The stagnant fighting game scene and what we as players can do about it

I love fighters as much as anyone else on here but the “Scene” is old - it’s on it’s last legs I feel.

Now I ask all of you to do the same thing I did and ask “Why is that?” - well I came up with a few things…

Old School vs. New School

The older guys are either getting on with life or are just turned off by the younger style of play and ethics as detailed in this thread here -> http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108029

There is also the old mentality and the whole “Scared of change” thing but I’ll dig into that a little bit later.

What can be done about it?
Nothing, this is a natural progression - but we do have a lack of new players to replace those that are leaving.

Lack of New Players
Those of us still around kind have the “Boys Club, No Girls Allowed” thing going on. we should try to show these guys the ropes, rather then laugh at them, I’m sure someone laughed at Justin Wong when he first started out and look how he turned out lol

What can be done about it?
Dunno honestly what can be done besides being more of an inviting scene.

Lack of New Games
This right here is BULLSHIT, there are quite a few “New Games” to play just none of them are CAPCOM games :rofl:

King of Fighters XI
Guilty Gear XX Slash
Rumblefish 2

Bam there go 3 right there - Now why do people in general look down on Non-Capcom games? if given a chance SNK games are NOT that bad.

I’ll post a little more later, time grew short for me.

i think the lack of ONLINE hurts it too… i noticed a lot of people jumped on the bandwagon when zbattle and xbl came up…

i think too, that if more places like nickel city opened up, the arcade scene would revive itself. in all, arcades are dying, because people are sticking to online… in the end, i feel that the arcade is the only way to truely play a fighter…

Wanna support the scene? Buy Samurai Shodown Tenka.

That game is bananas. SNK’s first real foray into Capcom-quality gaming.

…seriously.

The scene is not on its last leg, its just has old legs. It needs a breath of fresh air, new forms of promotion, better ways to expose it, better ways to accept new comers. The old school needs to let some of the scene go so that it can grow, while in return the new can add something to help strengthen the scene. No I am not implying that the Empire is new, we are actually old school believe it or not. However the over all cancer of elitism hinders new blood from strengthening the fighting game community as a whole. I’ve mentioned this in several threads and as a whole the Empire has fought for the progression of the fighting game community. To some degree we have helped however even we understand that our contribution is not enough. It pleases me to see that you guys are actually aware of the pending situation and that you are at least talking about it. That shows that there is hope and it will allow room for solutions to be developed. Over all in the end, the Empire will do what we can within our power and available time to continue to lend a hand. Until then, Hail.

I think the jump has to be made from arcade to console, only because that’s where all the new players will be. I don’t know anyone who plays in Arcades anymore, heck I don’t know where any good arcades are. Not to mention I’d rather pay for a game once, and have all the time in the world to learn the basics and then challenge people, than to spend ten bucks having all sorts of people who know how to play well beat me up.

By the time I got into fighting games I was solely playing on consoles, and so I don’t have the preference for the arcade experience as many do, and I think the next generation of “fighting” gamer will be mostly console peeps. Does this mean they think arcade sucks? No, they are just coming from a different place now.

I’m thinking DOA.

I spoke on this earlier today

http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2923515&postcount=27

Also Tenka is still too slow

Its not that people aren’t giving it a chance, it’s that there is noone to give it a chance, your basically taking a game with all the problems of the SF community, WITHOUT the people that grew up on the game, and not adding anything back. If SST or GG had a better tourney scene than 3s I could say yeah lets give it a shot, but i don’t see anything being brought to the table.

I like the ss series pace, its less about getting in that super juggle infinite mumbo jumbo and more about finding cracks in the opponents defence. That’s how i imagine ss.

Amen Mycah…I am an avid SNK player and some people in my area look down on me because I play SNK games…I’m like WTF?? I’ve dropped playing 3s for NGBC and Tenka…those are some hot titles…and then you got the new Rumblefish, and you got XI…man I’m with you…stagnant my ass…only if you’re a Capcom fanboy it’s stagnant…and those stubborn Capcom fanboys should support SNK/Sammy, they are the last hope we have left for 2d fighters…be stubborn and see if Capcom gives a damn…they treat their fans like shit, leaving them out in the cold starving, while SNK is feeding us plenty with good games…but man I tell you this stubbornness gets me…

Looking down upon like they are better than me for playing SNk games…pisses me off a bit…

Im like okay…don’t let me come over there and beat you in SNK games AND CAPCOM GAMES…hahaha

Tenka being too slow? FMJaguar just illustrated his point by that statement…people pick SNK games up expecting them to be Street Fighter and toss it to the side if ITS ANYTHING BUT…

Anyone mostly who grew up on Sam Sho like myself surely doesnt think Sam Sho is too slow…its based off old school play…that is the game…like Super Turbo for Street Fighter.

its not that i look down on non capcom games,but marvel,cvs2,3s,are still to good plus im not giving up my street fighter for a game i barley like.you cant force people to like this and that,when they know that marvel or what ever is for them.sorry its not nothin agaisnt you,but i never like snk but thats just what i do.

also i made a tead like this awhile back in,with ideas on how to help the scene,and i used some of those ideas and our scene is slowly growing,after giving them the site of srk and people are trying to learn marvel seriously and drop the low tier,also getting into cvs2 and such.typing in what we should do isnt gonna help nothin if you dont do something

See never liking SNK and looking down on people for liking it are two separate things altogether. I just hate some people that have that holier than thou attitude just because they play the top three…that shit pisses me off.

And they think SNK games should be played casually I’m like bullshit…

I can see the side where things are going to just consoles now - can’t say we didn’t see this coming BUT the way we can beat that is simply the same way CAPCOM did in the 90’s - keep bringing out the new(er) games when they hit consoles.

When SFII came out on SNES what happened?, CE and Hyper Fighting came out in arcades lol and STALL the time from Arcade to Home, Alpha 3 came out on PS1 in RECORD time, CvS2 came out for Arcade and Home at the same time right? - but that’s the company at fault.

Seriously I feel one of the BIGGEST factors is that we don’t give other games a shot - I’m fuckin’ shocked that GGXX didn’t take MvC2’s place I mean WTF?! if you look diffrent gameplay types are still there…

MvC2 -> GGXX
CvS2 -> KOFXI

I mean those are the big 2, as for 3s…I dunno, we’ll find something as…“unique” as that game lol

But seriously, the games are there - we need to just pick them up.

I feel if the scene picked up the other games, things will be back to normal, not back to the early 90’s but at least back to late 90’s/early 00’s time.

That’s like saying ST or CvS2 or 3S or VF is to slow…

EDIT I got into GGXX back when it first came out, lost interest, and started messing around with Marvel like a year ago. I can completely understand why it didn’t get replaced by GGXX. Maybe by Hokuto no Ken, but it’s still nowhere close to Marvel’s gameplay style (primarily the assist system and the team dynamic), but it’s a little more hard-edged and punishing compared to GGXX’s smooth and graceful solution to everything.

I always wondered why people alway made console a issue. When I travel to other countries or states…the first thing I look for is the arcade. That also goes for anyone that travels gaming wise. I understand the affect that consoles have on the arcade industry but it is not to the degree of what people make it out to be. The community and culture has more of an effect than the effect that console has. I use Japan to support my arguement.

As for SNK guys, I am going to take a risk on something…we will see how much you guys are willing to make SNK fighting games rise.

Then I suggest the following to you, not that I agree with others that look down on SNK games but because I just want to give some of my advice to you in turn that it may help you and the SNK segment of the Fighting Game Community.

Become a tournament director, or try to find someone that will help you or is a tournament director and host a local event. Work from there. We did something in the Empire State based on SNK games with SNK-Playmore. They even had a corporate figure there at the event. It had a excellent turn out surprisingly at that time. We are going to push for something more.

For more on the SNK event see: http://www.empirearcadia.com/community/com-025.htm

As for an SNK fighting game scene…

This is where I hate 75% of the SNK guys, most SNK guys are more worried about the storyline and what outfit someone has on - plus they are too scrubby and bitchy for Tourny Play sadly.

Honestly if SNK games are going to take off in the US, CAPCOM players are gonna have to do what me, Dark Geese, Detroit, Indiana and Cleveland did…take notice to them - once they do maybe the rest of the SNK guys will step it up in the skills dept.

SNK has the Tourny Worthy games - KOF’s '98, '02, XI - Those are the top 3 SNK Tourny Games right there.

in other words you want people to pick up these games because these are what you are in to,everyone knows about them everyone already knows its there.but its there up to them.speaking of picking up new games im picking up xmen vs street fighter.

Skill is not everything. It is one of many that will be needed to help you and your friends in what you want to accomplish.

I think that if Evo had a tournament for one of the SNK games, it could definatly help create a scene for said game.

No not everyone knows about them, how many KOF games were relased in the US in 16 bit era?, or if they DO know about them they just already have the idea that SNK sucks by default because of word of mouth.

I’ll be the first to admit that back in the Golden Days of SF (1991 ~ 1996) SNK didn’t have SHIT that could touch Street Fighter gameplay wise (besides the first 2 Samurai Showdowns) but nowadays they do but people already have a bad memory of them from the 90’s and the earlier games. After KOF '96 SNK had something good going but nobody in the US gave a fuck by then cause we had Alpha 2 lol

To be honest - I didn’t open my eyes till KOF 1999 DM on Dreamcast (KOF '98) - that game showed me the light.

Well what do you have in mind? - if it’s something I want in on, I’ll be more then happy to talk shop with you in person @ TS6 next month.

You guys aren’t really getting it, I don’t care if you guys think Tenka isn’t slow, I say it’s slow, and arguing isn’t going to help. What is going to help is if you guys put some 50 man tourney together and then someone might think the game is worth looking at again.

Thats how it works, everyone hated 3s with a passion, the people that disagreed had their own tournies, their own semi-major with japanese ppl, spammed the internet with info and vids, and now everyone loves it.

Some people don’t like marvel, but noone cares because the best placing all around player was first known for marvel, anywhere i go i can get some marvel comp, and marvel tournaments are still one of the biggest.

Even within capcom people have had to work to get their game out there.

I have never heard of a community that responded with “please try my game” and got a huge following, not sure why that is seen as a good tactic.