#just my two centssssssssssssss

[junkazama]

The fighting game genre is definitely a niche genre. For example, the vast majority of my video game-loving friends, like 98% of them, are very, very passively/casually interested in fighting games, at best. If I talk to them about the real popular ones like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat or Injustice, I’ll get a “YEAH, I KNOW THAT ONE!” Or if it’s Tekken or Killer Instinct or Soulcalibur, I’ll get a “Yes, I’m somewhat familiar with that.” If it’s King of Fighters or Virtua Fighter I’ll get a very vague, very unsure “........Yes....?” And if I mention Guilty Gear or Skullgirls or Blazblue or Under Night, it’s just a deer-in-the-headlights kind of stare. And even when I’m talking about the most popular fighting game series like SF or MK, they still don’t know too much about it, so I can’t really talk to them about it in detail or else they’ll go straight to the deer-in-the-headlights look as if I were talking about one of the anime fighters. In addition, familiarity with the more popular titles tend to “stop”, so to speak, at older games. For example, one of my friends was surprised there was a Soulcalibur VI coming out this year, completely unaware that there was anything out in the series after III. And friends I know that mention Tekken are very familiar with the first few games, especially 3 and Tag 1, but admit that they haven’t played anything past Tag 1 (one was in fact completely unaware of 7 until fairly recent).

I think that goes to show how much of a niche genre fighting games are. Most of my friends occasionally buy them to have something to play at parties or to have something to play whenever they have some friends over. And it’s usually big name stuff like Street Fighter or Tekken or some licensed stuff like Injustice or any of the Naruto and Dragonball Z games.

I talked to a few of my friends about why they weren’t more into them, and all of them said that fighting games seem really complex and that more advanced players have this sense of elitism that makes them not even want to take the time out to learn it, so they just stick to being casual players and having fun that way. And I can totally understand where they are coming from. While I was much more competitive in middle school/early high school, I’m very much on that casual side now as an adult. It’s mostly due to responsibilities, having a full time job, and having a surprisingly active social life, all of which leave me without much energy to invest games like I would want to. And I have to say, I have noticed in my adulthood that a lot of the FGC is elitist and are quick to bash casual players or players that just can’t play very good at all. Regardless of the morality of that fact, I don’t think it’s smart in the long run for such a niche genre. Video games as a whole were created to have fun, and I do feel like a lot of these newer fighting games have sort of sucked out the fun factor they used to have years ago before DLC and a televised competitive scene. Casual fans aren’t going to be nearly as interested in DLC and online competitive modes as fighting game veterans, and I feel that a lack of offline content alienates the casual buyer. So, in my opinion, that in combination with a potentially unwelcoming community could eventually hurt this niche genre.

I do feel that a more welcoming community in combination with developers becoming more enlightened could restore some of the “fun factor” the older fighting games had. That way, the community could grow and the genre could perhaps, one day in the distant future, push past being a “niche” and more of a flagship genre with widely recognized titles like other popular genres.