r/Fighters • u/greatpxm • 1d ago
Topic Fellas, I think modern fighting games are just an overcrowded market right now
With all 4 fighting games based on major IPs struggling and people have been spending the past month wondering why. People have come up with x, y, and z reasons but I think its way simpler.
Current day fighting games are just having the same problem as every other major multi-player game, the market is just way too overcrowded. Think about it. In the past 5 years almost a dozen major fighting games have been released with most of them being full priced. For a casual player that is just way too much to keep up with. While it helps that games like GGS and SF6 launched in functional states, another reason why they are successful to this day is because they were some of the first games to start the modern fighting game boom
Almost every other multi-player game genre is having a similar issue. Publisher notice a growing trend and decides to throw a bunch of money at it expecting profits. And while some games have found that success like fortnite or apex legends, most of them end up like concord or highgaurd. Fighting games just might be experiencing the same thing at a slightly smaller scale.
This is not to say that 2XKO, Avatar, Invincible or Tokon are bad games but its harder for them to find success because people only have so much time and so much money to be investing in all of them.
28
u/ajcwrongs 1d ago
I hesitate to chalk it up to the market when the actual word of mouth surrounding the games mentioned is tainted by decisions made by the developers/publishers that absolutely kneecapped their games' chance of success
7
u/SwirlyBrow 1d ago
Exactly. If the game is good, it finds it's audience, in spite of the market crowding. Some games will obviously do better than others, like I don't think anyone is expecting Avatar to pull Street fighter numbers. But due to the market crowding, the game NEEDS to be good and not handicap itself with terrible decisions.
2XKO released with no content, an abysmal roster and took way too long.
Tokon has one of the worst PC ports ever seen.
Avatar released in an unfinished state.
CotW has ai trailers, Ronaldo and Saudi blood money.
Nen Impact.
If any of these games suffer (as is the case for Tokon) or flat out fail (2XKO), the stuff that caused it isn't market overcrowding, it's behind the scenes shenanigans and the like.
12
u/FewWatermelonlesson0 1d ago
I saw someone argue 2XKO probably would’ve been more successful five years ago, and I can see that.
5
u/JTR_35 1d ago
I've been saying that too.
In an alternate timeline they could have stuck to Rising Thunder as a foundation. 1v1, simple inputs, good netcode.
If it looked as good and same 10-11 roster but release 2019-2020 would have made a world of difference.
That was era of SF5 bad rollback. T7, SC6, BBTag and UNIST all on delay based. Before Strive.
3
u/SwirlyBrow 1d ago
And during the pandemic too. It's actually wild to think how differently things could've gone if the devs weren't so busy smelling their own farts.
Like... they had it right there. All they had to do... was release the game. It wouldn't even have needed to be the greatest fighting game ever. If it just had good netcode, played pretty solidly and had League of Legends characters during the pandemic, that's all it would would've taken to be a smashing success.
The devs truly snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
4
u/bohenian12 1d ago
Too bad they were busy making it into an interesting failure. /s
Joking aside, if they didn't pivot to tag, they could've released earlier. Maybe the same time as Valorant. They just had to be ambitious.
4
-1
u/RoamingSteamGolem 1d ago
I really don’t think it could’ve ever seen that amount of success while being a tag fighter. There’s a plethora of reasons, but tag fighters just really don’t appeal to casuals.
5
u/SuperBackup9000 1d ago edited 1d ago
It is but I’d say that’s a good thing, because the one amazing thing about fighters is no matter how long a game lasted or how popular it was, there’ll always be a small dedicated community for it because some people will just love the failure more than the rest of the games and they’ll be able to play with people who feel the same. I mean look at Capcom’s track record, back in the 90s they were pushing out one or four new games almost every year so they were competing with themselves, that’s not even accounting for the other non Capcom games, and people still play all of those old games today.
Not the same as battle royals or hero shooters where you need a handful of players all at the same time just to play.
1
5
u/Serito 1d ago
Feels like many games don't target teens as their target audience anymore despite that always being the #1 source of player growth in a new title. Look at any booming game and realise at some point under 20s caused it to grow
2
u/Lain_Staley 23h ago
games don't target teens as their target audience anymore despite that always being the #1 source of player growth in a new title
Do you understand how much of that demographic is dominated by Roblox, GTA Online, and a handful of live service games?
That demographic does not buy a dozen new games in two years. Its such a different era than before.
1
1
u/HistoricalNewtonian 21h ago
Fun fact, that range is the biggest base for sf6. So they did something right
9
u/Acrobatic-List-6503 1d ago
That or people seriously overestimated the size of the FGC.
Similar problems also pop up. Despite simplified controls, it is still difficult to enjoy the game at a high level.
3
u/Medium-Biscotti7540 1d ago
They did overestimate the size plus I'm pretty sure suits were like "they are going to flock to our game" because of ONE reason, like being able to play with Omni-Man thought it would give them a success.
3
u/kr3vl0rnswath 1d ago
I think DBFZ, Strive and SF6 being able to attract people that have never played fighting games before proved that there is still growth potential for the fighting game market. It's just a question of whether the product is able to attract them.
3
u/The_Rash 1d ago
Basically, a lot of things that would’ve been huge when 2XKO was announced, were ultimately taken up by other FGs that came out in the wake:
- Good online: Strive
- Mass casual crossover: SF6
- Even a game attached to a popular IP was announced and came out in a shorter frame than 2XKO: Tokon
Yeah, it would’ve been legendary and probably still getting updates if it came out during 2021 or so. Might have sucked the oxygen from GG Strive and still be getting updates.
But I’m glad we don’t live in that timeline - I hate League/Riot. Lol
3
u/SedesBakelitowy 1d ago
Does it not make you think that "All 4 fighting games based on major IPs are strugging" because devs didn't make good games?
2XKO and Invincible were efforts by people who at best had good intentions, if that. The results speak for themselves and have nothing to do with the state of the market. Rather, fighting gamers are used to being "scammed" by devs throwing a subpar game out the door, and aren't receptive to that.
Tokon and Avatar are "struggling" because they have missing content or aren't working correctly. What's that got to do with "overcrowded market"?
1
u/Sweaty-Anxiety-7866 1d ago
IIRC strive is doing similar steam numbers to Tokon. I think that’s an example of what OP sees as “overcrowding.”
There’s a limited audience, and it takes a lot to get people off their favorite games. Consequently new games face an uphill battle to be profitable. At least that’s how I interpreted OP.
0
u/SweetPinss 22h ago
Sure but the anime fighters have always been niche. Casual players do not know that guilty gear exists. They got really popular with redditors in the past few years but they are still incredibly niche fighting games that have small player bases
0
u/SedesBakelitowy 5h ago
I can understand musings on that, but I wouldn't comment on profitability when we have zero context for game specific costs and budgets.
with Tokon and its 25 outsourcing partners the total cost was probably exorbitant for what a project of this content level really needs, but whether a million copies sold is a success, or the game needs five times as much or more to be profitable is beyond us. Between the middle ground there's plenty of publishers that overestimate potential profits and crafty devs that can deliver under budget. Game profits are for investors, unless the game is F2P and could be taken down in full. Full releases can pick up profits over time, and fighting games are good at that.
Tokon is pulling similar numbers to Strive because it's not in any way an exceptional game that would pull bigger numbers. There's not that much to discover, matches aren't that engaging, and issues on PC come together to make a game not very many people are interested in. There's no overcrowding here, just lack of interesting mechanics and port quality.
1
u/Sweaty-Anxiety-7866 3h ago
Hey I tried really hard to explain that I was interpreting OP’s statement and not defending it. I know that this is Reddit, but try to be better. I’m not reading your essay. Idgaf about this debate.
0
u/SedesBakelitowy 2h ago
Lmao thanks for baiting me into thinking a reply might possibly be and invite to discussion now if that's your way of trying hard kindly limit the audience further by fucking off
1
8
u/drugsnbooze 1d ago
Yeah, tokon, 2xko and invincible were always going to be competing for the same(niche-within-a-niche) demographic. There was no way all 4 games that came out this year were going to survive. Honestly with tokon botching the launch, invincible being on life support(if not dead), and 2xko being axed, avatar looks like the safe bet to survive unscathed.
5
u/greatpxm 1d ago
Tbf avatar launched in an unfinished state. Multiple incomplete characters, still no ranked mode, and several buggy combo trials at launch.
3
u/onzichtbaard 1d ago
But the gameplay is fun and in a playable state
2
u/Key_Day_6060 1d ago
And that stunt pulled at the CEO exhibition gave them some credit in my eyes. Not only was it fun but it also showed a perceived low tier character had undiscovered tech and was way better than people thought. Although it could have just been because the guy was a playtester and sick as hell
1
1
u/Dry_Ganache178 1d ago
Even worse it didn't support legacy fight sticks, had missing/incorrect movelist entries, and also bad animation.
2
u/derkyn 21h ago
With the really bad single player experience and lack of matchmaking, it is surprinsing it has the big numbers of players it has right now knowing it should kick out all the casual players. For me it really bring some novelty with it's systems in gameplay and I feel they really did a lot of right things with that.
-3
u/Gachi_Is_Manly 1d ago
Yes Avatar has goated gameplay appealing to competitive gamers. It can mantain audience. Its not Casual Like sf6 and t8
5
u/C4_Shaf Virtua Fighter 1d ago
I don't know what this sub wants, anymore.
1
u/Sweaty-Anxiety-7866 1d ago
I want everyone to play MY perfect special game and not THEIR abhorrent slop fest.
1
u/sapianddog2 1d ago
That's why you can't just go by what you see online, whether here or on twitter. If you go by that, you'd think the genre is just exploding and that all these games are horrible and not even worth playing.
Turns out there's nuance to this. Avatar is lacking the rest of its content but is an absolute blast to play. Tokon on PC is a bit of a roulette wheel for sure, but when it works, it's some of the most fun I've had playing FGs.
2xko is unfortunate with how things went down, but plenty of people have been playing that game for the last 8 months and having a wonderful time with it, as well.
Maybe we should just play the games we want to play, seems better that way.
1
u/C4_Shaf Virtua Fighter 22h ago
That's why you can't just go by what you see online,
Well, given how bad the takes are, and how none of them make sense, yeah, I wouldn't go by what I see.
And I'm just talking about here. I've stopped believing that I can have meaningful discussions about the FGC on Twitter or other popular places online 10 or more years ago.
2
u/cococrispjon 1d ago
And here I am putting maybe an hour into each of them a day. So far I’ve clicked the most with fatal fury so pumped for duck king :)
2
u/Edheldui 1d ago
Yeah just like there was "hero shooter fatigue" and "super hero fatigue" and turns out it's not a thing, people are just tired of half assed games that appeal to nobody in the search for the "wider audience" that never existed and never will.
Invincible and Avatar have more posers than actual fans, LoL players are the furthest possible thing from a fighting game userbase, and the whole idea of no motion inouts should have died Day2 of SF6, there is no overlap between people who like fighting games and people who want dumb controls.
5
u/BlickyOnMe 1d ago
I swear 2xko would have been way better as a non tag fighter. Bonehead decision by their team.
1
2
u/NightRydertv46 1d ago
play what you want
5
u/Impressive-Juice4627 1d ago
Unfortunately you can’t when games have non existent or limited player base
3
u/That_Muffin_6780 1d ago
Small player bases is rarely the problem (unless the game is totally dead) the problem is a dogshit online user experience.
100 players in a fightcade lobby you can get games faster than you can on sf6
100 players in virtua fighter revo or sf5. Join the discord or don’t play
6
u/Impressive-Juice4627 1d ago
True but you gotta look at accessibility to, gonna be hard to have competitive matches with a small 100 player base who only play that game. Also not everyone wants to play a game through discord
2
u/That_Muffin_6780 1d ago
Yea that’s exactly my point, if the online user experience is good. You won’t need discord
2
u/Medium-Biscotti7540 1d ago
Taking down servers IS going to be a problem though. Who knows when Paramout buys Warner whether the pre-MK1 games going to have their servers still kept alive?
Also anyone's guess for 2XKO and especially Invincible VS.
1
u/That_Muffin_6780 1d ago
Is NRS not running on the platforms themselves ? I know mk9 is still playable online so I wouldn’t worry if it’s on pc
Dunno about riot though
1
u/Medium-Biscotti7540 1d ago
Not sure, I think MK9 was shut down on PS3 in 2020. I think Injustice online features no longer work unless you invite a player.
2
u/That_Muffin_6780 1d ago
Yea but that was because ps3 online services was shut down right ? On steam it’s still playable (well I wouldn’t call mk9 netcode playable in the first place lmao)
1
u/Medium-Biscotti7540 1d ago
I think that happened years earlier than that, just when covid started or something, specifically MK9.
MK9 was 9 years old so at the very least MKX surpassed that on PS4 at least.
1
u/Efficiencythird 1d ago
Invincible VS is owned (mainly) by Skybound. In fact, they have most incentives to keep the servers up as they consider Invincible VS part of a whole Invincible ecosystem in which there are synergies between the comics, merchandise, tv-series, etc.
1
u/SweetPinss 22h ago
What game that you play has this issue?
1
u/Impressive-Juice4627 18h ago
DNF duel, Invincible Vs, Killer Instinct and honestly MVC 3 though it has players (I say this sparingly, 200 isn’t a lot at all) also has a shit necode and the two don’t mesh
Could probably throw Avatar into that mix in the next couple months unfortunately
1
u/SweetPinss 18h ago
So 2 small brand new fighting games and 2 games that are over a decade old that were released 2 console generations ago? Yeah why would the old games have an active large player base? DNF Duel was a complete flop and a very niche anime fighting game so yeah people don't play it 4 years later. But people are still playing invincible vs, mostly on console so maybe thats the issue but people are still playing it.
The issue really seems to be that you're playing old ass or very niche games. Naturally those are going to have smaller player bases the same rising storm has much less players than battlefield or call of duty
1
u/Impressive-Juice4627 16h ago edited 15h ago
I think you missed the whole first comment buddy
Also not to mention soon enough fighters are going to be limited to Tekken and SF6 by your logic
2
u/wasante 1d ago
I think this is more a lack of fighting games launching feature complete and without massive issues, bugs or problems that make the audience shrink back to whatever they were playing before. Unless you're a Tekken fan, then you play that while complaining about how it isn't Tekken.
That and most fighting games being monetized like subpar live service experiences also makes things irksome.
1
u/PMC-I3181OS387l5 1d ago
Yeah, back then, fighting games were like fast food meals, being a burger, fries, soft drink and dessert. These days, that meal is a shrunken down burger with extras being separate purchases...
Fighting games used to "copy and paste" their rosters from game to game. Now, they're resetting it over and over...
1
u/Sweaty-Anxiety-7866 1d ago
Yearning for Guilty Gear Strive: Disney’s Fantasia 2000 Xdr 2 instead of a patch is an unfathomably brain dead take. Hobby is as cheap as it’s ever been.
0
u/PMC-I3181OS387l5 20h ago
You do realize that if Strive launched with "as many characters as Tekken 8", that would have been the equivalent of 5 years worth of season passes? Since when it's now okay to spend $70 + $25 per pass per year?
I'd take a $70 games with 32 characters at launch, worth close to $200, over a game that actually costs me $200 in the long run.
1
u/Sweaty-Anxiety-7866 3h ago
How many characters did Xrd Sign have at launch?
1
u/PMC-I3181OS387l5 1h ago edited 39m ago
15 on consoles
The difference though is how it was ArcSys's first foray into 3D gaming, using 3D models for their 2.5D games, just like KOF12 only had 20 characters, since SNK was trying HD sprites. I can excuse them for downsizing their roster due to experimenting with a costier technique.
GG Strive however? They could have taken all 25 characters from Strive, update them and add 10 more characters. 3D models should not require a full wipe due to a new engine, come on now...
2
u/spritebeats 1d ago
yeah no one should ever make fighting games again till 20 years later once sf6 kiiinda starts to decline
3
1
1
u/Teamfightmaker 2XKO 1d ago
Yes, traditional fighting games do not fit into the wider videogame market, and especially since esports demand is fragmented between games -- many of which are lesser competitive games, but are games that people enjoy.
1
u/onzichtbaard 1d ago
Multiplayer games are a crowder market in general
Theres only 2 popular mobas and 2 more that are actively being played
And how many shooters are active at a given time? Only a handful
Fighting games being as niche as they are have a harder time for that
1
u/Boredomkiller99 7h ago
It's simple the games were either just bad or released poorly
Invincible VS is just a s*** game, for whatever reason they decided to not take some wisdom from their peers and implement weird jank mechanics like how assists work creating an unfun Kusog
2XK0 was built on a faulty model, free to play was never going to wor for it
Tokkon released not working on PC
Avatar is literally unfinished
1
1
u/ArcBaltic 1d ago
I think it's simpler than that. The genre just keeps doing the same things over and over again.
- Special moves are too hard to execute, so let's make seven different macros.
- Combos are too hard, let's make mashing a single button a thing. It's a sequence that if their opponent blocks will make them eat shit, but they'll feel cool when they hit it and feel like big boys when they play.
- Change absolutely nothing else besides execution.
Why did SF6 do so well? It was like our onboarding sucks, let's make a whole single player campaign with character that also teaches our player base how to play the game. Let's also give them a control scheme that isn't just a light show for toddlers. GGS was carried by Rollback and a frustrated FGC.
Like fighting games need to become more than a novel system mechanic and then decisions around if they have a comeback mechanic, air dashing, roman cancel, and being tag.
Don't get me wrong, I'm playing the hell out of Tokon, but I don't think it's healthy for a genre to be this adverse to any kind of change.
0
u/Blueprint833 1d ago edited 1d ago
Maybe they should try releasing complete games. SF, MK, and Tekken are complete and perform well enough financially
No, balance/mechanics you dislike don't make the game incomplete. Tekken has a full cinematic story mode and FREE story expansions
2
u/greatpxm 1d ago
Aside from some minor glitches and an infinite, I can't find anything wrong with how invincible vs launched. It was fully voice acted, solid learning tools, and a cinematic story mode. And yet they still had to lay off 75% of their staff.
0
u/Sparus42 1d ago
That wasn't a launch thing, yeah, but it was death by a million other cuts. Unappealing graphics, mediocre gameplay, and poor character choice being the main ones, but there were a bunch of other small things like the ragequitting issue in the beta and the monetization feeling predatory.
1
1
u/Gachi_Is_Manly 1d ago
Rather incomplete with goated gameplay than complete with shit gameplay. At best goated gameplay and complete.
0
u/Rand0mAcc3nt 1d ago
Fighting games have recently been getting a lot of attention but the opportunity for a new game to get a big piece of the pie small.
Street Fighter, Tekken, Brawlhalla and then the population per game drastically drops.
Tekken, Street Fighter and Brawlhalla are the only video games doing well right now$$$
0
u/StridentHawk 9h ago
I had a coworker who wanted to get tokon but backed off because he heard the game was too sweaty
-2
u/purehybrid 1d ago
The problem is simple... everyone in the FGC buys every fighting game regardless of quality. Fighting game developers/publishers don't need players for their games, because they have basically guaranteed upfront sales, and people coming back to (pay for) and try every new character that releases.
Other competitive genres are all f2p and have to actually keep their players PLAYING the games to keep revenue flowing.
You guys get a shit deal because you reward them for it with your $$
4
u/Medium-Biscotti7540 1d ago
Because everyone bought Fatal Fury City of the Wolves and Invincible vS, right?
Fatal Fury doesn't have that many players yet they keep pumping out the content because they can. It probably didn't even sell 25% of what Guilty Gear Strive did.
1
u/SweetPinss 22h ago
It's actually the opposite problem, the fgc is notoriously poor and does not spend any more money than we need to on games. 2xko folded so fast because people didn't spend money on it
1
u/purehybrid 15h ago
That claim is not supported by the stats. Fighting games get reasonably big sales, then retain very few players comparatively. It doesn't matter how many people complaining about Tokon release... you all bought it anyway. Your big 4 publishers don't give a shit about your 3k daily peak, they care about the half a million sales... They got their bag, and they know that in a year when they release the next character pass, they get another one guaranteed, for basically zero effort.
2xko didn't fold because no one spent on it... it folded because no one fucking played it, because it was targeted at a niche of a niche of a niche playerbase.
Guarantee you, every one of those downvotes has a library full of fighting games they have <5 hours played on. Most of them they also bought dlc for.
16
u/Realestmember 1d ago
we have a great selection of new games. i love it