The mechanics of a game can be irrelevant. What makes a game competitive is a group of people willing to play said-game with a competitive mindset. You can attempt to contrive mechanics that competitive players have grown to value in hopes of catering to them and hopefully engineering a competitive outlook for your game, but that’s compromising and potentially deleterious imo.
After all these years, people on SRK refuse to understand how absolutely meaningless terms like “casual” are when applied to not just fighting games - but video games in general.
The word does have a meaning - but its subtle and depends on context. Since it varies from conversation to conversation, simple minded people prefer to think it’s meaningless
In this context, the difference between casual and competitive/hardcore is the intentions of the developer. A “competitive” game would be making at least a token effort to support the needs of a competitive community, either by patching balance issues, or including tournament/competition friendly features, etc. Or even just the stated vision of the developer. If they say, “oh, this is just a fun game for kids, our primary intention is not competitive play,” then there you go.
So one could say that recent fighting games have been “casual-ized” by tournament unfriendly features such as DLC/unlockable characters, gems and so forth.
As an example, in a different context I describe myself as “casual” FG player. This is because I don’t practice very much and don’t care about winning. However, since I attend offline tournament events (“for fun”) and mash buttons and beat other low-skilled players, this makes me considerably more “hardcore” when compared to the majority of the population. So yeah, “casual” means different things at different times, and you have to use your brain to work out what people are trying to say.
Not even remotely true. I went to plenty of tournaments that varied in scale (locals, regional, states, EVO) with friends and I still dislike the series as a whole.
Smash 64 was good
I don’t like Melee but I respect the technically of it. It has a very steep learning curve if you want to play at top level.
Metaknight Brawl was horrible for more reasons that just my hilarious jab at the name.
I think it has a lot to do with the simplicity of the game. It’s easier for most people to play than traditional fighters. When you make a game fairly simple and easy, then you’re bound to get tons of people who think that they’re really amazing at the game when theyre not. That happens to a lot of people transitoning from casual games to a more competative scene, you can get these types of people for any game game. But since smash is so simple and easy to understand at first, there are a lot more of these “people” that can pop up. I’m talking about people with top player attitudes and scrub results. Smash has tons of these types of people. Haha.
Also think about the characters, Nintendo characters that everyone loves, that’s bound to attract tons of people to a game no matter what. Omg I get to play link? I’ve been playing Zelda games forever! Herp durp!
If people dont love their characters then they’re not going to play the game or put time into it. Or build a scene.
People who love Nintendo characters, hm they’re gamers right? Love to play games ect, that’s expected, put all their characters into a game and they’ll play it. Naruto, DBZ fans, what do they do? Make memes, draw Hentai, and maybe play a bit of a fighting game with their characters, but most of them are otaku and anime is their primary interest, not gaming.
Melee was a great game, brawl was a half assed game. It was half assed and still sold because of what? The mechanics of the game? No. The characters. The love for the characters. :0
Wow Smash bros is basic imo but whatever, biggest game after SF n Marvel thats kinda sad. Next you’ll be telling me people are still fist fighting competitively in GTA4 online
As for your other question. All the smash brothers players have their own forum called Smashboards.
Despite how much SRK and its members think it, SRK is not the central hub for competitive gaming.
I didn’t realize Darksiders was a competitive game. Granted, I only played it for a little while, but it just seemed like a Zelda clone to me. /trollin’
Personally, I think it all depends on the players. The players are influenced by a lot of different factors because all players are different. Some folks want a strong game with solid mechanics and depth. Some folks just want to play as their favorite Nintendo characters. If depth and solid mechanics were the sole factor for a game having a large competitive scene, then Virtua Fighter would be the biggest fighter in our scene.
Considering cross-over games are almost always the most hyped-up fighters, even when some are objectively bad games, I think it’s safe to say characters are a far bigger influence on getting players in than having a solid game - and as long as there are players who take the game seriously, there will be a scene for the game.
As for smash, I’ve always found it interesting - at our FG events, smash is pretty big and occupies pretty much 1/3 - half of the turnout. But they are such a seperate group that never mingles with the others. Whereas people who play SF/KOF/etc will generally hang out and even dabble in each others’ games, it always seems like the smash crowd is rather hostile despite turning up to the same event.
You respond to me with an insult? An ironic one at that.
You’re a fucking idiot. You acknowledge the fluidity of language in your thesis and on that merit, attempt to construct an argument that calcifies its potential in an intelligent discussion. Tell me; should I build my igloo in the Great Basin or the Sahara?
Obviously, the word “casual” has meaning(s); my point was to dismiss the FGC’s usage of it completely, because when trying to analyze the current phenomena regarding the industry’s market demographics, and more specifically, fighting game demographics; the term is fucking worthless for the very reason your thesis states. The word is too relative to be used in any intelligent discussion. People can be “casual” about anything and anything can be “casual”. In the context of an intelligent discussion, it is effectively meaningless. I could be “casually hardcore” if I wanted. People in the FGC lean towards using it dismissively, because from their standpoint, “casual” is antithetical to competitive and is worthy of derision.
The “Competitiveness” of a thing is something that can, more or less, be actually quantified: you simply measure the amount of humans competing in its regard. That was my point. Only simple-minded ingrates would care to call something strictly “casual” when there are known humans that exist, playing said-game competitively. People can call the Smash series “casual” all they want - it doesn’t change the fact that people pack convention halls and hotels to play these games competitively, in effect, making them competitive games.
Developer intentions are meaningless as are the mechanics a game houses. Most games - not just videogames - are not developed with strict intentions to comply with established competitive values. The most popular games, especially. The sport of football isn’t any less competitive at the professional level due to the fact that fat Americans across the country toss the pigskin around casually on Saturday afternoons. Competitiveness is a socio-psychological concept, not a strict, mathematically determined one.
It’s a war with perception. I often find SRK posters lose those battles.
any game that people want to play competitively can be a competitive game. yeah you can play Mario Party competitively, but it’s pretty luck-based and you’ll have a hard time growing a community of people that wants to play the game competitively or organize any kind of tournament scene.
whether it’s a FG is a silly side argument and it doesn’t matter at all. It’s closer to FGs than any other genre. but who cares? SFxT can more properly be called a FG and everyone hates it. how you classify it has nothing to do with how competitive it is or how fun it is.
You’re still missing the point. You’re probably angry because “casual” is used in a dismissive way most of the time, and you would prefer it not to be.
But that’s a side issue - the word is still useful as an adjective to describe things. Smash is not the same as Street Fighter. Naruto is not the same as Guilty Gear, etc. There are differences in goals, target audience and design that are undeniably real. How to capture and describe those differences? If I say, “casual”, most people will know what I mean. My thread requires it, because I’m trying to ask why/how a game not really intended for competitive play, ends up competitive anyways. “Casual” is a simple and clear way to sum up what I mean, that people here will instantly understand.
If I wanted to lump Powerstone, Naruto, DBZ, Smash, etc into a single category, and differentiate them from SF, GG, BB, KOF etc, what would I use? Smash could be called a “party game”, but that doesnt fit for the others. “Non-competitive game”? But smash is competitive, as you just described! Naruto/DBZ are “anime games”, but BB and AH gets lumped in there too, and Smash doesnt. etc, etc, etc. “Casual” is a useful word here that people will get the gist of.
Whether I’m insulting smash or not will be evident from the context I’m using it, and it’s a seperate issue entirely. It can’t be helped that people here associate the word with negative characteristics. That will happen regardless of what word is used. (like how the various words for disabled people or homosexual people have changed over the years to avoid negative connotations, but the connotations eventually follow.)
So yeah, insults depend on context as well. You should be able to figure out that I’m not using casual in a pejorative sense here.
You telling me I’m missing your point isn’t convincing. This is my last response to you - I’m not going to repat myself.
Of course it is: but it’s worthless for the purpose of our discussion and I explained why.
Talk about missing the point. DId you even read my response to you? I address the bolded portion, specifically.
If your next post is responding to this post and not my last, I’m going to ignore you.
edit
I guess I addressed the “why” but not the “how”. The processes don’t need documentation to explain the “why”, really. “How” a game becomes competitive is a function of the “why” - read: “X game became competitive via Y processes because people wanted to play X game with a competitive disposition.” People play a game competitively because they want to for a variety of reasons. As much as you’d like it to be, the “why” is not purely a function of how the game is built.
