Why VF4 is about to die in the US

Uhhhh yeah ok I'm bored so I made this thread.

Tekken 5 is probably going to be released less than a year from now and I think it will kill all hopes of a big VF scene in the US. Some TK and SC players were starting to gravitate towards VF cause they got sick of their respective games. But now everyone is excited about Tekken 5, and even though it's not being released anytime soon, there is already so much interest. And after E3 the hype is going to be huge and everyone who may have eventually been brought over to VF will forget about it.

Well I guess it's nothing new VF has never been popular anyways.

Discuss.

 

lets see here, virtua fighter was never alive in the first place in the states so it can't possibly die /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif. To be honest, i hated vf 2, and i only tried virtua fighter 4 AFTER reading some of the reviews it got (i know there are a lot of people that share this dirty secret /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif) I'd much rather play SC2, but its "FUN", but i go back to virtua fighter when i get my ass handed down to me by spawn. Virtua fighter 5 is coming and its a coming, but i can't wait for Tekken 5 /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif
Once tekken 5 comes out, im outa here (altho i will play vf4 at my local arcades, mostly against noobs...until vf5.

yup im bored too, but im more angry than bored. today was my friend's band's concert, and i couldn't find a ride /versus/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

People move on. That's a fact of life.


My concern is how come you are worried about VF& made this article but didn't show up for a weekly gathering? Show some support yourself, Dandy!
/versus/images/graemlins/frown.gif /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Kggthxbye.

 

It's not as if Namco themselves haven't denied that rumor of Tekken 5 being showed at E3 yet.

/KiwE

 

[ QUOTE ]
maddy said:
you are worried about VF

[/ QUOTE ]

im not worried about vf /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

VF is a religion. A man that gives up his religion has sold his soul away.

So... "When fighting is your only religion, worship at its Ultimate Altar!" -Nn-

PS: Relax, f**k that Tekken...

 

VFers are like cockroaches. We are resilient and we lurk within the shadows of the videogaming "pop" culture. We've always survived Tekken's newest incarnations and always will...unless the president of AM2 decides to one day embezzle the company's entire fortune and flee to the Bahamas. Then we're screwed. /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

Virtua fighter is not going to die. Aslong as there are players here keeping it alive...It wont die. If Tk5 is realy great, just expect vf5 to out do it again as it does every incarnation /versus/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

hmmm i think you are missing the point....vf players will still play vf....vf 4 outdid tk4 but tk4 was still more popular...i guess this thread brings up a moot point since vf has never been popular in the first place....i guess when i said "die" i meant "go from having a tiny chance of scene growth to no chance in hell of scene growth"... /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

I think the only reason it was a bit in the limelight was because it was released for PS2. Everyone knows that anything PS gets pushed now big time with sony's big dollars. The game did have some good additions for everyone,,
and if you notice the reviews , they all like the 'great tutoirals' to learn the game.
this was something that was partially there in sega systems but was left up to the gamer to figure most things out.
Now it was handed to everyone on a silver platter, and everyone who mastered the tutorials and missions thought of themselves as gods gift to VF and told themselvs,, hmm this game isnt' that bad..
then they played traditional vf players and learned the slight intricacies involved in the game and that there is a lot more too it..
Truth of th ematter is,, it was a good way to get rid of ones' boredom for T4 and now that SC2 is out many people are playing that..
This site didnt' have that many members during the VF2 / VF3 days because the game wasnt on a PS system. since vf4/evo,, people were joining this site as much as the others..
VF is just a fad right now , like you stated until T5 scene comes up again...

dork-stino

 

[ QUOTE ]
MADrox said:

I think the only reason it was a bit in the limelight was because it was released for PS2. Everyone knows that anything PS gets pushed now big time with sony's big dollars. The game did have some good additions for everyone,,
and if you notice the reviews , they all like the 'great tutoirals' to learn the game.
this was something that was partially there in sega systems but was left up to the gamer to figure most things out.
Now it was handed to everyone on a silver platter, and everyone who mastered the tutorials and missions thought of themselves as gods gift to VF and told themselvs,, hmm this game isnt' that bad..
then they played traditional vf players and learned the slight intricacies involved in the game and that there is a lot more too it..
Truth of th ematter is,, it was a good way to get rid of ones' boredom for T4 and now that SC2 is out many people are playing that..
This site didnt' have that many members during the VF2 / VF3 days because the game wasnt on a PS system. since vf4/evo,, people were joining this site as much as the others..
VF is just a fad right now , like you stated until T5 scene comes up again...

dork-stino

[/ QUOTE ]

I smell angry fanboy....

You did have good points, almost, about the great tutorials. I really REALLY doubt they put those things in there because it was released on a sony console, however. They put those training tutorials in to help new players break the ice so that when they finally play against an experienced player, they can understand what the heck is going on.

For real, I woulda thought Maddy was cheating bigtime the first time I played him, save for the fact that I knew I could do everything he was doing, and even knew how to do almost everything he was doing. The difference between me and him was that he was doin it all correctly, and at the right times. Without any of the training modes, I would have had no clue what he was doing, and assumed it was some kind of bug abuse or something.

 

hi everyone, long time VF'er first time caller... VF will always be king in my book when it comes to fighting games. HANDS DOWN! If it's popular, then it's popular, if not, hey all those other goons are missing out biiiig time. Granted I do wish that more people were into this game though, it would give me a lot more competition to play against when I play games with my friends. BTW, I'm so sick of playing the computer, if any of you kids are from LA and like to get together to play fucking AIM me please. AIM: TEINted Ride.

 

Hey painty..

no not angry,,
i didnt mean my points to come out that way,,
but i do get the general consensus of new vf greats that their interest mainly came with the help of the ps2 system (not everyone of course)..
A fanboy,
not really,, fan man more like it..
but its i think everyone here was always welcoming to new players and wanted vf to be at least to the level that it is today.

the main topic of this thread was what i was addressing.. who exactly will vf die for??
i think those new to vf ,, yes because they are not hardcore ,,,
just like hardcore Tekken players will never leave there game, (not meaning they won't dabble in others)..
But this was a very old question,, that i was lured into again just to see the responses of some of the new people..

stup-stino

 

Mindscan...check Jamboree & the socal thread for players in your area...pretty good scene it seems out there. You'll get some comp, no doubt.

I love VF. As long as there are some out there with me, everything'll be oak-diddly-oki.

I said oki..

 

i've been a tekken fan since the original game so its been what, about ten years since i've been a tekken fan now. hardcore-wise i haven't been a fan that long (didn't get into it hardcore till end of T2 era) and i've been a hardcore VF fan only since VF4 came out so about 2-3 years there.

however i can say with full certainty that i'm now a VF fan first and tekken fan second. i've posted this quite a few times before at TZ but a lot of it also has to do with my evolution as a gamer and with it the aspects that appealed to me in a fighting game also changed. tekken was great when i first got into it and imo far superior to VF at that time because it undeniably did and still does have more casual gamer appeal. however my growth as a gamer has also meant that casual gamer appeal doesn't mean much to me anymore. the factors that appeal to me are strategic depth, balance, solid mind games and the like - categories that VF has in spades and totally dominates tekken at (esp. T4). hence while i think to an extent you are right and that tekken 5 will most probably cause a VF popularity backlash, i think you are underestimating the fact that casual gamer appeal just doesn't work on the people that have been in fighting game communities for ages now. you could argue that the casual gamer appeal factor is arbitrary, but i'm going on the assumption that its not, that the hardcore gamers are wiser now and not going to be taken in by aesthetic appeal alone.

will i play tekken5?? of course! i'm willing to bet even some hardcore VFers might give it a shot. however i'm confident that if it does maintain its popularity after the first few months, it'll be because it deserves it and not because its riding on the coattails of its predecessors and the name of the franchise itself. speaking strictly for myself, i can say that i'm not going to fall for that trick anymore then i did with T4 and regardless of how good T5 is, i'm still going to remain a hardcore VF fan, even if T5 somehow manages to reach levels of strategy and depth comparable to VF, which, if you consider we're talking about namco, the brilliant mnds that brought us T4 and SC2, is imo quite impossible.

 

[ QUOTE ]
anything PS gets pushed now big time with sony's big dollars.

[/ QUOTE ]

As much as I agree with this - to a certain extent - I'd love to know how VF4 and VF4Evo were pushed by Sony's big dollars in North America? I think the marketing of these games has been well below par in NA. Part of the appeal of the other competing games - SC2, TK, etc - has been a product of excellent marketing. I can't count how many times I've seen SC2 commercials on TV. I've never seen a VF4Evo commercial on North American television. Keep in mind also - and I'm not certain of this - but I would imagine the majority of marketing for games on the PS2 is funded by the game makers, not the system creators. I'm sure there's agreements that indicate that, Namco for example, must include the PS2 logo within their campaign. Case in point, SC2 commercials and marketing material contain multiple platform logos and product placement.

The lack of appeal for VF4 and VF4Evo is highly influenced, imo, by the fact that SOA has little to no mandate to create marketing drives for the games. Clearly, reviews in popular magazines are not enough of a driver for the creation of a strong, thriving player base. If this were the case, VF4 and VF4Evo would be incredibly popular as the games have received tremendous reviews in a number of publications.

If VF is to become what Tekken and Soul Calibur are today, then Sega itself needs to push the games to be competitive. They need to devote the appropriate resources to promote the VF series effectively. Clearly, there's a niche 'fighting game' market out there and it's worth a small fortune - Sega can capture of huge portion of this market if they change their marketing behaviour.

<font color="yellow">.cheers.</font>

 

Tekken players that are playing VF4 will naturally go back to Tekken if Tekken 5 is going to be that great. A few might stay playing VF though.

I was a scrubby Lei Wu Long player when Tekken 3 and Tag were out. I liked Lei because he was a complex, intricate character with lots of moves.

Unfortunately Tekken 4 is so broken that using Lei is like throwing your money over a bridge. So then I bought VF4 because of the reviews, and got pretty into it. I stopped for a while, but when I got VF4EVO, I was able to find comp. and that's what really got me into the game.

The point of this little story is that people will switch their tastes based on the tastes of the community. Tekken 4 was frustrating and broken (to me), so I made a change. Maybe other people are similar to me or different from me... I don't know.

What's more, is that if Tekken 5 is a good game, there's no reason why you can't play T5 as well as VF. I really enjoyed Tekken Tag... although the lack of comp. in my area didn't help much.

On the whole, Namco is smart by making Tekken more like VF. The majority of Tekken players are in Korea and Japan, and the US is just a minority, an expansion market. SEGA and Namco will make their business decisions based on the tastes of Asian players, and most asian players play VF. So it's smart of Namco to make Tekken more VF like...

Regardless, all the bitching and complaining about the VF scene or the Tekken scene (in the US) really doesn't matter. The VF scene has experienced a slight surge in growth over the past couple years or so since EVO came out, but the core, key players are still the same, and still here. The VF scene in the US may get smaller, but it won't die too easily. And in the long run, both the VF scene and the Tekken scene in America has about 10% of the importance that the Asian market has. SEGA's complacency (probably caused by their success in Asia) and lack of aggressive advertising is probably a reflection of this. Namco's aggressive advertising in the US is probably a reflection of their poor games which haven't caught on in Asia, so they're attempting to capture the US market so they can recoup some of their losses.

Only when people in the US as a whole start playing games more seriously will we be a huge market of importance. So relax, and play what you wanna play.

 

I know what you mean,,
and i mainly was pointing out that before VF your only option to play it was to get a sega system. Fighting game fans didn't want to dish it out because they prefered sony's product.
Now ps2 is VF 's vessel to get people to dabble in it , and with its tutorial, get more understanding to go past dabbling. Sony didnt' push it, i meant it pushed its system and through most console gamers (under20) go with the fact if its on sony now, it must be a better game. And they do follow reviews.. everyone here seems to be older than that age, and are the main buyers of the games.
So i think i just didn't want to elaborate too much, and tried to make my points as short and the point as possible..
i failed /versus/images/graemlins/frown.gif

nice talkin to you ,, have seen you in a while..

lone-stino

 

I used to play Tekken 1 for ages, when it first came out but I do not like any other Tekken games, because they became a button mashers dream...

I left the fighting game scene for awhile but when I played VF4 my passion for fighting games came back...it has the perfect balance of technique and skill....

 

Tóuche. /versus/images/graemlins/tongue.gif