance; people tend to be impatient creatures.
[]Lack of money: A given what with both the above paragraph and LoneDragon are saying. Tournaments cost money to enter that not everyone can throw around (at least on a constant basis), especially when you factor transportation costs and such. That combined with tournaments being an even more extreme part of an already nonessential hobby that doesn’t really give returns to most anyone and the currently suckass economy makes this an even greater factor (nowadays).
[*]Lack of social skills: I suppose this is somewhat along the lines of the initial fear that’s talked about, though that seems to have been more along the fear of being defeated rather than social awkwardness. Face it, a lot of the people on SRK–myself included–are introverts. While that doesn’t automatically mean that one has to be socially awkward, we’re not the type of people that are usually going to feel comfortable around a lot of loud, competitive strangers. Hell, personally, this is probably a huge reason for me right now since I go through very long periods of not wanting to be around people AT ALL–then again, I’ve been forced to work retail for the past 4+ years, so I’m sure that has multiplied my misanthropy quite a bit.
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There are other problems/lacks, such as lack of competitive drive (I personally lack this most of the time despite enjoying fighting games) or lack of advertising (outside of SRK, what else is there?), but I figure those are increasingly personally and yadda yadda.
All of this talk and I haven’t even been able to play SF4 in the past 6 or 7 months since I don’t have a next-gen console (that isn’t the Wii) and I unhonestly don’t have any real desire to get back into it between the likelihood of an update (“SF4 Dash”) coming out relatively soon and my main, Vega, sucking for absolutely stupid reasons. (“Yes, let’s give him a guard meter that makes him weaker than Gouki without any real possible means of defense or offense! Most excellent!”)
That said, I figure this would apply to any type of tournament that people might want to join (i.e. Blazblue), so that doesn’t really matter.
Regardless, good thread I guess. :tup: 
One of these days I’ll find my way up to B-more, I hear they run stuff up there from ATN, and maybe I’ll slip into the losers bracket at a tourney up there shrug