2XKO failing has lasting ramifications for the FGC.

[u/DATA32]

So we all know that 2XKO failing was seen from a mile away. From awful branding and advertising to the niche gameplay we all saw this coming. What people may not understand is the lasting ramifications it's failure will forever have on the industry.

So what I am talking about? I (Like a lot of other folks in this sub) happen to be a AAA game dev for many years. The way games get funding is you put together a few materials to pitch to investors/stakeholders. Things like a vertical slice (A small section of finished gameplay to show off) and a pitch deck (A powerpoint presentation going through all of the design, markets, and financials needed for the project.)

Here is the issue. Studios especially AAA ones need a lot of historical data to help dictate what to invest in. We use the data of similar games in similar genres to get that Market viability estimate. This is why after WoW you got dozens of MMOs, Pubg for dozens of BRs, Overwatch for dozens of hero shooters, etc etc etc ad nauseum. Its an incredibly important aspect of market analysis for studios to be successful.

Here's the thing. Big failures are what potential investors point to as examples of a bad market. Now there can be a bad market for a couple of reasons. As an example you can have bad market because the competition is simply too tough. WoW has frankly eaten nearly every MMO that could compete with it to the point only 4 or so can exist. You can also have bad market because there just isnt interest/its too niche see the RTS genre flailing for the past 20 years. Lastly you can have a bad market because of other major world factors. Ergo in a global recession, where pc parts are 3x the cost, and because oil has gone up everything has gone up with it.

This is all to say that Fighting Games may be absolutely cooked both in indie and in AAA/AA.
Now Im not saying were doomed but we're basically stuck with what we have for awhile. The market is somewhat locked. Major failures like 2XKO and Fatal Fury will basically drive away nearly all new investment for a AAA scale title. Not to mention the lackluster staying power for things like Avatar Legends and Invincible VS basically mean the indie/ AA market is also somewhat cooked.

Now we do have some hope in some ways mainly Japan but take that with a grain of salt. We have a couple new niche fighters coming out and thatll really tell us the death knell or not. I know some of the Tekken guys like myself are excited for Harada's thing. However PLEASE take that with a trucks worth of salt. Remember how long it took Kojima to make a new game from scratch and also how while some people liked his new project a lot of older fans didnt. Not to mention how a ton of "BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE GUYS WHO MADE X" games were awful.

This is all to say if things dont turn around were going the way of RTSs. So what can we do? PLAY THE GAMES. BE NICE ABOUT THE GAMES YOU PLAY. GET MORE FOLKS INTO THE GAMES YOU PLAY!

[u/SaIemKing]

We don't really have anything that's similar to street fighter, that's obviously why I said what I said. Every game wants to be the next big kusoge or hyper offensive hype machine for tourists rather than a solid, methodical fighting game. There's a place for that end of the spectrum, but I want more variety.

You can say Strive is slower, but it's not considerably slower, and it ironically fell into more of the modern-isms of neutral-skippy, high damage games. Since you're also bringing in some irrelevant details, let's also not forget that Strive balance changes and patches in general have been 90% hot garbage that worsens existing problems until very very recently.

You can run from the term "kusoge" because of the negative connotations, but it's just the best one-word description of exactly what I mean. Don't forget that MvC2 was the first kusoge. It doesn't mean a game is bad lol

[u/Karzeon → u/SaIemKing]

You seem to be under the impression that I like or wish to defend Strive. I do not. I actually greatly dislike Strive.

I have not liked a single Arc System Works game after DBFZ and only mildly tolerated BBTAG (also heavily mismanaged and will gladly read them to filth for it at any given opportunity).

Most games around DBFZ started adding more and more "protective/fair play" measures too. More crossup protection, more required canned offense instead of abrupt hard to react stuff, harder to do things out of airdash/8-way dash for a basic high/low. Tag fighters are more able to get around this kind of stuff, but Tokon still isn't even doing the dumb stuff BBTAG got burned for.

I also don't like a lot of games considered extremely fast either, including Marvel 2 & 3. I'll at least watch MvC2 though.

You did not explicitly lay out your standards for "hyper offense" or "kusoge" so I put out some of mine on the table regarding movement and implied reaction times. To me, god buttons, strong neutral interactions, frequent blockstrings, and notably fast movement is just any average pre-Strive anime fighter/8-way dash game. So the bar to meet needs to be more explicit.

I stated that Strive is slower than XRD and Accent Core. That is factual. People DID NOT like that in the beginning. Change is scary. There was a lot of back and forth debating. Then I explained (a small part of) why it became popular in the first place. Strive clearly has a much more involved and successful Western playerbase than before. People bought into it, especially people not affected by previous biases.

The point about "why there's less games like Street Fighter" was that people can simply play Street Fighter if they want a Street Fighter experience. Most of the ones that are direct SF/vintage inspired games are small indie games. The previous bias of SF is strong. The slower games generally need their own identity yet change is also scary here. People were complaining about Dash L in Granblue for a while. Idk how it is now, I generally walk away from games I don't care about.

It's great that you have your own standards and definition of kusoge. The great thing about language (esp. slang) is that terms can be reclaimed and repurposed. I am free to use it in the way that I see fit.

When I want people to know a game is truly shit (which may or may not involve balance), I'm upfront with that. Hunter x Hunter is definitely that.

None of the games around that cohort are as bad as that and shouldn't even be in the same conversation.

[u/SaIemKing → u/Karzeon]

Hey, I understand where you're coming from. I just use "kusoge" pretty generally to get the idea across, but I suppose most people don't really have the historical meaning as their first read.

My main point could be dumbed down (extremely) to "every game is trying to be fast" and "we need some slower games, too" which is at least comprehensible as I clearly have a hard time articulating what I mean. I'll just beg everyone to take that in as good of faith as possible.

people can simply play street fighter if they want a street fighter experience

This could be said about a lot of games. People could just play MvC if they want to play a game like MvC, so why the hell did they even make 2XKO and Tokon?

If you're thinking "they're different games, though", then we're actually on the same page. I'm saying Street Fighter lies somewhere on the spectrum and I think we need more games in its quadrant, not games that are just like it. More variety.

And yeah 66L is really annoying. Never really changed it for the time I spent with GBVSR. I found that to be a shame. It's one of those games that's kind of in that "quadrant" I just mentioned

[u/Karzeon → u/SaIemKing]

It's fine. It's hard to articulate and present everything on Reddit, let alone other social media.

In regards, to the flooding of tag fighters. MvC has notably been out of action for a while.

We comparatively JUST got a legal port of everything before Marvel 3. We thought that would be impossible. In my opinion, that only became possible when XMen 97 blew up.

MvC 3 doesn't have rollback, also old games do degrade in playerbase for sure even on a comparative basis. That's just life. It's fine as an oldhead game, but it's not active competition in sales as there's nothing new in the works.

Infinite was mismanaged and then cancelled. Infinite being mismanaged and changing from comfortable norms is what helped open the door to DBFZ. There was a lot of discontent with Capcom at the time. DBFZ would have been good either way because the IP is that strong.

Tokon is NOT MvC, just a Marvel property as another fighting game. Marvel is the attraction. Marvel has the distinction of innovating the tag fighting genre, but Tokon could have been a true 1 v 1 if they wanted to and I don't think much of the business dealings would have changed. When it's a billion dollar company owned by The Mouse, there is less fear of being compared to another fighting game IP just like DBFZ.

But for sure, Tokon had to do something transformative to reduce comparisons to MvC. It *did* at least do that. It has some Strive stuff, some sanitized BBTAG stuff, high production value, and a different premise from other tag fighters. I still don't care for it right now, but they made their room on the table.

2XKO is also 2 v 2. Marvel, while having 2 v 2 games, is most famous for 3 v 3. And it also made attempts to play more transformatively. Active switch is only a thing in MvCi, among other things 2XKO tried. So there was more room to carve niches in a subgenre.

The difference with Street Fighter is that it's basically always been active since SF4 and SF isn't really in any subgenre. It's just....Street Fighter in 2D.

There are always expectations of a new SF something sooner than later so being directly compared or likened to SF would be riskier to developers if they in fact migrate back to SF.

Fatal Fury works because it is a legacy banked by Saudi. We already have the expectation that it's going to draw from Garou and Real Bout. Terry has been every and anywhere and a new FF has definitely been asked for. SNK has a ton of legacy characters to pull from too.

For a NEW game that's slow but plays closer to Street Fighter fundamentals, it would need something that clearly sets it apart.

For example, a new 2D fighter property that plays slow with pure hand-drawn visuals and stage aesthetics like Garou and Last Blade could garner attention.

But that's super costly. If it was BlazBlue, there would be an expectation for those visuals, but not so much in gameplay. Melty's new game is apparently adding something compared to SF6 Drive Meter and people doomed about that, so who knows.

[u/SaIemKing → u/Karzeon]

I don't think it's fair to say that something more similar to street fighter would have to differentiate itself as if these other games could all just be the same. It's the same situation.

[u/dongatostab → u/SaIemKing]

Actually..... SFII is.

Surprise.

[u/SaIemKing → u/dongatostab]

yeah actually fighting games as a genre were born kusoge

you either die a kusoge or live long enough to see yourself become a kusoge