Fighting games need better tutorials, and here’s why

Grant Patterson writes:

"Street Fighter V released earlier this week, and Capcom community manager Peter "Combofiend" Rosas stated in an interview with Maxim that the game was engineered to be easier for newer players to pick up and enjoy, and that player enjoyment equalled winning against an opponent. I disagree with this notion, because while winning is definitely the end goal, I don't believe it to be the actual thing that makes any game enjoyable.

The difficulty involved in defeating another person is the usual scapegoat for why new players are quickly turned off by fighting games, but I find it hard to believe that this is the case. Winning or losing isn't the root cause of the issue, but the underlying issue is one that has been ever-present and largely ignored in the genre for decades; while there are trial modes to verify player capability and practice modes to recreate certain conditions or attempt new strategies, there are no modes that actually impart foundational skills and knowledge to brand-new players.

As such, I believe that fighting games need better, more robust tutorials, and I'm going to explain why that is."