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Gaming / Re: ITS MAHVEL 3 BAYBEE (The MvC3 topic)
« on: June 28, 2010, 11:49:35 PM »HDR was also a big time and money sink that was sometimes seemingly teetering on the edge of being canned, because of the problematic development cycle and trying to coordinate things with an American dev. How HDR was able to rise above all the BS that surrounded its development cycle is nothing short of miraculous, but I sincerely doubt it will be a long time before Capcom does something to that effect again.And presently, it's the best version of Street Fighter 2, and probably the tightest, most balanced, best competitive fighting game in the world. But that's besides the point. I was talking about the paid beta, which was released with Commando 3. Tons of people bought the game just to have the multiplayer beta.
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These things already happen in Japanese arcades and in parts of the US West Coast, where the Arcade market is still fairly lucrative. Such things get the job done just fine for the purposes of the developer, the game and its scene. If you're the developer, why should you want to spend more money than is necessary?It certainly has a bigger fanbase than a ton of other, more "underground" titles that japanese companies always make an effort to release as soon as possible because the fanbase demands it, and makes quite a bit of money for them. And don't tell me big-named fighting games such as Street Fighter don't sell well. If it's Sprite Loli Moe Fighter version three thousand four hundred and seven, I can understand there's no big clamoring for it, but games like Street Fighter 4 should have had a worldwide release, no matter how much testing hired professionals have to do behind closed doors. Heck, fighting games can be enjoyed by a big mainstream audience. They certainly got enough cred, and waaaaaaaay more cred than a ton of other popular genres. Developers should spend more money in releasing titles worldwide and making the whole thing just work, because it gives them a bigger audience. Giving more importance to that big audience = more money. And before you start saying about how not alot of people are interested in the complexity of fighting games, I'll just say that they're not more complex than say... World of Warcraft, or Starcraft. Being GOOD at either of those games requires quite alot of time and skill. And tons upon tons of people still do it. And bugs are checked, and they're fixed with patches.
No, the infrastructure is small because the fighting game market itself is still small. "Year of the Fighter/Fighting Game Rebirth" sensationalism aside, FGs still do a lot to cater to the same audience they always have. The best you can say about the "mainstream success" that some titles like Street Fighter, Soul Calibur and Mortal Kombat have obtained in recent years, is that there will always be a demographic that will be happy to play the games every once in a while for the sake of shits and giggles at parties. But they're the same ones who more than likely can't be bothered to care about the games beyond that scope.
So, in that light, what reason is there to change things, from Capcom and Namco's POVs? "Johnny Casual", or his decidedly more urban counterpart "Raheem Kashwel", isn't likely going to care that the latest versions of Street Fighter and Tekken might be stuck in arcades for a period of 6 months to a year, before they can hook it up into their Xbox 360s. In their cases, there's not going to be agonizing over loke test footage that could be viewed on youtube, nico or TRF, and wondering "WHY AM I NOT ABLE TO PLAY THIS [parasitic bomb] YET, I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE NOW?!". The ones who are doing that are well, guys like you, me and the denizens at SRK, and respective communities for the various fighting games that exist. And well, we're all, collectively, definitely in the minority.
If things change, then maybe Capcom, Namco and their ilk will do likewise. But I don't foresee any such developments ever occurring, because even Capcom, Midway and Namco, the "leaders" in the game, if you will, don't see the need to adapt their marketing and development plans beyond that which has proven to work. And for developers like SNK on down, who've never had the sheer commercial success that the big boys have enjoyed, that much is only more the case.
Hell, I am a casual fighter player. I've never took the time to get good at SF2 with more than one character, and in many fighting games, whenever mashing works, I use it. But I like getting temporarily good at some, more experiencing fighting games. But I do believe there's massive potencial for this genre. They just need to expand it. It can become very lucrative if they can make it work.
