Are fighting games losing popularity?

EG:
Street Fighter 5 is out now and - discussions about Chun-Li's boobs aside - I can't help but feel this launch has lacked the same buzz that characterised previous releases.

As it turns out, Aoife got the same impression - but just what is going on? Are fighting games in general less popular than they used to be? Have they become more the preserve of hardcore fight fans? Are Street Fighter fans fatigued by the numerous iterations of each title? We decided to talk it out in this week's Eurogamer Show, while also duking it out in Street Fighter 5. Badly.

[corroios]

Like Car gamers, FPS games, RPG games,

[KyRo]

Fighting games have had a hard time evolving. You can upgrade the graphics, add more characters add a new story etc but the core gameplay is pretty much the same now as it was a decade or two ago. I still love Tekken and MK but I don't really look forward to them anymore as I know pretty much what I'm going to get before I've even played it.

[Kingthrash360]

I'm looking forward to Tekken personally.
I play Sfv yesterday and it's a great fighter....its the fact that it's so ..well...bare. taking arcade mode from a fighting game is like taking away the bread from a hamburger. The meat of the burger is there but it's missing the thing that keeps it together.
Plus when I was a kid I'd play sf so much it's became a tradition to beat it in one try....ots worse than TD not having a story or MGSV not having a ending. You can't play it without feeling like it's missing something.
I'm a Tekken fan and I'm hype for it but if it releases like sf did I'll be done with fighting games altogether.

[thekhurg]

A big problem with fighting games in today's market is terrible netcode. It's not the sole reason for any potential dwindle in popularity, but it sure is unreasonable.

The games today are overly complex with combos and iframe timing and all kinds of silliness, and that netcode needs to be flawless to make it work.

[HammadTheBeast]

I don't agree, I feel like we need a solid Soul Calibur and Tekken to release to bring things back. Right now, SFV is the only main fighting game out, and it released pretty bare in terms of content.

Once the rest catch up we'll have more variety.

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

@thekhurg

So true. Fighting games now are mostly geared towards super technical players like at Evo. Too much for most fight fans to enjoy.

[freshslicepizza]

ufc tries to evolve fighting games but i would love to see a martial arts game that is done well.

[willie32]

I still like fighting games but they really appeal to the hardcore audience anymore. I respect those that dedicate hours upon hours to learn the advanced combos and frame data. Growing up in the 90's and playing Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat was a blast playing buddies.

However, the whole idea of "maining" a character makes the game stale and lose interest quickly for me. I really miss choosing multiple characters that don't take hours to learn. I believe there is a simple solution to appeal to the average gamer by making the game genre like it was in the 90's.

At the current moment, keep designing fighting games as they are but create a mode and/or lobby that simply disables the combos. The casual gamer can play with just special moves and use multiple characters. It would simplify the game and give all player skills types choices.

They could create a beginner, intermediate and hardcore modes that will allow players to choose their skill level. If the beginner mode is strictly special moves, the intermediate mode could have simple combos to teach newbies the mechanics. Maybe these skill modes would prove to be a good teaching ground to prepare people for the actual game that is used in the fighting circuits. I just think this could help keep the online appeal to more player types.

[wakeNbake]

Not really open world RPGs are pretty popular this gen.

[aragon]

I dont think they are losing popularity or ever will, games like street fighter and mortal combat no way .. much less games like soul calibur there will always be a place for fighting games big time.I think they have evolved watch videos of all the fighting game franchises from the very beginning and you can see how much they have evolved.

[3-4-5]

Fighting games are actually doing ok. There was a bit of down time with them but in the past few years they seem to have made a decent comback.

2D sprites still work the best for the series IMO...or I should say anything that is Art Style>Realism.

Example: King of Fighters 13 is absolutely beautiful.

King of Fighters 14 is really ugly.

When trying to go the realism route, it will always eventually look dated within 4-6 years.

If you go Art Style > Realism, the visual appeal remains almost forever.

That is why even Sega Genesis fighters like Street Fighter 2 still look pretty good for what they are.

* Fighting games are fine, but when you try and only introduce 16 characters, and strip away vs mode against the CPU, then you are working backwards and regressing the genre like with SF5.

* When you make the art style ugly like in KoF 14, you are regressing the genre.

SF4 & KoF 13 took some good steps forward, now both developers of these games took two huge giant leaps backwards.

Fighting games themselves are fine, it is the people in charge of making them that need some re-adjustments.

[PixelGateUk]

Given he can barely be arsed to block, i'd say the fella just can't be fussed to learn anything. Claiming inaccessibility = less popular is no longer valid. Rogue games are hugely popular, Dark Souls/Bloodborne sold well.

What i got from the video is, we played online and got destroyed. Could say that about most games tbh

[Hoffmann]

Well. The Playstation 1 had around 130 different fighting games.
The Playstation 2 even around 150
The Playstation 3 had around 50.
The Playstation 4 has now since November 2013 around 12 fighting games and that only if we include something like Naruto.

Fighting games lost a ton of popularity around 2003-5 when online shooters and open world games became more and more popular.

Games like Street Fighter IV and Mortal Kombat 9 revived the genre a bit but it never reached the half of its older heights again.

[Seraphim]

and I would say that sums it up perfectly.

thing is back when fighters were arcade games and games were more about arcades in your home, to some degree. It wasn't the grand scale stuff we play now. I think in part what we play and what we expect has just changed so much. In part that has pushed games like fighters aside for many of us. We'd drop quarters playing fighters and other games so when you could have one at home and play against friends...

[PurpHerbison]

They had a lot of fighting games because arcades were relevant at the time. Lots of ports to consoles, most being pretty bad and not accurate to the arcade releases. The earlier PS2 days was around the same time arcades popularity peaked with such classics as MvC2, CvS2, and 3S which is why that number is the highest. It wasn't just the open world games and online shooters that had the arcades meet their demise though. It was simply the accessibility of newer consoles. Why drive around looking for an arcade that hasn't died when you can pop in SF4 on your PS3 and find opponents online in the comfort of your own home?

[Hoffmann]

Yeah..also true. Now that you mention it I realized that the typical arcade game genres were or are all not as popular anymore. Shoot'em ups Beat'em ups and racers that are not focussing on the simulation aspect are all pretty niche now.

The PS1 had a ton of fighting games extra made for that console though

[MWH]

true. one more thing is that unlike FPSs and RPGs of today that are built mainly on the online experience, the most enjoyable experience in fighting games is with a group of friends sitting with you and not just online. having the challenger with you in the same room is a whole different feel of excitement and you don't have that all the time like in the Arcades of past.

to me, fighting games will always be the ultimate form of gaming challenge and pressure where you are in control and accountable of every move you make and to the level that it feels if you beat someone in a fighting game it's as if you beat him in real life no matter how big or strong he is! I don't know if that make sense but it is that serious, sometimes.

and it's a way to beat your friends without really beating them. I know a friend here who may laugh at this but he knows ;-)

[Gaming4Life1981]

Fighting games are not losing steam but bulshit practices with fighting games are. Stop making fighting games for casual players. That's a major problem with fighting games now adays. Then their is the network problems like input lag in mkx and sf5, all these betas and still network problems. Capcom said they fixed sf5 and yet the same problems are there like constant disconnections.

[Hoffmann]

Guilty Gear or BlazBlue are not really casual friendly games and look how bad they sell while they are some of the best games in the genre and these days also more technical than their competition.

However, about Capcom and SFV I have to totally agree.

[Majin-vegeta]

Input lag in SF5?id like to see this cuz ive never seen or heard of this.

[DragonDDark]

I know right? SFV has a great netcode and no input lag on my end.

[V0LT]

I'd personally like to see a new samurai showdown :)

[MWH]

and Soul Calibur.

[Kyosuke_Sanada]

Good news, SNK announced that one is in the works as part as their "Phase 2" plan.

[Fist4achin]

I would say the decline in arcades was the reason for the decline in fighting games. It used to be cool to dominate a few fights until someone else came along that was better. Hardly anybody hangs out at arcades with what's left of them. The only thing I see in arcades now are gun and racing games.

[kenwonobi]

Soul Caliber would be really great this generation.

[jmc8888]

Yes and no. The whole situation has shifted.

It hit it's peak in the early to mid-nineties. Back then people would go crazy for them in the arcades. Then buy the home versions when they came out. It was ultra competitive among friends and strangers. Bragging rights abound.

It's just not the same anymore like that. It doesn't help that the games are pretty much the same since the Street Fighter II era. It doesn't help that arcades are pretty much history... unless you count Dave and Buster's, Gameworks and the likes.

It also doesn't help that online even if working perfectly doesn't recreate the same feeling as giving your friends an arm punch after winning/losing to them in person. But online doesn't even work very well for these games. Sure people can come over, but these days people are too lazy or have life commitment. It also gets boring playing against the same people or rather... person. At the arcade you could play a ton of people.

The genre not going to go away. It's a genre, and it'll still be pretty popular. It's just not what it was. It doesn't have that critical mass behind it. It's much more niche and pick up every once in a while.

But in reality this article is catching up to a subject that's basically been true for a long time. I wouldn't say they are 'losing' popularity, I'll say they lost what I describe when arcades died... and that was quite a long time ago. 10-15 years for most.

So it's doing fine, and will. But I don't see it every recapturing what it once had.

Tthe arcades were what drove fighting games during that era, and vice versa. I also remember alot of people loitering, which just isn't tolerated anywhere anymore.

Kind of a catch 22. More people added to the experience, but when many of these places started shooing everyone away who wasn't constantly pumping in quarters... that didn't help. When people's friends couldn't be there, everyone else stopped showing up.

To top that off, they started asking for more and more money to play the games. 25 or even 50 cents wasn't enough. They wanted you to pump in 75-1.00-1.50 and constantly.

It wasn't just home consoles catching up, it was also how they treated their customers. Instead of a fun place to be it was like you started getting watched and prodded to play. Couple that with basically the same game... and the whole experience stopped being fun.

[Kyosuke_Sanada]

Seeing that I am from a different country, arcades pretty much remained the same which were great places to hang out. There were no price gouging or any of the sort, but they still vanished due to online growing in popularity. Unfortunately, people have recently realized the problems of playing online and it's too late for alot of these arcades to come back (at least in the U.S)

In a perfect world, I guess both would exist because personally I missed arcades not only due to the lack of lag and disconnects but the camaraderie attained by strangers. Trash talk was earned by those who played hard yet everyone never went personal. People shared moves and strategies with others so they can up their game leading to great rivalries and bragging rights when "the student" carves a name for themselves'.

I know it may sound like a utopia of some sort but that how it really was in my hometown.

[Toiletsteak]

No. It's just the fact Street Fighter has no content. It will be a great fighter once they add all the content.

[GameBoyColor]

Fighting games haven't really been popular for about a decade actually. The ones that carry the genre are the hardcore.

[dillhole]

Yes. The answer is simply yes. Fighting games were more popular when actual arcades were more popular. When playing next to someone in your house was more popular. Gaming has shifted and fighting games have hardly evolved in the last decade. A new IP needs to come along and freshen things up. Tekken, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat are all such long running series. Where are the new IPs ?

[psnCAShville_615]

depends what style of fighting games you like honestly, forme mk series has always been my number one fighting game, some people don't like it because of how flex the moves are or for others they like the buttton mashin in street fighter is not as technical mk.

[Youngindy21]

Fighting games get boring too quickly and some say it's too hard to get good at them. I always feel like I am button mashing. I do like a few fighting games like Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat, and Guilty Gear. But I just don't have the time to get good at each individual fighting game.

[Hunkaloverbear]

Killer instinct Is only getting more and more popular every day so nope

[Smokingunz]

Fightings games fell of or rather lost its popularity last gen with the 360 and the ps3. If my memory serves me correct figbting games were popular during the ps1 and n64 era.

[SuperbVillain]

Give me a marvel vs DC with gore and a story directed by tarantino

[DivineAssault]

Not to me.. Maybe this new generation of gamers dont like them but i was an 80s kid playing in arcades and love fighting games, brawlers, etc.. They need to evolve a little bit and use the consoles to their fullest potential & unique features. I always buy soul caliber, DOA, SF, MvC, etc... One of my favorite genres & always will be.

[magiciandude]

No. Killer Instinct and Super Smash Bros. are where it's at. /thread

[Hotabang]

When a fighting game is built only for hardcore fighting gamers, then yes it is losing popularity

[Neoprime]

And companies that keep going this will continue to lose money.

[Night99]

No, fighting games don't losing popularity, the new Street Fighter is just not that revolutionary like the last one was. The last game was almost like a Reboot for the IP, it was a long time since the last game realeased and it had a hugly different Artstyle and vastly imrpoved mechanics.

As opposed the new Street Fighter looks quite the same and plays quite the same as the last one and plus it not that long since the last game was realeased.

[R6ex]

I miss Ninja Gaiden.

[FN4GM]

All they have to do is make a good one and it will be popular.

[VTKC]

Maybe it seems that way now that the "casual gamer" was born last generation as these casuals play other games and you compare those numbers to fighting games and since there are way more casual gamers than traditional gamers, it gives you this impression.

[cash_longfellow]

Lack of content is starting to equate to less popularity. Gamers are sick of being sold incomplete games with a lack of content sold as dlc later on. Rip enough people off and they will start to notice.

[MrMagnum]

The main reason of descent is that you have to do same thing over and over again.

[Tobsesan]

Hell no! Mortal Kombat X was a HUGE success and SFV will be too

[skratchy]

No shit. Fighting games have been circling the drain for a while. That's one reason they are adding a ridiculous amount of content to Street Fighter V. I think the game will still do well enough though, based on preorder numbers and such.

Does anybody play Killer Instinct? :P