Holy hell these last 2 pages... loot boxes?
Im gonna spit some hot truth at you that i've been holding back for ages. This isnt about Marvel anymore, its about any fighting games in general. You know the hot topic question of the moment regarding fighting games, "how do you grow the FGC?", here's the truth, you dont.
Or rather, what are you actually asking? How do you grow the fighting game community, or how do you grow the fighting game consumer base? Because those two things are not one and the same.
We keep talking about adding single player modes and making fighting games more casual to attract more people. You wont attract more people to the community. You might attract more buyers, sure, but how many of those "buyers" will stick around in the "community". Very few I imagine (would love to see studies on this).
The simple metter of fact is that anyone here saying "ill wait until is cheap" for ANY fighting game (hell I do it with all those anime fighters on Steam), here's whats gonna happen. Youre gonna buy the game cheap, youll play the story mode or whatever, youll play a few arcade mode matches, then maybe youll try online because at the end of the day thats what fighting games are for, youll get completely destroyed by people that have been playing since day 1, and youll drop the game because no fighting game will hold anyone's interest for long just playing against the AI, just like any multiplayer game.
I believe someone here said the diffference between fighting games and other multiplayer genres, lets say mobas for example, or FPS like Overwatch, and why its so much harder to get into a fighting game than the rest, is that a fighting game you are playing one on one. You suceed or fail completely depending on you. In the other games, you might be shit, but you might / probably will get carried, so you can still have some fun and can still continue to play it, until you hopefully improve.
But jumping in a fighting game, getting destroyed 4-5 matches in a row, you either have balls of steel and say to yourself "im gonna grind this out until I get better" or most likely, youll drop it because the alternative is playing the AI which is boring in any genre.
Nobody would play a moba or a competitive FPS solely against bots for any significant amount of time (oh im sure someone will post "I do I do youre wrong uncle Rhaknar" dont you worry), and yet we seem to expect fighting games to be different.
So how do you grow the FGC? I honestly dont have an awnser for that except like I previously said, you dont. It much more niche than the rest of the MP genres.
PS: Do NOT take this post as me saying these games shouldnt add more and more single player content, they should and its INEXCUSABLE when they dont (*cough*SF5*cough*).
PPS: This is an opinion peice, I am not "Rhaknar, Holder of All Truth, Bend the Knee Less I Smite You"
