Why Aren't Fighting Games Mainstream?
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
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There is no good way to market a game when the initial learning experience is an endless suffering.
they are way too hard, mk11 is impossible for me to pull off a combo
League of legends
@@derekhatake bro how😭
@@playharderscrub cant get the timing right when pressing buttons, also i panic alot
@@auraoblivion8379 league’s only hard concept is the map awareness and positioning...
Clicking and QWER is baby levels of execution…
As someone that tried Strive, played for 46 hours, and the BBCF for 28, the only real problem is that you're just supposed to know everything about the game to play it.
Everyone saying "you don't need to know the game to have fun" definitely hasn't felt the utter hopelessness of just being stuck in the corner with every button press doing absolutely nothing.
Fighting games are just that good at making people hopeless, and sadly nothing can change that.
I already knew some basics before going online but to me i never felt a huge emotional connection to what was happening in game
Being in the corner was more of a puzzle i was going to try and solve over many games rather than something i had to figure out at that moment
I played 200 games and only won 11% but i still had fun learnjng the game by fighting people in the discord and practicing my execution a bit in between
I know not everyone is like that but there is something to it, it might also depend on what game you are playing
My friend had only played platform fighters and I had gotten into the Guilty Gear Strive character themes and he came across them and loved them. He wanted to get the game because he thought Bridget was cool so we both got the game and he loves it. He's not bad either for having 10 minutes of training in Smash Ultimate where I taught him Ryu's motion inputs.
That thing about the community doing all the advertising is totally true, the only reason I got interested or even found out about strive was cause a sfm used Smell of the Game and Armor Clad Faith. If not for that the only fighting game I would have ever played was smash bros.
Too mature to be mainstream, and as niche as being into your soulmate.
I feel like you missed the biggest reason. The thing all potential players say.
“They’re too hard.”
Weekly ranked tournaments, each week is a season, each season gives different rewards, top x amount and receive free accommodation to an actual tournament. I'll keep dreaming
Platformer players: "You guys dreaming of mainstream?"
What is the pastel desktop game that he talks about in the beginning of the video? That's Melatonin right?
Has anyone noticed that whenever geckos ggst avatar lies down it looks like it's being stomped on by a shoe
please do not kinkshame him
Oh my good it does
Sometimes when I close my eyes I can't see
Personally I love that this video covers multiple aspects of the topic. Feels like too often people try to simplify it to one thing is the reason when there’s usually more to it than that.
I mean I feel like barrier to entry in fighters with their technical input and lack of reliable skill matchmaking is plenty of explanation. It's not even a hard concept to rank people based off algorithmic measurements of hit registration combo input and high profile game behaviors. But they don't do that so people aren't fighting someone they can learn against they take 9 losses and 1 win against some poor sap unlucky enough to be worse than them. It doesn't need a complicated or multifaceted response it's as simple as the average win rate being lower than 30% what is considered in most ladders to be a guarantee like it takes effort to be sub 30% in overwatch, cod, destiny, league, etc.
Straight up, fighting games aren't more popular because the only way to get better at them is to lose and lose and lose and lose and lose and lose and lose horribly each time. Then after losing 50 times someone says you should go into training mode and just practice the same move over and over and over and over against a CPU training dummy and even then you will likely still lose horribly. And over the course of all those losses you gain absolutely nothing in-game. Then also people that are already in it speak basically an entire different language when it comes to describing moves, then you're told if really want to be good you need to be able to read and remember exact frames of moves for a roster of like 20-30 characters. None of that shit is fun or enticing at all.
Atleast that's why I don't play them personally.
You hit the nail on the head! I wasted so many hours (practically day) torturing myself in the training room trying to nail a simple combo or an ultimate move to where it required such precise timing that my fingers hurt. Most of these games have really poor training modes and do not explain the mechanics clearly. I was surprised with Strive at how decent they explained the core basics. Hardcore fans don't like the dumbing down of it, but I appreciate it. I can actually pull of moves and such pretty well. I just wish it had more single player content.
Yeah I’m not gonna play this game for 100 hours+ a just to watch the colorful number go up. There’s nothing really fun about losing constantly.
I agree, learning to be at least good in fighting games requires too much time investment to learn. And time is not something for me to waste as a working adult. Usually in my down time, I just want games that I can easily pickup and play without wasting time trying just to learn moves. And if I want to learn something new I would prefer to learn skills that would benefit me in real life.
The main reason I believe fighting games aren't mainstream (among many others) is because they are very personal. All the games you mentioned League, Valorant & Fortnite are all team based games that you play with friends. With FG's, when you're in the ring it's a 1V1 between two opposing players, nobody else.
Competitive games for most are already stressful, having a team or friends makes it somewhat easier (so you can blame them instead lmao) so when you lose in a FG and you're told the problem is YOU, most lose confidence and label the genre as "too hard" when usually you aren't terrible, your opponent is just superior.
By not having mainstream appeal we therefore don't reach a greater audience outside of our own most of the time. You have to search for the community, you won't just stumble across it, so if you don't have any incentive to give FG's a chance you most likely never will as you won't go searching. A paradox of sorts fr.
The next few years however are going to be interesting for sure. With Project L, we're tapping into one of the world's largest competitive and just gaming communities in general. League has brand name, people who don't even play it are massively aware of it and some even like something else related to it within it's expanded media, meaning PL will have broader mainstream appeal even outside of LoL/Riot players.
More eyes will be on FG's than ever thought possible in an era with Rollback & Crossplay and many other great or better FG's on the market with numerous content creators/streamers and a strong & passionate community. When PL releases, it'll be now or never.
Might be a bad idea to put that much faith on Project L bringing many people from League, you're setting yourself up for disappointment.
@@third-ratedude4234 I'm not betting on anything more than 5-10% of their playerbase sticking around. Even then that's still over a million new players.
To me the most important time is the honeymoon phase when the game first launches. More eyes will be on FG's than ever before from LoL and mainstream competitive players alike.
The biggest issue FG's face outside of the game itself is attracting new players & capitalising on untapped audiences and PL is aiming to tackle them both. Will it be successful? Who really knows, the point is that it's going to try.
@@third-ratedude4234 It's not about the lol community, if the game is free that could make more people approaching this game
I’d be a tough one for sure. Just the LoL name alone won’t be enough. 2 key things i think it would need. It has to be fun to play and the presentation as to be on the lvl of a dbfz or greater. Presentation being most important to me for a hype and coolness factor when playing.
@@jalenjohnson7446 It obviously has to be a high quality game as well, there's no way brand name on it's own can carry.
I meant a high quality FG, with frequent and excellent support (new fighters, stages, game modes, balancing, story, cinematics + music videos), excellent community, insane tournament support and is accessible as hell to jump in but remains challenging for veterans to master + brand name is the recipe for success.
Insanely ambitious (unrealistic even) but that is their goal after all, if they manage to achieve it.
As much as I like fighting games, the community is kind of full of nobheads who scream at every minor or major change and are quick to give the stink eye to any new fighting game just trying to find its place. Hard for devs to get in, hard for new players to get in.
Fighting games rarely offer value for money unless you know going in that you're going to spend a lot of time online. Tekken 7 and Strive are very guilty of this the single player experience is pathetic. SF5 got better eventually, The arcade ladders and survival mode changes added plenty of value but the damage was done by then.
Fighting game developers need to realise that not everyone wants to go online and get smashed there have to be other ways to play. I don't gel with netherealms fighting mechanics but the sheer amount of stuff to do is why they sell so well. I think SF6 is looking to emulate that while also having better social features with the battle hub.
Fighting game singleplayer content isnt even worth the pricetag though which is another issue, at this point id imagine it would be better for them to sell a fighting game at like 20 or 30 cheaper for people who just wanna play singleplayer but even that feels like a scam, this is of course without mentioning the dlc which you wont ever use if youre serious about the game (youre not gonna main 30 different characters) but forced to purchase just because theyll be locked even in training modes. SF6 succeded to a degree with world tour (atleast from what ive heard it wasnt a selling point to me) but the game still fits into a niche.
I dont think there is a better way to phrase the sense of community fighting games have than how spanish youtuber joseju did. Translated, he said "the people in this gave do rematches way more than others. I think this is because this community is the one that loves the raw game the most" or something along those lines in his "ponte a jugar juegos de lucha" video. Which if you know spanish or can deal with the autosubs, watch it.
For me from where i am the term "fgc" is legit non existent, because well nobody play fighting games. I sadly have to play on pretty high pings and half of my motivation is just dead at this point. I legit think that they have nailed the fighting part of fighting games but they still have no clue about the game part. There is also absolutely no incentive for someone who well doesn't wanna play ranked or tower to just become some god fighting game player. I take starcraft2 as an example here, it is an insanely difficult game and very competitive but is still somehow alive. It's only and only because the majority of players are NOT ranked competitive players but they play the casual but fun as fuck mode called Co-op commanders, and that is how you keep the game alive. There is nothing to do for someone who does not want to compete in fighting games, they don't have cosmetic or any other incentive to well keep playing.
It's also sad that they just as of recent have started taking online a tad bit more seriously while the rest of the game are made to be played ONLINE primarily. They treat online as just a feature and not as THE mode to play and grind in.
They suck balls at marketing too cause well they believe that just magically their game will reach the audience, they don't take the best sources to get there game out there and those are content creators and streamers. There are also nothing like seasonal content or anything like that, just plain old character dlcs which is not even for everyone (i still don't like a single dlc character from strive).
I still humbly believe that the fgc barely grows, players just migrate from one game to another. Developers also are disconnected with what the modern audience want and are a decade behind in mindset.
14:07 most of my coworkers know what Street Fighter VI is besides the old people and guess what? None of them want to play it! Marketing doesn't magically = sales.
The mobile games that hook players in, the older people like my step dad not your average youngster! Even NSFW mobile games this is the case!
Can good marketing work? Of course but it's not the only factor; having something that's turn your brain off though is the kind of game the mobile games attract. Actual good gameplay though? Not the first thought.
Who are you trying to appeal to and why would x group want to play your game?
It seems weird that in a video about mainstream appeal of fighting games, other than a single throw away comment, you wouldn't discuss Super Smash Bros, i.e.. by far the most mainstream fighting game for the past 20 years. It's certainly very different from traditional fighting games, so much so that it's existence required the creation of the distinction between "platform fighter" and "traditional fighter", but there is a reason that it has succeeded to an extent that other fighting games haven't, and it isn't just the Nintendo IP (although that does help a lot).
The number 1 factor for mainstream appeal is bad-player appeal; ie. can a player with little skill meaningfully play your game. As such, accessibility is extremely important for mainstream appeal, especially the types of accessibility that aren't related to actual game difficulty. The most important part of accessibility, imo, is *how easy it is to learn* the basics, how much time and effort does it take to learn the absolute bare minimum such that you can actually play the game. Not bare minimum as in understanding the mechanics and strategy, but that you know how to move your character and how to achieve the most basic objectives, like how to attack or shoot your opponent, how to search for loot, or how to hit a ball into a goal. Understanding the difference between different attacks, or guns, or strategies is simply irrelevant for a new player. Just teach them the minimum as fast as possible so that you can actually put them into a game. A new player is like a newborn baby, they have to learn how to control their legs and stand before they can even be concerned with something that we might consider trivial, like walking.
Most mainstream competitive games are shooters. The bare minimum knowledge to play those games is "these buttons/stick make you move, the mouse/other-stick controls the camera, and this button shoots". And that's literally all the information you need to just be able to *start* playing. Obviously there are usually more buttons that do important stuff, but a completely new player probably doesn't need to know about those until they've at least gotten the hang of moving and shooting. Non-shooter mainstream games still have a similar degree of simplicity. A game like rocket league is just "here's the movement stick/buttons, and then here's the accelerate, boost, and jump buttons", learn how to move around first, then figure out the important stuff later.
Most fighting games are not just hard games, but hard to learn games as well. You usually have 4-6 attack buttons, many dozens of moves, command inputs (which are character specific to make things worse), and a relatively complex blocking system, all added on to games which historically have really bad or no tutorials and few resources in game to learn those most basic of controls and mechanics. It's a massive hurdle to overcome for a brand new player. It's why I gave up on Tekken 7 within a few days, but also why I ended up sticking with Strive; the difference that a well made tutorial aimed at complete noobs makes can not be overstated.
Smash is by far the most accessible fighting game I've ever played, containing one of the largest differences between skill floor and ceiling of any game I know of. The entire game can be played with just a joystick (or even D-Pad) and 3 buttons. Characters have ~20 moves each, but because they are all directional inputs using one of the 2 buttons, it is extremely easy to learn how to use all of them, and also makes it really easy to learn how to apply moves you haven't used before. It's really just a matter of "press the direction you want to attack in, and press the attack button". A completely new player doesn't need to know the distinction between tilts and smash attacks and aerials, they can get the bare minimum knowledge to play the game by just attacking in a direction. The bare minimum knowledge is so simple, that a player can get into a game as fast as possible so that they can actually start to develop a deeper knowledge of the moves and mechanics.
The amount of time between starting a game completely clueless, and being able to play the game by yourself, even really poorly is, in my opinion, the #1 goal of accessibility. It's not to make the gameplay easier. It's to make the game easier to play.
If I could print out and frame this comment, I would.
bro speaks the language of fax
Love this
I've always said that Smash is like learning to play the piano, and FGs are like learning to play the guitar. Obviously, mastering the piano takes thousands and thousands of hours and it not something that just anyone can do. But, if you have absolutely no idea about music, or have never before played an instrument in your life, and you sit down in front of a piano for 10 minutes and just mess around, you will probably figure out how to play something remotely musical. At the end of the day, you're pretty much just pushing a button.
Guitar on the other hand... holy moly, if you have never tried to play the guitar before, and you assume that it must not be that hard... you're going to be in for a rough time. Just to be able to make that thing make a sound that isn't offensive to the ears takes, AT MINIMUM, weeks of practice. You need to use muscles in your left hand that you didn't even know were there. You need to be able to coordinate the strumming of your right hand, to the chords of your left hand. You need to develop a thick layer of dead skin on your fingers, just to be able to play for more than ten minutes and have it not physically hurt... and this is just to make the guitar make somewhat of a musical sound.
Smash is not a fighting game.
People get tired of throwing the same punch and kick 100 times so they move on to the next game. The entry level is way too high for these games in terms of skill so people naturally don’t give a shit.
No mention of sales or player count? What is your definition of mainstream? This video lacks research.
Another aspect as to why fighting games are not mainstream is that they cost a lot. I've been interested in GGST since 2021, but I only finally bought the game recently. Reason? I'm hesitant to invest a bunch of money into a game where I may not even enjoy it, therefore putting it below my other buy list instead. Brawlhalla is an example of a mainstream fighting game, but that game also had a lot of problems with the devs and community therefore you can see that player base dwindle unlike a few years ago.
How can you not say this about any other paid game? At least with something like a 2D fighter if you already like 2D fighters it’s a safe bet you’ll like another hot new 2D fighter
Let’s see what happens with Project L which will almost certainly be F2P and have devs that really care about the FGC
I think a big problem is just how hard it is to get into. Like you have to pay 60 dollars for a game of a genre you don't really play. Then you have to hope that the game has an active playerbase. You have to basically get a controller because sure, you can play on keyboard but it sucks. Especially if you are new to the genre. And even after all that, the most you can do is play the same mode online and hope you don't get matched up against some dude with 1000 games on his character who has relentlessly studied the frame data for years and beats the living hell out of you with you not getting to do anything. It just makes you want to quit instanty. If you don't have friends to play fighting games with its just though
Started playing dbfz a few days ago and just met a guy with like 500 ranked games and lost off like 6 interactions. Then i search for an other game and meet the same guy again. I just alt f4'd. Like I'm sorry but i just don't enjoy getting combo'ed the whole game
@@kartonkopf1332 lmao git gud.
you either put hundreds of hours "learning" the characters or you're just gonna get absolutely destroyed, and who wants to just play to learn instead of having fun with some other actuall good game
Keyboard is goated though, i could never play on controller
@@kartonkopf1332tbf, you're playing DBFZ. FighterZ is a notoriously terrible fighting game when it comes to giving the one getting hit a chance. Seriously, if you're playing low ranked what you're probably going against is some guy spamming autocombos, and in the end all you have to do is punish his raw super dash and then you get your turn.
I've wanted to take fighting games seriously and to improve but it's a rough mental barrier. Since there's usually nothing to earn in game, so the initial "lose constantly until good is obtained" feels even worse. I also have anxiety because I hate the idea of joining a community when I am not already decent. Feels like I'd waste everyone's time because the experienced player gains nothing from beating me constantly. I'd like to try but social anxiety sucks
Im in a similar boat when it comes to more smaller fighting game communities since I've only played FighterZ alot, even then I'm not so great at it. Theres also how many of the communities have barely anyone at lower skill levels which is what stopped me from playing Guilty Gear and almost Blazblue as well
I'll say it honestly because people deserve to hear it: yeah, beating up on far weaker players is incredibly boring. There is something that changes this dynamic drastically: whenever that weaker player has a sincere desire to improve. This acts in the self-interest of the stronger player as well, because teaching somebody else invariably leads to their own improvement in many ways. It's also a lot more fun than whaling on a silent sandbag. You don't even have to say or type a word, necessarily; when I see someone learning and adapting even a little bit through gameplay, this is enough motivation for me to continue playing with them. They earn my respect as a player for being actively engaged in the conversation of battle.
Communities built around improving as a beginner exist for all but the very least populated fighting games. If you approach the game and the players in these communities with an attitude of self-improvement, you'll find that people are quite welcoming, willing to answer questions, run scenarios in-game to help you understand how to beat them, etc.
That being said, you should at least know what the buttons of the game are. And I understand social anxiety may still stop you from getting this process started; that's outside the scope of what I can do for you. I can only offer my assurance that practically every fighting game's community wishes they had more motivated new players who want to learn and improve, no matter how good they may or may not be.
@@dilly2760 A good amount is social anxiety, mainly because I am not new to fighting games. For example in strive I hover around floors 7-9 when I play online. There's now a massive skill gap between me and my friends because I didn't have as much time to play when they got to grinding. Now that I do have time the skill difference is so great that no one has fun anymore. It's not fun since I'm not a clueless new player, I'm just genuinely not great. I know the only solution is to just get to the grind now, but my motivation is very low, that's why I made my comment. I was frustrated, but talking about it helped lol. Thanks for the genuine response.
14:07 This only works if all of your friends are into a specific fighting game. Convincing a single dabbler to jump on a game they aren't familiar with just to get smoked is a TALL task. Let alone an entire group.
Some of my best memories were hanging out at a buddies house with like 4 of my friends and we all had a tournament on whatever fighting games we had on hand. I had forgotten what we played cause this was years ago, and back when Strive released, an old friend showed it to me, and immediately the nostalgia flooded in, because back when I was but a wee lad, we were playing Guilty Gear XX. If my buddy hadn’t sent me the link to the Strive reveal trailer, I would’ve never gotten back into Guilty Gear.
Tldr; FG’s need to step up their marketing cause holy shit I missed out on 20 years of Guilty Gear games
I think your comment highlights one of the main reasons why FG's don't really explode in popularity. The social aspect. Fighting games were born in Arcades, where people played and interacted locally. Nowadays, modern habits have shaped multiplayer games into predominantly online endeavors, and FG's still suffer from that shift to this day. Unless you have a local community, you'll spend most of your starting experience being steamrolled by strangers online, alone. It's a frustrating venture and you're paying $60 for it.
Something I think might be missing from the conversation is single-player content. I realize fighting games are inherently a multiplayer genre, but so are shooters, the prime-time esports genre. Games like Halo and Splatoon have insanely fun campaigns to play through that take the pressure off of trying to be the very best, instead immersing yourself in the amazing world of the game.
Personally, I love the story modes of Brawl, Tekken, and Soul Calibur because I got to experience the stories of the badass characters that got me interested in the game in the first place. I got to have a hand in the fight between Heihachi and his devil-spawn Kazuya, I got to see Meta Knight dueling Marth, I got to play through Darth Vader's story where he dual-wields Soul Edge and Soul Calibur into the Star Wars universe. Crazy stories/campaigns that are boosted by already fun game-play are what make me break-out my wallet. The community... eh, not so much.
I totally agree. I just wish they'd try a story reboot or have actual catch up movies/stories because these are very long running franchises and most people have no idea about a game or characters story
I think fighting games have a disadvantage there and it's that they're "just" about your guy and the opponent, you can't really use levels to influence gameplay for example (Tekken 4 and Virtual Fighter 3 tried. They had problems.).
Although, I say this but I would be curious to see a single player story in fighting games that happens in the same perspective as the main gameplay, like a more animated version of If The Emperor Had A Text-To-Speech Device and others of the same kind.
Single player content is practically the only thing anyone ever brings up these days.
I agree with the SPC sentiment but it is fascinating that none of the popular competitive games have any SPC. Hell Fortnight had SPC and no one played it lmao
@@ELDENLORD89 I think games like LoL, Warzone and Fortnite can afford not having a Single player mode thanks to being F2P games. A person can theoretically try them for free and abandon it in a few minutes without feeling like they wasted their money.
Most fighting games are AAA priced games, so they need Single player content and other modes to justify the purchase, like classic COD games or Halo. (I remember Rainbow Six receiving plenty of criticism regarding its lack of content outside of the main Multiplayer modes.
Simple answer: if you’re not good at fighting games, you’re not gonna enjoy them. Eventually, you’ll play something else. Since many are not, it has lost its luster and is still a popular genre amongst its community, but it’s smaller than back in the day when you would ask your friend’s parents if they could spend the night over so y’all could play games all night. It’s just not like that any longer. Shooting games are less complex to get a kill, thus, they’re gonna attract people who are skilled and unskilled players. They also allow you to potentially hack to be even better, but you cannot hack a fighting game where you have to beat your opponent & there is no way to substitute what it takes. RPG’s allow almost anyone a story experience and a chance for the player to win because ultimately that is the point, especially if it is linear like God of War games used to be, before the 2018 & new Ragnorok which is a bit more open world, strategy, etc.
because people pickup a fighting game, lose once or twice then give up
3:58 right off the bat you don't understand; when I'm playing a fighting game, I don't want to do homework, I don't care for auto combos that make it easy, I want to LEARN the mechanics AND have it where the learning curve isn't a WALL but a CURVE. Why was Neon White fun? A good learning curve! In that game when I lost/ failed to do good I was able to at least LEARN and not have it be a wall for the mistakes I was dealing with!
I’ve tried to get a few of my friends that don’t play fighting games to try a few of them out. The ones that have little to 0 interest just aren’t interested in the prospect of 2 characters on a 2d plane on a small stage. They play a little bit, I explain some mechanics but those mechanics arent interesting in the first place because the games come off as archaic or cheap (especially when they’re used to playing AAA games on a regular basis). Then I have some friends that wanted to try to get into them but don’t stick with them. I think that’s because for a lot of people the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. Most people are more interested in immersion, adventure, ease of access, GUNS, sports or a power fantasy.
Some people are more interested in stats. I’ve seen someone say they want rpg leveling in a Mortal Kombat game and didn’t see the obvious balance problem it would face in an online setting til I pointed it out
@@notproductiveproductions3504 yea an example of external gratification. It's super addictive, only really requires time to grind, usually no skill gate. Easy dopamine kick. I love them.
@@notproductiveproductions3504 Idk Injustice 2 did ok with the Gear system. As long as there is a competitive mode (no stats/Base Characters) it could work. I think it could work if maybe you had the Main online experience be ranked of sorts. You get matched with people at your around your power level. As much as I like gear, I'd argue from both a commercial and gameplay POV it makes much more sense for most of that stuff to be cosmetic only. An Item Shop, Loot Boxes or even a Fifa-style transfer market could be a cool implementation as a source of Cosmetics (Gear, Intros, Outros, Finishers, Emotes, Colour-Palettes, Profiles, Music, Backgrounds, etc..). Commercially that stuff could elevate the game to whole other level. But if your talking about RPG Levelling then a Skill tree would undoubtedly be a revolutionary addition to fighting games, akin to when they finally give us 3d Arena's as a pose to the classic 2d stages or the trash 2.5d circles in the current "3d fighting games". A Skill tree would enable you to completely choose the variant of your fighter you wish to play with. You could start off with a really bare bones character and then slowly progress in your chosen direction. It wouldn't affect Ranked because that's level locked and you could turn your fighters into absolute beasts. Imagine playing Scorpion in Mk11 and slowly unlocking the abilities and then choosing which ones to use. You could create a Scorpion that focuses on The Get over Here, Fire Breath, Fire Damage over time, Teleport etc. The same applies to other characters and it's really just an evolution of the Variation system that's already in that game. I'd be interested to see if you think if there's a hole in this kind of system, because it's late and I'm spitballing but I defo think this could work.
@@himum3429 I mean yes it had very few complaints. But we must strive for even less complaints
Depending on if you consider for honour a fighting game or not. They had the war map thing. That was quite cool
On the topic of for honor, the way they structured their currency, unlocks and cosmetics are a great example of what fighting games could be like. Unlockable characters, custom taunts or win screens, cosmetics and skins, are all things that keep new players invested.
@@Roboardo totally agree. I fully expect sf6..7? Whatever the new one is to sell emotes for the vs screen.
While animations and win poses are costly, i would happily pay 10-20 quid for a really good victory animation
Honestly, For Honor, for me, is kind of a realistic take on an arena fighter... and it works.
For Honor is a fighting game it just plays differently from the rest and its approach to combat.
Kinda like how Tekken and Soul Caliber (which are also 3D fighting games) are nothing like Guilty Gear, Melty Blood, Marvel Vs Capcom, Darkstalkers etc.
Depends on what’s stopping us from calling it otherwise
Whenever most people discuss this topic they alwasy just end on "presumed difficulty from the wider public" and so its interesting to see the genre more directly compared to contemporary nultiplayer games that do way better in terms of raw player numbers. Weaker marketing is definitely a factor. Another could be a rough experience in the past. I personally had had a rough experience playing smash with my friends and losing so often it felt bad I was terrified of playing traditional fighters until I eventually decided to try the genre after hearing bridget's strive theme and relating to it so much, but I was still scared of spending the money of a full game on strive from fear I'd not enjoy it, dbfz was on sale at the time so I bought that and ended up enjoying it and now here I am entering beginner tournaments and aiming to consistently hit top 8 in strive, having people jump that hurdle whether its presumed or based on a bad experience they already had is a big deal.
This is mostly why I think FG's don't really get mainstream. You will get steamrolled at the start and it's gonna feel terrible. League, Warzone and Fortnite also have similar beginner experiences, but they have the advantage of being mostly played on teams with your friends, while also letting you progress through things even when losing (be it a Battle Pass, account level or just making progress in your daily missions)
Playing through a FG online is a lonely experience, and it takes a lot of mental strength to keep playing daily. Couple that with mostly mediocre single player content, AAA game pricing on top of season passes, and other barriers of entry and you have a pretty low chance of convincing people to play your game.
I'm currently developing a FG with a roguelike campaign mode that will help teach the player the basics behind the game. It's also my way of attempting to familiarize casual players with the concept of fighting games. Im hoping that this can help start moving the genre in a better direction.
@@ashtonphoenyx That sounds fun can’t wait when you are ready to release it (no rush though) :)
It's really all about how many dopamine hits per minute on average.
@@ashtonphoenyx i wish you could bookmark youtube comments, that sounds like a really cool idea
The community never got me into fighting games. I got himself into fighting games. Growing up I always played them on my own. Most of my friends back then didn't play them. They said that fighting games were too hard. Which you forgot to mention in your vid.
Which now that i mention it you failed to talk about. Fighting games are harder to play then most games out there due to the complexity of motion inputs and execution.
I didn't find a community until I was in college now. They are my best friends. But most of them don't even play anymore unfortunately.
True but I think with streaming that has changed over the last 5-10 years
They are, if you consider Smash Bros a fighting game. It's a massive mainstream hit. The thing is, you would have drastically change how fighting games are and how they work in order to appeal to a mainstream audience. Smash is a great blueprint for how to do that, but a lot of FGC folks don't really consider Smash a fighting game in the same way they do Street Fighter or Guilty Gear. I think FGC people don't really *want* fighting games to be mainstream, because the times they have been able to break into the mainstream, people insist that "isn't a fighting game." Most people just don't want to dedicate hundreds and hundreds of hours to a journey of self-improvement (which is essentially what playing fighting games is), and there's nothing wrong with that. What does it matter if it's niche or not? So long as you're passionate about it and enjoy playing them, why does it matter? Not everything is for everyone.
Yeah I don't want every game to be mainstream, but it also sucks when you can't play any matches online cause the games are dead... Good luck finding a match in KOFXIII online
Mortal kombat is pretty mainstream
Smash is a party game tho.
Smash bros is a party game it doesn't count
i would like to see a game that combines fps and fighting games, basically like metal gear with its cqc
Ait I'm a couple weeks late but to add:
Imo the actual biggest issue with most fighting games is how hard it is to... I guess perform in them?
And i dont mean being at a competitive or even semi-ok level, but in general.
For example, games you mentioned, like Valorant or Fortnite, to do very basic you just move your aim reticle on enemy and press left mouse.
In LoL you just right-click on red untill it dies.
In most fighting games, however, to do your char's moves, you need fairly precise inputs that, in addition, might be even harder depending on what input device you using.
Like, me for example. I like concept of fighting games - reads, predictions n shit. I have something like 1.5k hours in For Honor, if you count it as fighting game. However, each time i try "real" fighting game, i just... Stop. Cuz even if I'd be able to correctly predict opponent's move, I can't properly input 6246S, not on MnK or even conventional gamepad. And I'm not about to break my fingers and dedicate 40 hours to do so.
Look, Smash is pretty mainstream, for that very same reason. It's easy to start.
Having to break your fingers to get your moves out can be really annoying and frustrating for sure
Simple
In fighting games, you almost exclusively compete, but rarely if ever toy
In most mainstream games, you can almost always toy, and sometimes you can compete
Most regular people see games as toys to play with rather than competitions to sweat over
I’ve been playing fighting games for about 30 year. Strive made me officially walk away from the genre recently. I love fighting games, but it’s the genre I put the most time into and I still struggle to make any impact.
Damn is strive that hard i have not played it yet.Have you tried street fighter 5 it is pretty easy to learn or just wait for 6 to come out in a few month's DNF is not any good one wrong bad move and you will eat a 52 hit combo🤣 just remember age plays a big factor in fighting games i am 42 so my reflexes are slow now compared to what they was in my 20's it can be a challenge to win alot against these young players drinking those energy drinks lol.
Fighting games are not good for beginners. That’s why most people get bored of them really fast.
I find it funny how Moba players will complain about mastering combos, but then turn around and spend hundreds of hours looking at character to item interactions.
Most people already spend 40 + hours a week doing repetitive tasks at work for money, when they are done most people don't want to invest another 40 + hours learning to make a dude punch better for not money. The most main stream you will get is anime fighters where the point is to play it for a week, or two with watching people do super moves.
I'm so tired of hearing about internal motivation to be the best or want to spend hours learning combos. The vast majority of gamers don't wanna do that shit
@@mor3gan285 I look at it this way. I can spend 20 hours learning how to cancel a punch mid animation, or I can spend 20 hours playing bio shock. Punching better, or go on a undersea scifi adventure with a well written story. What do you think most people are going to pick?
@@dmcoub78 I'm stuck on whether to put time into learning a combo that I can't even do charge motions consistently for yet. I just spent a game in SF5 yesterday just doing Honda's headbutt trying to get it down but it saps the enjoyment of how I want to win. Not through spammy shit but through something that looks competent. I don't want to be the best but good enough to get past the fog of being unfamiliar with the genre that I can pick up any game and win.
@@j.r.765nothing wrong with likening fighting games. Issue is with how they play the best you will ever get is a nich player base.
Smash bros?
In my mind, a large and mostly understated issue is that arcade fighting games are an antiquated genre.
Fighting games never adapted or changed to cater to the console and PC market in a way that other genres did. They fundamentally are just arcade games ported to consoles, even in their more modern forms. With rare exceptions, they have a single core experience in mind and the game's design and features are all meant to feed into that core experience. In contrast with other genres, especially FPS games, fighting games don't have nearly the same level of variety in content or ways to enjoy them. And that is the biggest thing that changed with the jump from arcades to consoles.
10:00 "It's inviting" Fuck no it isnt, whenever a new player dares to touch the multiplayer they get brutalized by more experienced players that can smell a beginner at the press of an input, this is considered normal and the way it should be on the FGC. I was wondering if you were going to address the number one thing that I think makes new people just bounce off fighting games, but of course you dont, the FGC doesnt ever consider it a problem at all.
s k i l l i s s u e
@@riffcrypt8438 Case in point.
Aight, I get that I'm late to this Vid, But an Important factor you missed is Ease of Access. The mechanical skill needed to execute "basic" combos and do supers is something that turns many players off, especially when in other games, The most power tools are locked behind good aim at the most and not several complex inputs intentionally difficult to string along
Heck, I'll even go further and mention pulling off regular *special moves* can be hard. I can't even reliably throw a fireball.
I can confirm this. In theory I love fighting games, but in practice I never found a one-on-one fighting game that I could play.
Most of the people that don't play fighting games have the idea of a game where learning and executing attacks is easy, and the dificulty consists in learning what is the most apropriated situation to use which attack to which opponent. In reality the dificulty is to understand why nothing happends when someone follows the commands.
@@arturferrao7353 This so much! I "QCF" then hit punch so a fireball should come out, right? Why is the character throwing a normal punch?
Or I block then hit forward and punch. Even if I don't accidentaly crouch or jump...WHY IS THE CHARACTER WALKING FORWARD? I PUT IN THE COMMAND!
Fighting Games are the only kinda game that you hear casters at the highest levels talk about "mis-inputs".
passive aggressive toxicity is not for everybody
Short answer: people don’t like to have to learn and get better I mean they don’t even do that with their real lives why expect them to do that in games
Exceptions exist, but this statement is dead on. Metallica said it best. "You know it's sad but true."
I've been trying to break into the FGC for two years, but I'm too anxious to try and join the community so it's been rough
All the controversy going on?
@@Xraellium No, just normal social anxiety
You could always just play the game and not talk to people
Stay away from esports and ecelebs and just play whatever you want and like.
It's not an admission test dude there's nothing to be anxious about.
One thing that I noticed is that most people do not want to lose and it be their own fault. If you play rocket league, LOL, or valorant, it's possible to get carried as long as you aren't terrible. In a fighting game, if you get smacked, it is your own fault and there is no way to avoid the inevitable ass whooping unless the internet connection fails. Another thing is that, while fighting games aren't any harder to learn that other games, the process of learning a fighting game can be absolutely boring. You have to either spend a lot of time in training mode alone or play against other people are suffer until you get better. In fortnite, you can learn while having fun on a team, you don't have to suffer alone.
I believe the only way a fg can be fun is when you are motivated to get better and getting better is satisfying enough to motivate you to do it
The majority of people don’t want that, and i think its very understandable that the genre is so hard to get into even for people who want to try and get into them
Fighting games aren't mainstream because they're not free to play. Casual players aren't interested in a $60 gate for getting their asses beat. It's way easier to swallow repeated beatings when the game is free and you can just walk away.
The launch of Multiversus was proof that it can work. The problem is they couldn't retain that audience because they lacked content. Lack of polish and characters/levels made the game get stale QUICK. The battle pass and dailies did nothing to retain people. Most likely, Project L will be the big shift that pushes fighting games more towards the mainstream crowds.
I feel this is a just a misconception of what people enjoy things for. Overwatch when it was at its height was a paid game and it didn't stop it from being a massive success. and there is of course countless F2P games that you never even heard of not to mention the ones that died like multiversus or rumbleverse. people love bringing up F2P as some sort of huge deal but the reality is that it only works when the game is designed around it and the game would of been good regardless of its price or lack there of. Fortnite isn't so big because its free. its because its a simple concept that just about anyone can get their head around with a lot of content and a massive amount of accessibility and and Quality of life features along with being incredibly well optimized. shit would of been popular if it was 100 bucks for fucks sake.
I mean come on dude. you literally stated all the reasons why Multiversus failed. and yeah it FAILED. free games that can't retain high audiences die faster then any other kind. if any fighting game goes F2P it will end up becoming a microtransaction shitfest and will actually DIE and wont get the help it needs.
You over estimate the appeal and fun of fighting games. Theres a reason they're niche... they only appeal to particular people and no word of mouth is going to persuade people.
Its very easy to break through the barrier. They are just too stupid and stubborn to do it. You have to actually teach new players. Like. Actually. Not trial by fire. Not a tutorial. Actually making learning alone fun and encouraging the community to discuss with newbs about how things are done.
The reason I get to play most games are because I have seen people playing these games on RUclips of my country, and I don't mean ads, I mean people having fun with the game, Minecraft, League of Legends, Rocket League, Celeste, Skyrim, but for fighting games in specifically* I never saw a popular RUclipsr or a fighting game on a popular video or livestream in my country.
Didn't even watch vid just came to say b/c they are hard to play especially online. You buy a game go online you get your assed kick and casuals get turned off.
That part about the marketing is veeeery true, can't remember the last time I saw an ad on yt for a fighting game, fighting games deserve more love
If we’re calling Persona 5 a mainstream game then I think it could be said that fighting games are mainstream too.
Fighting games not being F2P is probably the biggest hurdle a fighting game thats focused on multiplayer has. Fighting games made the most money in the arcade days of the ‘90s when the price of admission was .25¢. If you’re free, you’re going to instantly have more people playing the game online. I mean for one thing the game doesn’t cost anything, but also being free-to-play means everyone on consoles can play online for free too; where if it’s a $60 game those console players are also going to have to pay for whatever their systems online multiplayer is.
Move inputs don’t exactly help either. I’m sure anyone that plays fighting games have seen there friends that don’t play fighting games bounce off them when they can’t do stuff, or consistently do stuff. It’s probably no big surprise that the Smash Bros series has been the best selling fighting game since it came out...and that’s with the N64 and the GameCube (especially the GameCube) not exactly being the best of sellers. It is interesting to see Capcom doing the Modern Controls thing with Street Fighter 6, not really surprising given how much Smash Bros. Ultimate outpaced every fighting game on the market, but interesting nonetheless. I am a little surprised it took them this long; hell, back when they announced Marvel vs Capcom 3, I figured the Special Button in that game would be used like Modern Controls in SF6.
When it comes to retail releases I think a total lack of real proper single player content like a normal single player game has hurts fighting games too. Like you can be huge and not have any single player at all, but then you’ve got to be F2P. Otherwise, even if the multiplayer is the big draw like with Call of Duty and the old Halo games, you still need the single player. The really odd thing about fighting games total lack of single player is fighting games started as games focused on single player. Original Street Fighter is basically a boss rush game, and when the original Street Fighter team went off and made Fatal Fury they still kept that boss rush style but now the game had three playable characters instead of the one of Street Fighter. It’s also weird it’s taken Capcom until Street Fighter 6 to seemingly remember they did big single player things in Alpha 3 and the Rival School games.
Congrats, I've just bought Strive, played hourse of tutorials and lost 15 matches in a row. I feel empty. Gonna play again tomorrow because of your motivation powers. Good job!
Edit: Everything said in this comment is meant to be read in a joking manner. You're good. Keep it up my guy!
when i first wanted to get into fighting games i bough mk 11 watched a bunch of tutorials and lost 50 matches in a row and couldnt stop til i reached demi god. gosh damn i love fighting games.
Losing matches consecutively like that hurts deeply but know that it's normal. What's more important is understanding why you lost and working on that.
Watch some videos online (for beginners don't worry about the more advanced stuff, you'll get there eventually), practice what you learnt in training mode cause believe me, you won't be able to do everything immediately, then run some sets with a CPU to test everything out against a moving opponent before jumping back online.
Also play through the story mode, it serves as an excellent introduction to the games mechanics without the worry of losing + cutscenes cool. Best of luck dawg, there's no where else to go but up.
my biggest losing streak was 100+ to a single guy in a single session, did start taking rounds at around 50 though
Gotta pump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers. I lost over 80 matches online before I got my first win with Potemkin
Recently got into SFV and I did lose a ton as well but now I can hold my own fairly well when my controller doesn't go crazy and the game performs like it should. (I feel like I'm dropping frames on ps4 even offline)
The part about a game where teams or clans fight each other and receive a reward at the end of the week was done in a fg. It was mkx. You would pick a clan and fight for global points and at the end of the week, you would get some rewards like a clan fatality.
Fighting games require so much study and practice just to win once which is very tiring.
It rather put that amount of effort in DCS world because flight sims reward better for my trial and error.
dude if you need to "study" to win then you just suck. thats not the games fault you're bad
@@joedatius so how are you going to figure out the each commands of the character's skills without studying ? just mashing all the possible button combos ? same thing goes to flight sims, you can't expect to learn all the crucial mechanics in games without learning from manuals and other people.
Even in 80s and 90s games included manuals for a reason and walkthrough magazines were sold.
@@joedatiusYou do realize old FG game even have manual for player right?
Because fighting games tend to be competitive and very personal, I always thought it was a good thing fighting games didn't become main stream.
After seeing a crowd sing Guilty Gear Strive's Smell of the Game with Daisuke Ishiwatari present in the crowd, I am glad the genre still maintains this underground, grassroots kind of vibe. I
I will say the fighting game community and tournaments as a whole have more appeal and reach now then they ever have. I am curious where iut will grow from here. Really good video that covered this multi-faceted topic because it isn't as simple to discuss as it appears.
I really think that Riot's project L is gonna be a big hit, considering every points from your video, Free to play, Unlockable skins and characters with in game rewards(Long term goals/show off) and potentially huge ID appeal considering the impact LoL had those previous decades. If the gameplay is good the game will have a lot of players.
- The devs/pubs are either too cheap or too broke to market them
- They have little to no content whether it's singleplayer or multiplayer related
- They have poor netcode (not much of an issue now) and/or matchmaking
- Their methods of teaching players how to play their game are either boring/unintuitive or nonexistent.
Because fighting games have a quite rigid play to win meta and a high skill ceiling. A Qcf motion is never going to feel as effortless for people as "I pull trigger and big loud sound of metal pain happen"
You can't fuck around in a fighting game like you can in something like a shooter, not to mention there's not really ways to cushion a loss in a fighting game either.
Also side note: SF5 has dailies and kind of loot boxes...
All of this means fighting games just lack ways to make players feel good in general.
The most mainstream thing about fighting games that happened to fighting games is actually Jack-O challenge lol
It's the only thing that became so viral, it's even caught on by non gamers, random influencers and celebrities on tiktok and twitter.
We already have to consider e-sports are still technically a niche. A big thing is of course the fact fighting games are 1v1 and since there's no team to blame, you can't avoid the fact that you might just suck, and fighting games are still considered "hard" even with games like Strive (technically you could say games started getting simplified since MVC2 and "easy" since P4A) have simplified the genre a lot to attract newcomers, and people don't like taking a lot of time to learn something they won't be playing all the time. You need to WANT to be good, instead of naturally getting good, I guess you could say. (Anyway reader, you should go binge all GekkoSquirrel videos, subscribe, and if possible, donate to the patreon!)
1v1 games are uniquely situated to only appeal to a niche group. Same reason SC2 “died” when LoL took off. Ppl just don’t like the stress of losing and knowing it was just bc they suck
One thing I would throw in is FREE2PLAY.
Most fighting games are full price titles and will cost you 60bucks. I can try out Geshin or Valorant without that. I download it for free and in case I don't like it, I uninstall it.
Also Updates: Valorant gets a new character every 2 months+battle pass, skins, balance patches etc. Of course its easier to design a character with 4 abilities than a fg-character with like 30 moves... There are frequent hooks to go back because there is something new. Strive takes a bit longer, but its "just a char". Balance patches take half a year. And besides that we got a short movie.
Mainstream games don't just market for new players but for old players to return as well.
I already told to all FGC on reddit, twitter or etc about this problem & there is 3 reasons the devs need to fix this
1. Fighting Games Was expensive AF:
Imagine buying the full game + you need the dlc expansion pack just for playing on it And after finishing the whole story mode then get bored playing it what next ? Installing N*DE mods ??
2. The gameplay was hard & so frustrated:
The lacks of new blood or casuals players for FGC is because the games was designed for them to learn all the combo until they finally got punished on match, if you wanna know that most of fighting games ranked mode & some players always stuck on low rank rather than middle or high rank
3. Need a good, fast & stabble connection internet:
FGC already know this they cry so hard to some developers for adding rollback netcode, dual connection, etc.
Why do I have to spend $100us for fighting games. They're full price, characters cost 7 bucks each, costumes are only dlc most of the time. There is so much content locked behind money for no reason. Any other genre would let you have it
You must be talking about GBVS lol, that game is just terrible with its DLC (but still not as bad as DOA6)
some things i think more fighting games should have are the king of the hill mode from mortal kombat, 3v3 party battles in dbfz and team battles/special battles in smash or guilty gear isuka. fighting games are best when their 1v1 but they really should have more modes where you can enjoy them as a group.
Budokai Tenkaichi 2 and 3 says hello(5v5) and Storm 4 and Storm Connections(both 3v3) says a big hi as well, people are truly clueless just how many fighting games there are out there 😅
What do you think about letting players play for free, but restricting F2P players to one character?
I've heard about some fighting game doing that, but I don't remember the title of the game.
Dead or Alive 5 and 6 and Killer Instinct (Xbox One)
Learning the basics of fighting games is mechanically hard because it involves memorising precise button inputs and executing correctly, you won't get far button mashing. Compounded further by every character having different moves and inputs. This means you can't even start playing new without starting a studying session. Most multiplayer games are incredibly easy mechanically. If you can aim and shoot at heads you already know most FPS fundamentals. Moba just learn your role, farm gold safely and play with your team you will be better than 90% of the playerbase. Coupled with lack of casual game modes fighting games are a hard sell.
I think you underestimate how hard league is for a beginner
But ye fg execution is a barrier
And a lot of them are really hard to get to the point where you can actually get to feel like you are playing
And learning combos is boring
Im not sure how you would lower the execution barrier without impacting things that veterans care about
But lowering that entry level execution barrier would be necessary for the genre to get wider appeal
The thing is idk how one would achieve that
Easy normal people don't like being outsmarted by another person. Basically your in a situation where everyone who's had decent practice time is a boss fight
It sucks cause there's so much room for expression in fighters. Nothing is more fun then messing with someone by messing with the attack pace
My opponents give up if they win too much.
Very good video that covers a lot more things rather than just "fighting games". Great job Gekko.
I know I'm speaking for a lotta casuals when I say this, but if you want to have players enjoy characters outside of internal motivation, *do like Brawl, and make a Good fuckin' Story Mode that doesn't revolve around just 1v1s.*
Literally something like a beat-em-up or brawler style that shifts away from the 1v1 aspect helps make casuals get attached to the game and its mechanics more. Players progress through the main level lobbing through countless goons and enemies, allowing for the eventual 1v1 character bossfights to feel more engaging. Plus, having it be sectioned as Level>Bossfight is much better for pacing, as most recent fighting games are just 1v1 character duels that feel like Bossfight after Bossfight after Bossfight, making the story a dull train ride and borderline exhausting by the end. On top of this, this makes the fighting game _have more game in it's game_ so that you have more playtime and experience with said game.
I will die on this hill; a fighting game's principles are to make good of mechanics, controls, characters, lobbies, match-making, and rollback. But the story must not, and cannot for the love of god, be just 1v1 after 1v1 after 1v1 until credits roll. Leave that to online, give the "single player" their single player experience.
As an addendum, allow your game's story mode, on top of it not just being 1v1 ad nauseam, to be meaningful in teaching the player the mechanics of the game and why the player should learn them. More importantly, reinforce that knowledge with the eventual 1v1s to become knowledge checks, and aren't easy. The best way to do this is to let the story mode dictate the characters for the section and then have them be unlocked after certain points, with the player already having understood the gist of what to expect from picking up said characters. That way the story teaches how to play as each character to their strengths and pinpointing their weaknesses that need overcoming. Combine this all with competent enemies towards the later game and 1v1s against characters you've already unlocked, and you essentially teach the player how to play your fighting game with a modicum of confidence.
And that right there is the key. Having the player build long term confidence through the story mode to give it a go online, even if they get their butt kicked, will be much better than a burst of short term confidence from the archaic nonstop 1v1s. The long term makes players want to learn stuff after they get schooled going 0-10, whereas the short term would've caused an uninstall after going 0-3.
Agreed and more Single player content in general to really give context behind the characters and game world. Street Fighter 6 is looking to do just this and I'm really happy about it. Soul Calibur was good with this too. Despite SCVI not being popular, I loved how robust the single player content and campaign mode was where you could play as your customizable character.
The commands are why they aren’t that big. People aren’t good at execution. That’s why you see Smash as main stream because anyone can pick it up and press side + b and the move will come out EVERY time where as a sonic boom or hadoken takes a bit more skill execution wise. Even MK moves are simple with no charge moves and trigger buttons for supers. Tekken has difficult moves but if you mash things will come out-you see noobs played Eddy, Alisa, Hwoarang, Steve. Most game players suck and won’t play if they aren’t getting far in it.
Fortnite is dead there is too much people tryharding against casuals many games get that in their early stages but fortnite didn’t but now it’s dead
I'm a casual fighting game player, what got me into the genre was umm... Childhood exposure tbh lol
Been playing Street Fighter II and Killer Instinct on my older cousin's SNES since I was 6, kept on playing the odd fighter here and there to this day, I just think they're fun and neat!
Would I be a fighting game fan were it not for said childhood exposure though? Umm... Yeah, probably, I've always gravitated towards games that demand skill... I mean, most of the reason why I'm just a casual is cuz I'm too busy being a hardcore rhythm game player lol
Same, I grew up playing fighting games it was just always around me. Growing up, I would play Tekken and Marvel vs. Capcom on my box TV even though all I did was mash it was still fun!
For me, I love character development, complex storylines, customization, and large in depth world building. These aren’t really things fighting games focus on and that is fine, it’s just not the kind of game that keeps me long term.
i think fighting games find themselves in a similar spot to RTS games like starcraft and age of empire.
it's just brutal and there is a lack of just being able to fuck about and have some slight enjoyment in a casual setting.
also it lacks any form of progression within the game, all the progression happens within the player.
and then there's also the cryptic mechanics that makes everything really fucking awkward like combo structures meters, and stun gauges and bursts and rage arts and supers and EX moves and cancels.
it's all very overwhelming to someone who haven't gotten a grasp of the game and just wants to push some buttons and be able to beat something.
cuz let's face it, the arcade modes and story modes in fighting games are straight dog shit, the only fighting game i can even remember that had a semblance of a decent arcade mode once was in a soul calibur game where you got progression and cash so you could buy cosmetics and power ups while going through a singleplayer mode and you could choose basically your own adventure in who you wanted to fight next in order to get to the big bad.
and online the anxiety is so freaking real that most people don't even want to touch it, just like in RTS games.
i think that a game being competitive is a force pushing *towards* mass appeal, rather than away from it.
I'll explain: if you want your game to have a competitive seen, you would want as many people playing it as possible so that you have a large pool of players to draw competitors from, and also because competitive games are by necessity multiplayer games, and multiplayer games are only fun if you have people to play with/against.
Over saturation
Toxic communities
High difficulty floors
Nintendo won’t let us play Smash bros
That’s why fighting games are hard to make mainstream
how is fighting games over saturated? there are barely any that come out every year compared to any genre
Great video. We can't ignore, though, that fighting games in general have a steep learning curve for new players.
That's one of the main reasons why Super Smash Bros is (and probably will always be)by far the most successful fighting game: it's very acessible to new players since all characters have the same inputs , players don't need to memorize tons of commands to explore and having fun with the game.
Most modern fighting games are frustrating for new players. I personally love fighting games and I am always teaching my younger friends and relatives how to play them, but they always give up to the frustration of not being able to perform and memorize the special moves, despite my efforts .
Bcz it's hard to learn while pubg fortnite easy as fuck
The problem fighter games have is that they are 1v1 and pretty straightforward. It's all "see that guy right there? Beat him up." Then you win or you lose. Compare that to the other "competitive" games, which have a lot more players and a lot of things to do that aren't direct competitive combat. You don't have to win an entire round of Fortnite, you just have to get a few kills along the way. You might even just enjoy exploring the map. If Fortnite were boiled down to JUST the "endgame" in which it is you and one other person in a tiny arena trading shots at each other, then far fewer people would play it. Also, in many team based games, there are "less competitive" roles to them, supports and healers, and that isn't to say that being really good at these roles is not important on a pro team or something, but playing casually, there's a lot less pressure to them, so that can also help to expand the audience beyond the "sweaty" players. I think this is also part of the reason why a game like Smash Bros is so successful, because while you can play it at a competitive level, it's also a lot more fun to goof around with, and while you might lose most matches, you can still score a lot of fun KOs along the way.
In other words, you don't like games that require any real depth or effort to win, gotcha, keep on with your Fortnite victory dances kiddo 👍
@@travis92x I'm not speaking for myself here, I'm saying why they have a limited audience in general.
Simple answer: People rather blame others than themselves.
The answer is quite simple. The only people who really want to watch Fighting games are people who play fighting games. It’s not fun to watch or play for people noncompetitive. Imagine getting hit once and getting stuck in a 30+ hit combo.. that’s not fun, and it’s not fun to watch someone do that for 10+ mins over and over again.
I used to play grandblue fantasy versus because there was a single player campagin and easy to learn combos that, when doing the inputs correctly, resulted in more damage. So when i started to play online...my moves had delay now? I firmly believe this is one of the MAJOR problems with fighting games and its the connectivity. This is not an excuse. I shouldnt have to relearn my combos just cause theres 5 frame delay, wiping away my muscle memory. Thats like half a day down the drain for someone who doesnt play fighting game. I dont want to relearn something i just did 30 minutes ago when i could play a shooter game and 90% of my games are butter smooth.
I always thought fighting games aren't mainstream because of how complicated but also unbalanced they tend to be.
Like Leroy in Tekken 7. Tekken is both complicated and everyone was playing Leroy with no variety.
but Tekken 7 is mainstream.
Content has not changed since arcd days .meanwhile others campaing and multiple modes. Easy
Even though I can't think of other reasons why I do have a thought about 1 reason people who barely play fighting game's or don't at all and just watch pro's play doing crazy combo's and thinking that's the way to play instead of playing and enjoying themselves that sorta stigma always gets them
Did I make any sense 😅?
Huge combos are still is THE way to play though. The only way they are not, is if game itself doesn't allow huge combo damage. Those exist, but aren't so flashy, so not being talked about as much.
And yes, I wonder who will win: the guy with effectively 2 hp, who refuses to learn combos. Or the guy with 5-8 ehp, who does go beyond 4 hit combos?
I dunno. No other game really wants you to "lab." Maybe it makes people feel like the game becomes more of a chore?
That and unclear mechanics. How is "this move is invincible" communicated? How is "this is an unblockable overhead" communicated? Usually it's just kind of... not. You just have to learn what moves are. And then you add the weird stuff onto that (show a new player an infinite or god forbid fuzzy guard on top of that and see what happens).
In contrast, most people can intuit "gun shoots at reticle, hurt when hit other man." And the weird stuff is either more niche in those games or more clearly communicated.
Games are like drugs, you have all different kinds and different genres and different effects.
The strongest drug would be the most popular,
As humans we want that dopamine hit, and mainstream games, mainly FPS, gives that Dopamine hit as fast and frequent as possible.
Fighting games? lost 3 games in a row and you feel like uninstalling.
You won't get anywhere the amount of dopamine hits compared to shooters.
Because of old Men like me that give these kids that work online. I want to make you quit! Go back to WoW and LoL and Fortnite and CoD… There’s no help coming….
I think another issue is cooperative play, the main games I've been playing are game I got into cause I could take on the challenges with my friends not always against.
I think if more fighting games had a team mode that would help.
Try Guilty Gear Isuka. It is a 2vs2 traditional fighting
@@svinbreaker never even heard of it, looking it up now
THIS is it, imo. This is one of the biggest missing pieces. People talk about how in team games you can blame your team and in fighting games you have to accept responsibility- I think, more than that, it's the fact that you can't play with your friends that's the problem. Overwatch is 5v5 and we still don't have enough room for all the people who want to play on any given day so a 1v1 game is just out of the question for most of us.
@@farslashenjoyer I used to think that too, but Multiversus kinda flopped after its initial month and it's main focus was 2v2 multiplayer. It's similar to a real life martial arts in that sense, since most of your motivation will come from your own progress instead of your team's. Though, it's definitely a barrier of entry to many people, I'll agree.
That DOES seem to be problem, but, for now, seems like creating a co-op focused Fighting Game isn't the solution.
@Far Slash Enjoyer No it isn't. Far from it. There's been so many team or tag team fighting games or team modes over the years since basically 2000. They've either had only minor success, people not touching those modes much, or straight up flopped.
It's a combination of community and the learning curb. It's too time consuming and sometimes it's not worth it for most. The time spent getting good with a character can be spent getting good in your life whether it be exercising, learning a new skill, honing creativity or better yet, learning real life martial arts.
Facts
How do you think price relates to the barrier of entry? A lot of the games you listed are free, making the the barrier of entry pretty low compared to convincing someone to spend $60 on a new game.
Every free fighting game has failed, or had a very steep decrease. Its just the nature of the genre
Um ackshually it's because fighting games are harder to learn than other genres 🤓
I think fighting games have long periods of intensity and not enough down time. Other competitive games have many seconds or minutes of nothing really happening where tension can build up, but also giving you room to mentally relax and goof around if needed. Even in smash bros, you can do well without being optimal, especially with 3+ players where you can avoid the conflict to reset yourself. Most traditional fighting game require CONSTANT counter play, which is definitely the appeal, but gives little flexibility to actually relax.
I always think why the hell Arcade stick is too costly comparison to normal controller even though there are Motors in controller Arcade sticks they are just big fat plastic simple buttons matching thing but still we have to pay for them the amount which is so unreal lots of people will say you can play with controller I can play any game with controller but you will get tired because your finger get tired and half of the move you will miss Arcade stick is the main thing for fighting games but the problem is that they are super costly so yes fighting games ended with the end of Arcade machines
Saying that competitive games do well isn't exactly correct. Competitive games with low barriers for entry do well. Fighting games require a lot of information to start to enjoy them