Core Fighters For the Masses... Oxymoron?

Yosuke Hayashi , and Harada_Tekken both believe that the F2P fighting titles might get more ppl to play fighting
games. Rly? There is even talk about returning to the glory years in the early 90's for fighting games wut?


http://www.polygon.com/2013/10/2/47...-bosses-discuss-their-respective-free-to-play

IMO arcade fighters never really appealed to the masses. Sure there was a time when the arcade was the in-thing and a hangout for a certain kind of cultural social deviant, but those who did the fighting game arcade scene were a subgroup within the arcade bunch. The arcade appeal of Pac Man, Galaga, Centipede, was very different than the appeal of Tekken, Street fighter, Virtua Fighter, etc. It was all arcade, but Fighting Games just attracted a different breed of arcade citizen. Over time learning move lists, combos, character rosters, the hand-eye coordination and speed of input requirement really required considerable skill , especially if you wanted to extend the play of the amount of tokens (later quarters) you had in your pocket. A lot more knowledge of the game was required to be top dog in a fighting game as compared to getting to level 50 in Galaga or conquering Ms Pacman. The knowledge requirement, and skill requirement automatically put arcade fighting gamers in the minority, ultimately making them a niche within a niche. As the fighting game genre matured this just got worse especially when you compare numbers of ppl playing Pacman vs numbers of ppl playing Tekken.

Now, that gaming has largely left the arcades and has truly become big, big, big business (millions, possibly billions of dollars for some companies) Every game producer, developer, and publisher wants a game that everyone will buy. A game for the masses! (Core Fighters Tekken Revolution, [VF5FS?]) So in the push to expand the market for fighting games (we want millions of customers!) the fighting games are being dumbed down, simplified, knowledge requirements reduced, skill requirement shaved back, fighting game mystique removed all in the name of getting more sales.

But wait a minute! To the extent that the arcade fighting game was a success it was because of all the things that the game developers, producers etc are now removing to make the fighting game a success like it was in the early 90's wat? read what Harada and Hayashi and others are saying in the lines and between the lines.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/10/2/47...-bosses-discuss-their-respective-free-to-play

Let's take out what originally made the genre so we can attract more players to the genre so that the genre can be what it once was? WTF!

IMO, the way forward for the fighting game genre is to take it to the next level. Increase the knowledge required, increase the skill required. Sure have a novice mode, but also have an insane mode. Increase the complexity and diversity of the move lists and combo possibilities. Knowledge of stages should be an extra advantage. Add more types of matches, tournaments, combat techniques etc. I'm not suggesting that we make the game unapproachable for the noob or casual, but give the true fight game fan some where to go.

If game developers, producers etc. choose the appeal-to-the-masses approach, I fear that we are witnessing the end of the fighting game genre all together. Fighting games are unique among video games. Their uniqueness is what makes them what they are, the minute you remove that to try to appeal to the masses is the minute you sign them into oblivion.

Of course this is all just my opinion but I honestly don't think you can take the fight out of fighting games without losing fighting games LOL. What do you think?

 

this reeks of elitism, and i think you might be misattributing what drew people into fighting games in the first place

 

First off: Harada is dead to me. Second: the article is mainly talking about the business model of F2P not about fighting game complexity so I'm not sure where you got this from, OP.

 

Here is a quote from the article:

'But why go F2P in the first place? "There are several reasons," replied Harada. "One of them is that fighting games are now a pretty mature genre and one that's becoming difficult for people to approach'.

I interpreted the difficulty that Harada is referring to as 'fighting game complexity'.
@IvorB I could be wrong but it seems to me the business model of F2P as it relates to fighting games is all about trying to grow the potential customer base, and the approach seems to be make it F2P and make it easy to play and they will come! And its that last part that is counter-intuitive to what really turned fight gamers on in the first place. This is one of the rare times when I hope that I'm wrong and I hope I've just read the whole F2P for fight games thing wrong! That would be a relief! LOL


@Optimus_Cack yes, the fighting game community is made up of lots of different groups. while I might be wrong about why one group here or there was drawn to fighting games, I'm definitely correct about majority of groups. The whole arcade and start of PC gaming scene was before the time of some of the ppl who are on this forum. By the time some of our community members started playing video games, the arcade scene was already in decline. But I've been around for a very long time LOL. And was part of some of the earliest arcade scenes and I know exactly what kind of ppl most of the acade bunch was back then and which ones were drawn to fighting games and which ones weren't.

@Optimus_Cack yes there is some elitism in what I'm saying about fighting games and the ppl who are really good at them. Yep elitism for sure.

 

of course the people that stuck around the arcades loved it. the ones that didn't like the general trends of the genre got the hell out. that doesn't mean the genre was created just for you.

 

Oh, I have no idea what was in the mind of the first developer who created the first video fighting game or the major software developers that followed. I would imagine that if you create a video game for sale you want to sell it to as many ppl as possible. The game producer's intent is one thing, but I'm pointing out what kind of ppl were actually drawn to the fighting game genre in comparison to other video game genres. It was never the masses.
It was never the majority of ppl playing video games. FG were always a niche 'thing' . During some points in history it was little more popular than other times, but fighting games have never been accepted by the 'masses' like a 'Call of Duty' or 'Ms Pac Man' or 'Angry Birds' LOL.

So to dumb down the FG and use F2P offerings as a way to attract masses is a oxymoron and will ultimately end up alienating the one group who actually buy fighting games, and the game producers still won't get the masses :-(