Severin hit it right on the money.
When you have TOO many fighting games they oversaturate the market and people become scattered.
It happened when we first Had MK and SF players, then in turned into MK, SF, and KI players. Then MK, SF, KI, and Tekken players. Then MK, SFHyper FIghting, SSF2, KI, Tekken, Bloodstorm, and Neo Geo/KOF players…
If you have only X amount of people playing your game of choice, it is going to hurt the overall “leveling up” unless you already have a distinctive group of players that were high level to begin with at that series.
Street Fighter was never high level in this state from back in the day, but Tekken and Soul Calibur historically are very high level, so it makes sense that with the same players playing Tekken still to this day and playing with the same groups, they will still succeed. Guilty Gear is also high level but mostly in Memphis.
Street Fighter started late here and the “original” players that still played aren’t playing it much anymore because they have moved on to other things (sans Eugene)
Most of our Fight Night is the same thing because there isn’t anyone “serious” about anything these days except for Arson it seems. There is nothing wrong with that but the drive isn’t there for many people and since everyone has work time has been taken away.
When this happened the last time we had to recruit new blood from colleges. All of the major players out here are out of school sans a couple of Cookeville cats…it’s possible to recruit new players, but we have to find new pools to get them from but that’s how scenes stay going for so long, new blood and the old guard will come back even when “their” game(s) of the moment die down.
Oh, and just a reminder, we have a tournament at Game Galaxy in Antioch on the 15th (this coming Saturday) with $100 extra to 1st place for Tekken (which is a $10 entry fee and $10 cover) and tournaments in Persona 4 Arena, KOF, and SFAEv2012.
The cover charge also includes free play on ALL the arcade games (but not the pinballs) including 3rd Strike, ST, SFAE arcade, the CPS2 18 in 1 multicade, Neo Geos, etc…
Hope to see some of you guys here Saturday!