You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink…
Mitsuru says Hi
Regarding other genres like RPGs. there is a better chance for quality anime titles.** Ni No Kuni** comes to mind. What more could one wish for? Instantly makes the game recognizable and accessible even to non-anime versed players.
Shmups? Since this genre is associated more with sci-fi. anime is better accepted there too. There are also niche games, but they are only only a part of it. I mean 20 years ago Parodius, a parody of Japanese video games and anime tropes instantly became a hit in the West. Pop’n TwinBee as well.
It is just fighting games that have this issue with anime. I see it as a marketing failure from both sides. As if Japanese FG dont want to cater to audiences outside Japan anymore. While in the 90s SNK, Capcom, Sony, Sega, Nintendo did a fine job in bringing a lot of quality anime-themed fighters to the West (Samurai Spirits, Last Blade, Tech Romancer, Battle Arena Toshinden, Rival Schools etc) it is as if that kind of market has dwindled. You didnt even need to be an anime fan to play those games. That was the main difference with today’s anime games. Now you either have to watch niche shows, read visual novels, know Japanese etc.
Unless the game is based on a popular franchise like Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, DBZ, Gundam. But there risks are fewer.
BB hood is right in people (including myself) want to see rosters that are mostly if not entirely consisting of what look like real fighters. So yeah in the 90s those anime themed fighters had mostly muscled well defined characters that looked like they could kick your or any one else’s ass.
However now a lot of anime themed fighters contain many schoolgirls with stick arms, or silly puppets, or slender effeminate men. Essentially containing many characters that look nothing like fighters, or even that they could throw a punch with any amount of substantial force. Huge turn off for most people.
I don’t know why this got voted off topic. This pretty much hits the nail on the head as to why a lot of westerners don’t get into anime fighters. Truth hurts I guess. 
I think big problem with some anime game is allowing boss character be playable sf did it right gill by not allowing you to use him online and Seth was booboo so he was fine to use but game like guilty where the damage is high causes some problem like ramlethal is the best example because she is the only auto combo character which bugs me at that
Think we may have gotten a lil off topic. We’re suppose to be discussing why a lot of anime fighting game scenes die out so quickly, as appose to why people don’t get into them. It has been stated tht there’s this misconception that the majority of anime fighters play very indentical, and that the community is split into multiple games as appose to having a flagship title or two that most play. While most anime fighters do play different I.E saying Guilty Gear plays the same as Arcana hearts would be silly, aesthetically they do pretty much look the same, like sprite work, animations, vivid colors etc. In that sense, yeah the average gamer would likely lumped them all into the same boat and feel no reason to try other ones. Where as with other fighters like Street fighter, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct etc, the average gamer from just a glance could see a clear difference between them and would like to try them all out.
Also I feel the need to stress this, Anime fighters don’t seem to attract the hardcore or competitive crowd. The guys who would keep a scene going. They seem to attract mainly anime fans. Like people would other wise not bother with a fighter, but because that particular one is anime, they try it. These players don’t seem to stick around for long.
I still say it promotion and appearance of the game anime fan don’t care as much about the mechanism like a hardcore fighting player along with the fact that like when you think mk sf ki you think of history that game bought unlike a anime fighter that brand new no info what so ever and that won’t appeal a us hardcore unless your a anime lover
lol’n too hard. SRK doesn’t even matter anymore. Front page is a day-late copy/paste of Eventhubs (how the tides have turned) with worse writing (no, really, how the tides have turned) and the forums are filled children, manboys and wannabe dudebros who talk more and watch more youtube videos/streams of other people who actually play rather than play themselves.
So SRK consensus doesn’t really hold that much weight…
You my friend deserve a medal
FTFY
Yeah you are right, it is probably mostly a turnoff for Americans and Europeans rather than Asians.
Back on topic. As to why anime fighting game scenes die out so quickly. It is the same reason any fighting game scene dies. IMO, what is the biggest factor as to the longevity and size of a competitive scene is a game’s popularity. A small percentage of any fighting game will be hardcore players interested in tournies, and continuing to learn and play the game for months and even years after its release. A small percentage of 10 million people is much larger than a small percentage of 100,000 people. A small percentage of a small population means the community will likely fizzle out very fast, while a small percentage of a huge population means that it has great odds for long term survival.
So that initial draw, to get people to try and buy the game is incredibly important.
That pretty much the first piece of the cake in my opinion
“what causes anime fighting games to die so quickly?”
Calling them Anime Fighters probably has a lot to do with it.
One of the main reasons is simply the aesthetics, like other have said it is a MAJOR turnoff for a lot of the western audience.
KOF is anime, not in the sense that it is an airdasher, just the visual style. However this is one game i could get people interested in who won’t look twice to Persona, BlazBlue, Guilty Gear etc
Also graphics are a big factor as lot are “stuck” in the 2D sprite era, not exactly appealing unless you are a fan of the style. Good graphics draws in people, i if they aren’t fans of the fighting game genre.
A lot of these anime games are pretty difficult excecution wise and on top of that they have dozens of sub systems. SF and MK are simple and easy to follow, same for Smash.
Games without a large community will most likely stay small due to lack of exposure, bigger games get more exposure and draws in more people while the smallers ones eventually fizzle out.
No simultaneous world wide releases. Some regions get these game later or not even at all, sometimes they aren’t even on a certain console. Once game comes out in other regions the hype is already gone and nobody shows any interest in an already “old” game. Hardly any community interaction with the west. Capcom and NRS are active. NRS games in Asia are dead or nonexistent so those poeple are in the same situation…or worse than people in the west who play anime games.
Gameplay can be incredibly good in these games, however that doesn’t matter in the slightest.
Anime fighters fizzle quick because there’s no reason to dedicate time to them beyond a year. Game X comes out and boom, a year passes and not only is a Game Y out, turns out Game X got an update in arcades that nobody besides Japan will play for months.
ArcSys are the go to company for anime fighters; whatever they do will end up as a reflection of the sub-genre as a whole. If they wanna juggle 3 games (that all feel identical on the surface I should add) and churn out yearly updates in which not everyone plays the same version at the same time, then why bother devoting time to that when you can just play something more consistent?
No, anime fighters will never be as big as Street Fighter for already stated artistic reasons but that has very little to do with why anime fighters have no longevity tbh. I actually do believe Guilty Gear and BlazBlue can co-exist and thrive together in the West, but it will never happen if ArcSys continues with the Arcade-centric mentality.
What do you suppose we call them there because cant call them 2d or 3d fighter because they fit in both category
“what causes anime fighting games to die so quickly?”
i can only speak for myself but one of the things i hate most is Burst. then it’s the overwhelming amount of gameplay options that most of them seem to have. the immersive aspect is kinda ruined for me when i see a tiny, petite female fury that destroys a giant buffed looking dude easily. it’s designed towards a particular crowd that finds interest in those things.
I see nothing wrong with burst I think it hold a nice spot in most fighter if It didn’t exist MVS combos would happen and Nobody want that also burst working is about 50/50 and can missed if not time right
I say we call them what they are. Fighting games.
Always trying to create these sub genres all the fucking time over complicates the issue and at times attaches a negative connotation to what you’re describing. for example just uttering the word “anime” is a turn off to lots of people, so saying “This game is an Anime fighter” not only turns them off from even wanting to give it a try, but it doesn’t actually tell them jack shit about the game. It’s a shitty descriptor that actually describes 99% of fighting games be it Guilty Gear, Tekken, or Street Fighter, all of these games are anime as fuck.
So yea imo, calling them “anime fighters” is a big fucking problem for multiple reasons.