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One thing that Capcom does do incredibly well though, even in hard times, is keeping their games in the spotlight. Between SF5 and now we had Injustice 2, King of Fighters, Tekken, FighterZ, Fighting Layer, Dead or Alive, almost surely Samurai Spirits is coming out during itâs lifespan, and yet it nevers loses itâs footing. That says a lot about Street Fighter, that even with all itâs missteps itâs still rooted firmly in itâs position.
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Dracu just beat me to mentioning Dragon Ball Fighter Z which also sold insanely high.
The âstrongest competitive sceneâ is a weird and arbitrary measure.
No one would say WWE is not the premiere wrestling promotion in the worldâŚyet NO serious analyst of pro wrestling will tell you it has the âstrongestâ showing as a product with the most competitive matches.
The competitive side of fighting games is a niche thing. It is not what makes a premiere scene for a game when it represents 1% of 1% of the community. Evo had 10k people attending and while Street Fighter was the biggest thing viewed, itâs also the MAIN event.
That said, Evo and the competitive scene have pretty much no relevance on the product.
Ask ANY head at Capcom if theyâd prefer their Evo numbers or Netherrealmâs sales numbers.
MKX is the best fighter of the generation as a relevant, premiere product.
Would Sony and Microsoft rather have exclusive rights to Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat to launch their next gen consoles?
If you think the answer is âStreet Fighterâ, youâre delusional.
That tells you itâs not premiere.
Pacing was inconsistent. There were some pretty long stretches without playable fights. There were sections where the story appeared to set up for a playable fight, but no such fight was present. Character switching was nearly random, which also led to moments of confusion where you had to figure out who you were even controlling. When you did fight, the fights were often over too quickly.
It is easy to pick at the bad writing, the bad plotting, the bad everything about the story. But the other elements of A Shadow Falls were equally as weak. The whole thing felt like a grade school attempt to copy Netherrealm, without having any understanding of why cinematic stories worked or failed.
MKX literally died in one year.
Having a strong competitive scene is what keep Street Fighter and Tekken relevant in the longer run, make them last for years commercially and also make money in the longer run thanks to competitive tours and sponsors.
When Sony managed to get quasi-exclusivity on SFV they basically ensured that the PS4 would be the tournament standard for most modern competitive fighting games for the rest of the console generation, ensuring lots of sales from tournament organizers.
A strong competitive scene matters a lot, even if the people who play competitively seem a niche.
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Honestly, Street Fighter has gone through many visual styles, from anime to live action, statues, action figures and of course several kinds of spritework and 3d rendering. Iâm ok with almost anything as long as it is good at what it does.
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And guess what, when MK11 dies in 2020 people will still be playing SF5 and tuning in to watch SF5.
Initial sales are not everything. Longevity and endurance is what makes a game healthy in the long run.
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Yeah agree the SFV vanilla release was a disaster especially in sales but interms of longevity SFV maintains the mainstream and it rise from itâs ashes.
No contest to DBFZ itâs the best selling and successfull of now if it continues to keep up.
What do you think will make more money over its lifetime?
MKX or SFV?
Spoiler: Itâs absolutely MKX
Capcom sponsors tournaments to maintain relevance for Street Fighter and to try and eke out more money from a relatively small but dedicated fanbase via things like constant costumes and other gimmicks
Netherrealm sponsors tournies as a bone to the competitive scene because it gets them some extra gravy then they crush further sales with DLC of characters that sell like hot cakes to general audiences.
You guys gotta get around more gaming normies. SF has almost no relevance as a âpremiereâ known fighter. Itâs majorly Mortal Kombat. Thatâs what makes it premiere: name recognition and relevance. Why? Because it sells like crazy because everyone knows it and loves it and everyone knows it and loves it because it sells like crazy. Closed loop.
MKX died in one year? Street Fighter V sales died IMMEDIATELY because of how it was handled. SFV missed its sales goal by more than 25%. MKX didnât. SFV has a life time sales of less than 2.5 million copies. MKX is the fastest selling game in the FRANCHISE OF MORTAL KOMBAT and sold 5 million copies within months as compared to the LIFE TIME sales of SFV over years which donât even reach half of that in over 3 years.
Also to the other above discussionâŚ
Yes, A Shadow Falls is inferior to both Injustice games and both Mortal Kombat games in terms of a story mode.
EDIT:
Street Fighter V retains âthe main streamâ
LMAO
Come on, guys.
I know we all love Street Fighter but this is just sillyâŚ
Street Fighter does NOT own the main stream. Competitive obsession with the game does NOT make it the most relevant fighter.
In fact, the prominence of MK in the zeitgeist WITHOUT a competitive scene featuring longevity HILIGHTS how relevant it is as a fighting game product.
This is silly. This is worse than saying DC cinematic movies are more relevant than Marvel ones because the Dark Knight still gets lauded as the height of the genre because at least the Dark Knight sold ridiculously high numbers and busted charts upon release becoming a cultural phenomenonâŚyâknow, all that stuff that SFV never did.
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Weâre not talking about sales. Weâre talking about people dropping the game.
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Storywise agree it MKX and injustice are better no contest itâs by WB they invest to it.
Tekken had better gameplay experience in storymode than SFV. But SFV cinematic mode has better story than what other others had (including tekken and dbfz) in the current mainstream.
And yes injustice and MK is the top.
But still SF manage top in DLC and then keep a mainstream presence.
Yes the mainstream is Tekken and DBFZ but SF is still in the line.
Bro, peak players for SFV on steam last 30 days = 6142
Average? 2209
Peak players for MKX on steam last 30 days = 2865
Average? 1291
Tekken 7 last 30 days peak = 4164
Average? 2606
If MKX is âdeadâ then so is Street Fighter V if itâs around twice as many players as MKX
Yeah WAY more people dropped MKXâŚbecause WAY more people purchased it.
Yâknow why more people continue playing SF? Because theyâre obsessed with playing SF. That is NOT the mainstream. That is not the cultural zeitgeist. Itâs something like MK.
Also, by these metrics, Tekken is as relevant as SF and more consistent. Now combine that with Tekken 7âs sales numbers. 3 million copies before ONE YEAR. Twice as many as SF.
Street Fighter is not the premiere fighter. It is not the most relevant fighter.
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Considering how long a competitive fighter can remain relevant and selling (both the game itself and the DLCs) to its very dedicated audience, compared to very high selling but far less enduring titles, I donât think the answer would be so obvious.
And by the way: I watched MK9âs story on Maxâs stream, supposedly the greatest story a fighting game ever had, and boy. I liked it, I thought it was very fun, but no. âRaiden manages to fuck everything up even with spoilers of what was going to happen and the Elder Gods are arbitrary bitchesâ is not a good narrative.
I liked how MK9 had groups of people constantly coming in and out of random new stages though its first half kinda like A Shadow Falls though.
And MKX had an average playerbase of around 700 before 11âs announcement, just for reference.
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As compared to the Shadow Falls story ofâŚ
âBison doesâŚsomethingâŚbut really itâs FANGâŚbut really itâs maybe some hacker girl? Oh and Rashid has a friendâŚthatâs never shown but theyâre really importantâŚthen Karin organizes everything and Ryu does nothing but shows up at the end to blow up the Death Star. Also super important guy Necalli is a chump and does nothing of interest but one time he was a sheep. Oh and Charlie dies again. Again.â
And MK9 was the best story mode to that point. Itâs been surpassed by Injustice 1 and 2.
SF couldnât even get up to the standards of MK9 for coherence and presentationâŚsomething that came out years before it. ASF is a jumbled mess that teeters on incoherence.
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Not to say that I donât agree with you Yagami, but I think you should also consider that Street Fighter Vâs sales do NOT include Arcade Editionâs as far as I am aware. And considering it having generally good word of mouth and coming at around the same time as S3âs announcement which sparked up the game again, I think between the two releases SF5 sits confortably above 3 million. Which still isnât the greatest number ever and the re-release costing in the first place, but it does paint a fairer picture.
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Iâm pretty sure it does. AE did not move the needle on SF much at all.
Also people thinking SFâs long milking of DLC is a way to generate the sort of revenue that initial game copy sales of MK or Tekken or DBZF did = 
No.
Just no.
The longer a game requires a staff, the more money it requires for overhead. SF is selling DLC to a relatively small player base because, simply put, the game doesnât warrant a sequel because it wasnât a sales success like they predicted.
MK11 is coming out because MKX MURDERED sales numbers, got through its DLC cycle and got OUT. This means their development resources can go towards other games like Injustice 2 and then MK11 that will generate them more and more profit because of the previous success they had. SFâs business model is the model of an under performing game eking out more money from a small player base with things primarily like cosmetics that appeal to only the hardest of hardcore. They are cheap to produce and crap out while the characters themselves keep the game on something resembling life support.
Again, if you think Capcom wouldnât trade the SFV model for the Mortal Kombat model and the relative success of the two, you are 100% delusional. Each DLC release is a smaller and smaller return on investment as the game continues to slowly bleed player base which means bleeding purchasing base. Iâd be willing to bet that MKXL likely made more money than all of the DLC for SFV combined.
Sales and relevance in the market are what make something PREMIERE.
MK has BOTH over SF. It is more profitable, more well known, more well regarded and a bigger name brand.
Whatâs more likely to be announced tomorrow? A new Mortal Kombat feature film? Or a Street Fighter one?
That right there tells you what you need to know
Mortal Kombat has always beaten Street Fighter in sells. Even the shitty 3D games. I think it just has greater brand power in general. The Fighting Game Division for Capcom definitely gotta step it up for their future projects, though. We know Capcom can make incredible games as long as they take their time with it and give it a great budget. Remake 2 and DMC5 are both GOTY candidates despite not even being released yet.
I want them to give that same love and attention to their fighting games.
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100% agree with all of this.
The brand power of MK is stronger than SF, which makes it the premiere. This was not always the case and it does not need to remain the case. That depends heavily on Capcomâs performance, however.
Theyâre killing it with things like Monster Hunter and DMCV (the game Iâm most hyped for other than MK11) and RE2:Remake which looks incredible.
Capcom has it in themâŚthey just need to stop treating SF like a side-project and treat it like the name brand that brought them to the game in the first place.
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I feel like a good 1st step is having better PR in place for their fighting games. MVCI wasâŚyeah, and SFV literally has no one speaking on the game. Just âwait until further updates. weâre doing things differentlyâ. Stuff like that only adds to the problem. Communication is key.
I know NRS gets tons of shit, but they maintain great communication and pack their games with a crapton of content. Capcom just gotta follow the formula. Iâm hoping the Monster Hunter guy (not sure whoâs idea it was to put ads in, but whatever) can bring his success to Division 2.
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I canât shake the feeling that SFxT really exposed how out of touch Capcom is with their fighting games.
They had ZERO faith in SF and SF4 had to be begged for by OnoâŚand it became Capcomâs biggest game in a long time and brought back the genre. That signals MASSIVE ignorance on the part of those in charge at Capcom.
And whatâd they follow that up with? SFxT which was transparently designed to milk the fanbase they didnât even think existed right before that. It was another utterly out of touch decision made to return ZERO good faith towards the fans that had just handed them a mega hit.
Since then weâve never seen the likes of SF4 again and instead things like MVC3 (oops I mean ULTIMATE MVC3âŚ) was totally half-assed and exploitative. Then eventually we got SF5 which was quarter-baked at best. It took any faith people had in Capcom fighters out behind the wood shed and put a bullet between its eyes except for the more hardcore devotees.
Meanwhile, Ed Boon is legitimately the coolest, nicest, most fan-supportive guy out there. Is he a troll? He is the OG TROLL! And he does it with love and the community loves him for it because he makes sure the games deliver.
Monster Hunter World had that level of appreciation for the fans and pure content and effort put into the game.
Weâve yet to see that for Street Fighter. Instead, those games seem rushed and designed to try and exploit nostalgia and a market that Capcom, in their ignorance, had previously written off. Itâs insulting.
Ono seems like a nice guy thatâs passionate about making games just like HaradaâŚbut he seems stuck under a hierarchy that has no idea what theyâre doing with the brand.
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