Times have changed

The winds of change are blowing through the competitive fighting game community. Well, they have been since Street Fighter IV was released and pulled the fighting game genre from a niche interest to the masses.

Some think this is a good thing. But many others view the fighting game resurgence as something negatively affecting the community. Or at least the community as they would like to remember it. Personally I love the way the community is thriving right now, but in this post I would like to try and examine why so many feel this is a bad thing and my theories on where we may be going from here. I'm writing this in response to a certain negativity that I've noticed just wont go away amongst some fighting game fans.

If you're a younger gamer, or perhaps one that just starting fighting with Street Fighter IV, it might be helpful to examine what the community was like pre-SFIV. This might help you understand the point of view of some of the older players that may have given you flak for being new.

In the early 90's with the release of Street Fighter II competitive fighting games were born and at the same time experienced a boom. Almost everyone played. If you were into video games back then, then you probably played Street Fighter II at one point. Arcades were constantly filled with people playing and discussing the game. Back then there was no internet, so your typical forum discussions you have now were taking place in person. Lots of friendships were made based on the simple love of fighting games.

This boom continued with the release of Mortal Kombat and SNK's offerings and continued strong throughout the mid 90's. That's when things started to drop off. Friends moved away, went to college or maybe simply lost interest in gaming all together. The fighting games themselves were partially to blame for the loss of interest, but I'll go into that more below.

By the end of the 90's arcades were just starting to die out and only partial remnants from the old communities remained. These players found their home on Shoryuken.com. Thanks to SRK you were able to find players again through their match making forums. They also offered coverage of major tournaments and gave fighters a central hub to exchange tips and information on the games. The community remained strong there, though largely considered to be a niche interest. This was mainly because there was hardly any new blood making their way into the scene. Still from this time up until Street Fighter IV released new friendships continued to form, pro players were born and no one ever stopped fighting. New fighting games kept being released, but nothing ever came close to the sales or popularity of other genres.

The appealing thing, and the thing many veteran players don't want to let go of, was the feeling of pride that almost offered a sort of elitist platform over other genres of gaming. The feeling that only you and others like you could belong because of your talents with fighting games, that no one else, particularly the masses could do what you could do.

Fast forward to the release of Street Fighter IV, nearly 10 years after a major release in the Street Fighter series. Capcom was determined to make this one a hit this time around. You saw tv spots, sporting events endorsed by the game and a flood of media coverage. Street Fighter IV was everywhere. They had brought the fighter back to the masses and thus began a renaissance we are still experiencing today. From the successful reintroduction of the fighting game by Street Fighter IV we are now seeing revivals of other past series such as Mortal Kombat and Capcom's vs. series.

Much to the annoyance of veteran players was the huge influx of new gamers joining forums and flooding the message boards with questions seeking advice for beginners. Things that were common knowledge for most of us that hadn't stopped playing since Street Fighter II. Though the influx of new players has slowed, there's still enough of this going on for many fighting dedicated message boards to create forums specifically for the new players to ask for help.

Now you have to ask yourself where you stand on this and if this is really a bad thing. On one side of the fence fighting games seem to be thriving even more than they did in the 90's, while on the other side one could argue that newer players coupled with the new games themselves threaten to dismantle the traditions and community built by the veteran players.

You may ask how exactly new players and new games can cause such dishevelment. Many will agree that Street Fighter IV itself is much easier to pick up and play than the past entries of the series. I would tend to agree with this as the game supports simplified inputs for the special moves that allow new players to be able to pull them off with ease with very little practice. A far cry from the days of practicing the Shoryuken motion over and over to make sure it was trained to your muscle memory. (However there is great depth to the game as well that a new player may not recognize until they are more seasoned, such as the importance of being able to play footies and zone, option selects, etc.)

Others could also argue that the mentality of newer players is quite lazy in comparison to a veteran. Today thanks to sites like Youtube and the long term collaboration of forum information we are practically spoon fed new strategies and combos. Yet, rather than doing their own research, new players still continue to flood message boards for the easy answers.

Which raises the question that I'm sure has crossed the minds of many older players: Why should the newer players be able to do so well and not have to put in the same amount of work that I had to for my game?

To answer that question we need to explore the reasons why the fighting game genre diminished in the first place. Some argue that it was over saturation. For every new version of Street Fighter 2 that came out, there were nearly 2 copy cats released trying to win their own piece of the pie. I don't think this was the case.

There's a lot of fear out there now that the genre is becoming over saturated again, which is somewhat well founded when you consider running a tournament and having to decide if you'll be able to run Super Street Fighter IV, Tekken 6, Mortal Kombat, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 as well as the slew of other games coming out all in one event. Again, I don't feel like this is endangering the fighting game genre again.

The true culprit of the original crash was the games themselves evolving and growing more complicated over the years. The more layers you add, the more difficult it is for a new player to get started and even feel like they're playing the game correctly.

Take Capcom vs. SNK 2 for example. Upon entering the character select you're asked to select 1 of 6 groove types that will determine what abilities your team will have, such as the ability to roll or side step, the ability to dash or run, or air block etc. Each of these grooves being completely different and only defined on the character select screen by symbols. Next you'll pick from 1 to 3 characters. After that you have to choose how many "ratio points" to assign to the team members, which directly determines how much health they have as well as their damage output. If you're new to fighting games this can be completely overwhelming. And this was pretty much the story for fighting games at that time, filled with "isms" and other modes that completely alienated anyone that may want to try and pick up fighting games as a hobby. If you didn't have a friend who played that wanted to work with you or weren't willing to put in the time to do a lot of research you probably wouldn't enjoy fighters.

The reason the newer fighting games now are doing so well is that they have returned to simpler times, choosing pure gameplay over an overloaded toybox of options to choose from. This allows newer players to jump in and have fun, but at the same time for those looking for a deeper experience this may leave things a little bland.

But new players aren't the only things changing in the community. More and more these days we are seeing pro players gaining corporate sponsorships and some argue that this takes away from the traditional community as well. You could say that sponsored players have an unfair advantage because their entry fees, lodging and travel expenses are all taken care of for all tournaments they attend. If you've done much traveling for tournaments you'll understand that taking care of all that can be pretty mentally taxing. Not to mention the fact that not all of us can always afford to go to all the tournaments we want.

Is this necessarily a bad thing? In my opinion, no. The top players worked hard for the positions they're in and I know that if I was offered a sponsorship and more opportunities to play the games I love for free I'd go for it too. You can't blame them for this. I know that some people don't like that sponsorships are happening though. Again it's that traditionalist "good 'ol days" way of thinking. I certainly never would have expected fighting games to get big enough for such a thing to happen, but it's here now and probably to stay.

If you're still reading at this point, it's clear that there's no real answer for the so called "rights and wrongs" going on in the community now. I do know that if the developers continue to create fighting games with an easy enough entry point for newer players to start with while at the same time maintaining depth for veteran players I think we can avoid another crash all together. The more people that play, the more money the developers make, thus the more new games they are able to make.

The best advice I can give is to learn to roll with the punches and try to evolve as the scene does, less you be left behind. I'm reminded of a documentary I watched recently on pinball called Special When Lit. In it they interviewed a lot of older gentlemen who'd been a part of the pinball community in their youth but are now left reminiscing about "the good 'ol days" with little to report about their very niche scene. They all just seemed terribly sad. I foresee many of us older players in that same situation in the future if we don't learn to accept Change. Tradition is a great thing, but it usually can't stop evolution.

Thanks for reading! Cheers!