IMO, this is what hurts it the most.
The problem isn’t that the games die (they don’t really), but rather anime games in America have a problem in community growth. The community itself has a decent number of dedicated players that try to make it out to events when they can, but the problem is building the player base. Unfortunately, it essentially goes like this:
- Player sees anime game, is interested in playing it
- Anime is community is small, player is worried about not having anyone to play with
- Rather than trying to build a community, player plays a Capcom game (pretty much USFIV at this point since Marvel is becoming a smaller game at this point)
- Repeat ad nauseam
Other scenes essentially have this issue too.
So basically rather than play the game they like and try to build a bigger community around said game, most would rather just play the fighter with a already well established community. That actually makes perfect sense. Because so many times you hear people say. "I would get into (x) game, but the on-line is dead so it’d be a waste of money. That’s the frustration I have with Darkstalkers Ressurection. People say they’d like to play if there were people to play with. I offer to do open lobbies for people to join and no one shows up. Like how will there ever be anyone to play if no one fucking plays? How does one break this vicious cycle?
Or game can be removed from the digital shop completely, like with Capcom’s Jojo and MvC series
Another big problem is there barely that many american who support and encouraged more people to come out and play them except small tournament. Most of the time they support for the first month and then the game on it own
That’s mainly due to lack of numbers attending these events that host tournaments for the games. Which game are you referencing in general here by the way? Persona, BlazBlue? It’s a mix between lack of enthusiasm from competitors to make it out to tournaments, as well as the already stated splits in the community.
If AkSys came out of the woodwork with one singular anime esque title, and lets say the anime community all agree it’s the best game ever made and worship the damn thing…anime fighters would probably gain some longevity and flourish a little, other people might even start investing their time into the game. But that day will never happen, so we gotta live with BlazBlue being the equivalent of the The Great Depression when it comes to events.
I always viewed the problem being that fighting games just cannibalize themselves with constant new arcade revisions and the long gaps between console releases, often requiring a new disc purchase. Nobody wants to play “obsolete” games, even if it means killing that game off temporarily until a new version arises, and this cycle just seems to repeat itself.
Pretty much why I stopped caring about BlazBlue after Continuum Shift. I can’t even get excited for Guilty Gear Xrd because I know it’s gonna be #Reload/Slash/Accent Core all over again. I enjoyed the original XX and #Reload back when they were new, never had the opportunity to play Slash until PS2 emulation came around, and I didn’t care at all for Accent Core and it’s update.
Not just exclusive to “anime” fighting games either, in Virtua Fighter’s case, Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned never even got a console release in any form, and for a long time the original Virtua Fighter 5 was rendered obsolete while Sega continued to make revisions with R and Final Showdown in arcade, and it took a long time to finally get the latest version to come home, and by that point VF5 was already nearly 6 years old.
Aky game problems is that they don’t believe in changing formula and trying new. They believe in don’t fix what not broken moto problems most of the time it is broken…
.other problem are dlc for character and those outrages ass price(look at Leo and elphat for xrd) which ruin the fun of wanting new character if you have to buy separately
Well that could be for a multitude of reasons. one of them IMO being the type of player “anime” fighters attract. a lot of them get into the game simply because it’s anime. They care little for gameplay and the competitive scene. That’s maybe why while some anime fighters sell well, they have a poor retention rate. Also like someone mentioned, there are too many “Anime” fighters. Where as I there was just like One or two flagship “anime” fighter that the community could get behind, then maybe there wuld be more longevity amongst them
I think personally promotion will help some but not all anime fighter like let use acana heart as a example someone would look at and might not know what it is and turn it down compared to bb and think they seen a little of it and pick it up just cuz of how it promoted plus…I think the POV of this is that were blaming ark for a lot this problem now
Because they don’t have this
neither this
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/marvel-logo-750x250.png
On their names.
USA only care about 2 games in particular
u mad brah?
also because for a lot of people anime means still this:
as opposed to this:
(age check on Steam for Vanguard Princess…lol!)
It’s not just promotion. As I already stated, most fans of anime fighters are fans because it’s anime. They care little for gameplay. these players don’t stick around. they finish the story and then they’re done with the game and it’s on to the next one. Where as fighters like Street Fighter tend to attract the more hardcore and dedicated crowd. Combine that with a multitude of “anime” fighters all competing in the same niche market and the games are gonna have few dedicated players.
Speaking of Arcana Heart that brings me to another point. As shallow as this is aesthetics can make or break a fighter. No amount of promotion for Arcana Heart will ever get people to get pass the Loli/Moe theme of the aesthetics.
Yea that what I meant about arcana heart but yea i get what your saying
You guys can’t really fault Arc System Works for the small anime scene in America. Their games are super fucking popular in Japan, a completely different market than the US market; they don’t need (or should) focus resources on a very niche US market.
It’s funny cause hanging out with a crew that plays anime always goes the same way, youll have persona on one screen a guy watching it asking if you wanna play melty, while two random guys are talking about how awesome guilty gear is, while another dude is trying to get a blazblue bracket going. the shit is just … autistic.
Because better waifus come out and only 1 waifu is allowed at a time.
That shit used to be the days…i miss having friend who play fighter
I don’t fault Arc System, it’s just simply a matter of cultural differences and taste. anime while it has some popularity here in the west. Still isn’t all that liked by the average American. Well at least not today’s anime. So when the average gamer sees stuff like Blazeblue or Arcana Hearts they probably dismiss it.