Opinion: Where Do Fighting Games Go From Here?

In this personal opinion piece, Japan-based journalist Nayan Ramachandran considers Capcom's challenges with making Street Fighter IV more approachable for casual gamers, and why fighting game enthusiasts often reject those accessibility efforts.

Thoughts and feelings on this article and in general?

 

Cool article. What i think is Fighting games changed and this is what we have for now coming from Capcom's camp. Only SNK/Playmore makes hardcore fighter especially with KOF13,KOF 98 unlimited or KOF 2002 Unlimited comingsoon which is still hardcore. I hope Companies use the Marketplace and PSN to make the Hardcore fighters at a moderate budget because you won't have to spend much.

 

black dragon,

you have the bet avatar on this site. thank you /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

 

making fighting games more accessible is a lost cause. most gamers don't care enough about the genre in the first place and making things too easy wards off the average fighting game player.

that being said, i think it's funny how people's definition of accessible usually segues to easy. when i think about the ideal way to make fighters more accessible, i think of every game coming with a vf4:e style training mode. this way you don't dilute the game, nor do you make it impossible for casuals to get into.

 

I think the reason fighting games are losing in popularity is since every fighting game developer has for some reason started doing worse game then the previous generation. It really isn't to much to ask that games improve, not decline. We see this with SF4 in the arcades too. Good for Capcom they had SF on 10 year break so it gathered massive steam for it's console release. Had this been released 2 years after SF3: Third Strike then it would've been a flop.

 

Did you guys read Sirlin's article???

I'm starting to hate that guy's guts...

EDIT: Smash Bros is NOT a fighting game.

 

Smash Bros is more about ringouts than knockouts, I agree.

 

I agree with you 100% to your second paragraph, but I have to disagree with the first.

Every fighting game that wants to be taken seriously and build a community should have a training mode that will teach you all the systems of the game, from the most basic structure of fighting games, all the way to high-level combos and setups. The training should be more of a tutorial (like Evo) where you are presented with a situation, given the knowledge to beat it, then given the practice to do it in-game. Like Quash said, its a way to give accessibility without diluting the game overall.

But I don't think its a lost cause. Far from it. In terms of accessibility, developers only concern themselves with how they will "draw" a new player to the game. The simplest course will be to make the games graphics really nice and sometimes flashy. Good character design and the ability to customize said character also helps. Then they'll usually add in some feature like parries or super combos and advertise the hell out of them, trying to give the impression that "its a fighter unlike any you've played before".

Just because a developer hasn't come up with the right solution yet doesn't mean they eventually won't. What if there were multiple modes of play? Like beginner, intermediate, and tournament. You could start on beginner where the action of the game is slowed down 50% or something. Once you feel comfortable with that, you move on to intermediate, where the action is a bit faster. The goal would be to eventually reach Tournament level and then you're ready to play with the big-boys. Of course, if 2 noobs just wanted to go at it, they could play on beginner and have just as much fun. Slow motion might not be the ideal solution, but you get where I'm going with this, right?

More than the problem of accessibility, I think the main issues with fighting games currently are: 1) Communities that are not accepting enough of new members, and 2) What people want from a fighting game will vary so much from person to person. Allow me to explain.

When someone picks up a new fighter and thinks they might want to play it at high level, they'll usually go searching for like-minded people. So they hit up their local forums, or boards like this, or maybe even local gamestores. So they find someone that will play the game with them, but its an absolute slaughter (as it should be). When the veteran does not offer encouragement, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth for any newcomer. I remember asking for someone to help me get started with CvS2 years ago and all I got was ass-whuppins with no conversation. I expect to lose at a game that I'm just starting at, but SOME amount of advice is needed for me to keep playing the game. I know not all fighting game circles are like that, and those who welcome new people and try to teach them all the tricks are great (and a big help to fighting games in general), but the impact of the communities when they fail at their most basic tasks (in terms of new players) can have a much greater impact on those new members who will not be returning.

The second problem (and probably the biggest), is that people want different things from their fighting games. The thing that we can all agree on is competition. Every fighting game player wants a readily available stream of opponents to play against. The other thing we all want is fun, but what makes a fighting game fun to YOU?

For me, a fighter is fun because its balanced, takes skill to win, and has opportunity for "trickery". Not just mixup trickery, but reverse-nitaku kinda trickery. Punch, kick cancel, OMP-side-stagger, OMK-back-crumple, low-throw kinda trickery. But some people just want sweet-looking moves from their fighters. Others want realism, some want fantasy. Some like fatalities, or taunts, or ring-outs. Some even like having a game that is totally unbalanced by a few characters (it makes even the character selection screen exciting). And some people don't care what systems are in place, they just love to master them.

So I think its much more a question of personal taste than overall accessibility. In terms of financial sales, making a fighting game that everyone wants to play would be great. But those kinds of games typically don't last long. The fact that I know people who still play 3S 10 years after its release is a testament to a fighting game fan's dedication. But in those 10 years, how many copies of 3S has that person bought. Two? Maybe Three? Thats more copies of a game than most people buy, but its still not financially sound.

Perhaps the fighting game genre must be re-thought as a whole. Find out what the big difference between the hardcore and casual crowd is, then try to build a game that will appease them both in some way (at least enough to warrant a purchase).

Impossible task? No. Neigh-impossible.

 

In my experience, "casuals" (I dislike the use of that word but to make it easy for this argument I'll use it) can't really tell accessible from inaccessible fighting game apart at all. They just go with that they've heard and then proceed to choose what someone told them is the "accessible" game and just mash buttons.

Despite what people on this forum think, Tekken is NOT an easy game to learn, yet "casuals" flock to that game.

 

Man, I feel the opposite. Sirlin is rapidly becoming my hero. Not just because of this article. I think I agree with most everything I've read from him.

 

Crap Gamasutra article from a crap writer.

 

Care to elaborate?

 

http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2009/2/22/a-few-things-about-street-fighter-4.html

Members of SRK are debating this article at the moment.

 

Sure, I suppose.

A. Calling Tatsunoko vs. Capcom a title for more casual gamers is ignorant at best, since the game is as complex as any other fighting game out there. It also features the same control mechanics as a traditional Street Fighter game. The Wii version used a 2 button control scheme, but that was done because it needed a control scheme that fit on the Wii Remote (remember, Nunchuks and Classic Controllers are all optiona) to reach the most basic user. In fact, the only reason I can think of to call it a casual game is because it uses the Tatsunoko license.

B. Saying that fighting games have too much jargon and acronyms is stupid, considering we're on the fucking internet, land of LOL, ROFL, BTW, AFAIK and other nonsense.

C. The article completely... COMPLETELY ignores the mass of "casual-friendly" fighting games that have been released in the past. Games like Naruto, Bleach DS, Kinikkuman and so on. There are plenty of fighting games that are aimed at casual gamers only.

Even games that are for "hardcore" fighting game fans can be played casually. There are a ton of people who play Soulcalibur on a casual basis. And that game has a ton of moves to remember, and has a large emphasis on frame knowledge just like VF. No one has to know the special moves in Soulcalibur or in Street Fighter to have fun, and to me this article reinforces the fact that people who are only mildly interested in fighting games wish that it was easier to suit their needs.

I could think of more but that's it for the moment.

 

Basically what Reno said, good stuff. All of it.

 

i wish the "hardcore" gamers here would mix in some fuckin vf5. I'm tired of my entire friendlist SF4'ing, and i never have anyone good to play. Don't forsake vf5. I don't wanna become scrubby just cause no else wants to play vf5. This sucks

 

What a grand opportunity I just popped out 5 more. SUBMIT DAMMIT! NOW!

 

i guess i should rephrase what i said earlier; making fighting games accessible is a lost cause on the current course it's on. we both seem to agree that the best way to make fighters more accessible is not to make the inputs super easy or dumb down the game, but to give people everything they need to be good at the game on the disc. since, as you said, most fighting game developers just want to get people to buy the game and leave anything past that to the players themselves (hence why games like soul calibur place so much emphasis on aesthetic value and relative simplicity).

way to get defensive over something nobody brought up. though i guess that's the typical reaction i've come to expect from tekken players.

and while i agree that maybe "casual" isn't the most accurate term (neither is "hardcore", really), there's no doubting that there's a huge distinction between a frame crunching vf junkie and some chick playing popcap games on a ds.

same. he hits the nail on the head on basically everything. if nothing else, he's the guilty gear community's best ambassador to the capcommunist regime.

 

Akai, white_worm, quash on target with this one.

Innovation in the single player experience will help expand or reinvigorate the genre. The tutorial mode of Evo should've been just the beginning. Instead it was the end /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cry.gif
The glossary that was in Evo helped a lot of noobs that I know come to understand the game. I know a lot disagree with this but
the stats evaluation from VF4 and VF4 evo were useful to peeps just trying to learn the game. Not everybody likes getting their ass whipped in public a few hundred times in order to learn the game.

Believe it or not, storyline, character profiles, customization,
quality movies add to the "FUN" part of the game /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif when Soul Caliber IV cut back on the extras their sales suffered as a result.

The hardcore veterans don't need all of the cutscenes, storyline,
wallpapers, battle theatres, tutorials, or glossaries. For them
balance, and available competition is the most important. But for people just being introduced to the genre, all that extra stuff is what makes the game fun and things like the tutorial and
glossary helps them to join the competitve community.

Where Do Fighting Games Go From Here?

Fighting games should take a<span style='font-size: 17pt'> cue from this Year's Madden.[/size]
</span>
<span style='font-size: 17pt'>Madden has a training camp, that kind of gives you the
fundamentals of offense and defense.</span>

This years Madden had a AI feature that kind-a tuned the
game to your level of play. Things are easier for a noob
but as the noob improved the play becomes more sophisticated.

This year's madden has all kinds of rings, trophies, and kudos
for the player as they progress through the season. It makes you
want to keep coming back to up your stats, get more rings, open more content.

This year's madden had the new analysis feature where they would show the player what they did wrong on offense or defense. IMAGINE IF FIGHTING GAMES DID THAT /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cry.gif

Madden has customizable sound tracks!!! I know I would like
to be able to pick my sound tracks for VF /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

VF as a fighter IMHO is almost perfect. But if they were to add some of the innovations that games like Madden 2009 has I really believe the fighting genre would grow wider rather than narrower and deeper /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif