In the wake of Evo2k10 turnout growing significantly larger than any Evolution series event before it, the question now is: Where do we go from here? Well, jchensor has a few ideas. Here’s the link along with a brief quote:
Evolution 2010 Season Wrap Up Part 1 on Meet jchensor
Let’s just cut to the chase, first and foremost. Street Fighter IV has changed everything. What this game and Super Street Fighter IV have done to the Fighting Game Community cannot be denied. One main reason that it’s not proper to focus on the communities of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, Melty Blood, Tekken, and Super Street Fighter II: HD Remix is because, quite simply put, these communities are overshadowed by the sheer size and power of the Street Fighter IV community. And while this may make some of these other communities upset to hear me say this, especially because some members of these communities look down on Street Fighter IV, I think communities need to look at the positives that Street Fighter IV has been bringing the Fighting Game Community as a whole.
I really loved the analogy between poker and SFIV that jchensor did, but I felt really bad for him when I started reading the comments to the blog post as the commenters seemed to rip the poor guy over it and SFIV :^|
I’m not sure why people are grumbling over SFIV’s popularity overshadowing other games; popularity can be fleeting. That’s not to say SFIV is a fad or anything, but realistically it can’t stay too huge forever because you can get other fighters out there to a similar level with due time, patience, and unity in a community. Besides, isn’t SFIV’s popularity good enough to inspire new fighters and international releases of others as well?
Eh, it’s not that surprising. This is how the internet works, especially when a bunch of otherwise intelligent people have no idea what to make of the situation they find themselves in. Instead of coming up with something constructive to do, these people go around looking for someone to bicker with until the seasons change.
I really liked this article/blog post, I don’t get the hostility towards sf4 though, I never really seriously played and put time into a fighter before it and if it hadn’t come out I don’t think I ever would have. Hell sf4 got me to go to an arcade and actually get involved in the fighting game community.(I’m even trying to get a combo video out!)
The “problem” with SF4/SSF4 is that it’s so much bigger than any other current fighting game, and probably bigger than any fighting game since SF2/CE/HF. Maybe there were other games that sold as many copies as SF4/SSF4, but if you look at the size of the community six months or twelve months after release, everything pales in comparison. Games like Mortal Kombat sell a ton of copies but then virtually disappear after the first month.
So essentially everyone’s jealous of SF4 because they wish their game was that popular. And this is aggravated by their unwavering certainty that their preferred game is “superior.”
Of course it’s a waste of time to listen to anyone motivated by jealousy because that’s one of the most wasteful emotions of all goddamn time. But the sadness goes deeper than that.
See, what it really comes down to is these people thinking that SF4 has reached the very apex of mainstream popularity and that it’s time to tear it down in the interest of restoring universal balance. But they’re too limited by their own experiences and expectations. They shouldn’t be thinking “Damn SF4 for being more popular than my favorite game!”
They should be thinking “Will SF4 ever be as popular as Halo or WoW or Poker?” Because fighting games still have a looong way to go before we rival WSoP or Nascar. At the end of the day, whether or not SF4 is your favorite fighting game, it certainly represents the fighting game community in the public’s mind – at least for now.
What jchensor is saying is that it makes more sense to push that further forward and rally other games around its success, rather than undercutting SF4’s chances with bitterness.
I mean, is there anything more pathetic than people who hate on something and go out of their way to undermine it just so they can revel in saying “I told you so” when it fails? Everything goes out of style eventually. You can either make something positive out of it while it lasts. Or you can be a naysayer and chip at the foundation until an earthquake knocks it over so you can be happy on flat land (and later take credit for knocking it down).
I mean, i don’t agree with everything in the article but i certainly agree with the overall sentiment. Before SF4 came out, i was really ready to take a break from video games for a long while. Obviously that didn’t happen and somehow – for better or worse – i’m more involved now than probably ever before.
But even if i had taken a completely different path and skipped SF4 altogether, i still wouldn’t go around publicly talking shit about the game simply because i wish CvS2 had been that popular instead.
The bottom line is it’s still Street Fighter! How can anyone deny that SF4’s success will help SF5 in terms of production budget, marketing investment, and mainstream buzz? And that goes beyond Street Fighter, because we’re even hearing rumblings about a possible Darkstalkers game.
At the end of the day, you can either be an optimist or a pessimist about all this. (Anyone who claims they’re a realist is a poser because nobody has a good handle on what’s going on right now and nobody can predict where this will lead in 3 years.)
“I really loved the analogy between poker and SFIV that jchensor did, but I felt really bad for him when I started reading the comments to the blog post as the commenters seemed to rip the poor guy over it and SFIV :^|”
Thanks, chicobo. ^_^ You made my day with that reply. Even though you have to expect people ripping you apart when you make your viewpoint public, it’s still relieving to hear others giving sympathy. Haha. ^_^
And Maj, you response is so spot on. I think you’ve worded it better than I could have. Can I link to your reply or can you repost it on SRK? Hahaha.
– James
Haha thank you sir. Feel free to link anywhere you like. Can’t get me in too much trouble, right?
Btw you can link to an individual comment by clicking on the timecode above.
I can understand how living in the shadow of the giant could be frustrating to some people but at the of the day I think sf4 has been a huge boost to every fighting game, even the people who want to throw it away and play whatever they like get a boost from sf4.
I guess it’s not that I don’t understand it’s more that I’m awe of the audacity of some of the people knocking sf4 and I totally agree people should look at fighters in a much larger scale, it would be nice to see fighting games as big as poker, but everytime I see people knocking sf4 and dissuading people from playing it I can’t help but think that they’se shooting the community in the foot.
Though as you said earlier it’s how the Internet works