Are Fighting Games Doomed to Repeat History?
Fighting games have recently enjoyed quite the revival in this generation of consoles, and as much as I love the fact that weāre practically being showered with fresh experiences and new games to tinker around with, a part of me canāt help but wonder if companies such as Capcom are forgetting their pock-marked history and are on track to repeat it. For those of you who are unaware, fighting games were quite the business in the early to mid ā90s, with Street Fighter II enjoying a healthy amount of attention in addition to SNKās King of Fighters games. Due to the commercial success of these games, fighter developers such as Capcom and SNK started releasing tons of mildly updated versions into the wild, effectively splitting the tight-knit community that had begun to rally around the most popular titles. Eventually, people stopped supporting these incremental iterations, and the fighting game scene died, or, rather, went into a deep hibernation. But thatās old news, right?
SF3: 3rd Strike hit arcades just as the fighting game genre was dying out.
Today, a handful of fighting games dominate the market, most notably Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition and Marvel vs. Capcom 3, while a few other franchises are trying to reclaim their lost glory amidst the heavy hitters. The resurgence of fighting games has breathed new life into the community, and events such as EVO have seen record turnouts, but can it all last with a business model that has already failed in the past? Capcom has released four iterations of Street Fighter IV to date, and has already announced a standalone expansion to Marvel vs. Capcom 3 with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but can the trend of tacking on a prefix or suffix here or there allow the community to remain as strong as it is today? What if by the time Street Fighter x Tekken releases, gamers are already anticipating a āSuperā or āTurboā edition, resulting in lackluster sales as gamers wait with bated breath for the updated and definitive version of the game? Such a premise isnāt exactly far-fetched, and as hyped as I am for both Ultimate MvC3 and SFxT, I canāt help but feel as if Capcom is beginning to notice that their āupdatedā business model is a profitable one.
Street Fighter X Tekken looks to mix things up in the fighter genre.
If one were to gauge player interest of fighting game expansions purely on sales numbers, theyād be ignoring one of the more critical components of the fighting game genre: community response. Take one look at the forums on Shoryuken.com or the comments on a reveal trailer for a fresh expansion, and youāll get more information about how players feel than any numeric value could ever tell you. Whatās most worrisome about this, however, is that many fighting game developers are based in Japan or other parts of Asia, and certainly very few are native to the United States. This disparity not only creates a sharp divide between community desires and corporate interests, but a difficult language barrier to transcend as well. Read a few interviews with Seth Killian (Special Advisor for Capcom) and you can see this rift at work; he explains tiresomely that he and his team are trying their best to relay community feedback to the developers overseas, but are finding it difficult to accurately convey the true nature of fan feedback.
Not all is lost, however. NetherRealm Studios (developers of Mortal Kombat 9) are a Chicago-based developer, and the amount of fan service that has gone into the development of their latest fighting game is evident. With a steady stream of DLC characters and a regular schedule of hefty updates based purely on community feedback, NetherRealm Studios truly exemplifies the term āfan service.ā Whether or not you enjoy MK9 is beside the point, itās the amount of dedication to their fanbase that is most impressive. Should the Japanese developers follow suit, we may be able to sidestep the very real possibility of repeating history and witnessing a second ice age for fighting games. Itās going to take some serious dedication and some corporate communication to get it done, but if the future of fighting games holds universally GGPO-enabled titles and franchises that behave as platforms, it will all be worth it.
-Adriaan Noordzij
So, I agree that Fighting game are a niche market, and that the niche grew this generation (basically my interpretation of the first part of the article) but whereas we can point to a few things for that I think the lack of different types of fighting games is a big issue. For instance how many games have Smash Bro’s general feel outside of Nintendo’s realm? I know of two others. Then we have a lot of old school fighters, street fighter, KOF, capcaom vs. whatever, and mortal kombat. However I have yet to see a 2 D fighter with a SSB set up where it isn’t an input hell but rather forcing the game to focus on game mechanics rather than half circles, and controller mechanics.
But then there are breakout titles that get no attention like Wargears that are a genre mash-up (fighter and bullet hell) that never saw a good sales figure. I think if ‘fighters’ are to grow they’ll need to see elements from other aspects of gaming come in, and do something new, because I think the old school fighter has it’s titles and it’s set market.
Your take on the Capcom marketing idea raises a lot of points I’ve been feeling myself. But as someone who feels used and abused by this I’m just done with Capcom for awhile because I’m just sick buying a game to only regret it a year down the road.
I have more respect at least for the Mortal Kombat take, but I still feel like one should unlock the characters and the costumes in the game, these were the early achievements in the game, and they meant something there were not just mere useless gamer points, but actual content in the game that you earned. I think that gave the games a chance for it’s audience to feel more proudly about what they did in game, and where they stood in the community.