If you’ve ever spent any amount of time online looking at fighting game discourse, a popular talking point is that they’re hard, and then there’s a subsequent riot over whether they should be made easier or not. Now this may be a radical concept to some out there, but fighting games aren’t actually that hard. Or, at least not any harder than other genres. Speaking as someone that got to an average level of skill in one recently, it’s the same learning process. Rather, the real struggle of fighting games is not as a pile of code and mechanics too difficult for the average person to learn, but rather the nature of 1v1 games.
For a lot of people video games are a way to socialize while not in person. The boys log in to some game they play and boom, fun ensues. When someone new joins this group they’ll usually get convinced to download whatever game everyone is playing and join in. That’s how I started playing Modern Warfare 3 instead of BattleBlock Theater, all of sudden there were other people that I wanted to play with. And I’m not special in that regard, the most common reason for getting into gaming is that other people get you interested. As a result, a good portion of people who get into pvp games aren’t necessarily in it for the thrill of the match, but rather the social experience. It helps to have cool stuff happen, but isn’t the requirement for these people to have a good time. Which is good because absolute beginners suck at video games. Have you ever watched someone play a game for the first time? It is painful. But that’s what everyone looked like when learning for the first time, video games or piano it’s the exact same scene. The only reason players stick around long enough to get better is because they were never there for the game anyways, not at the start anyways. For kids learning piano it’s either because the instrument genuinely interests them, or more likely they’re parents are forcing them to take lessons. But in gaming, it’s a way to spend time with Kyle, who just got a sick 360 knife throw for the final kill of the game, which everyone flipped out over. During all that time players watch Kyle 360 day in day out, they either grow to an average level of skill, or get more invested in the game, and want to seriously improve, (or from their perspective, suck less) which then kickstarts the learning process en masse. This is where the player starts watching videos and downloading aim trainers to be Kyle instead of watching him from a killcam. This is the traditional pipeline most players, especially competitive players, go through in order to get invested in a game. It starts as a fun hobby with friends, the drive to git gud appears, and one grind later you’re in the top ranks.
But fighting games are different. League of Legends is 5v5, even if you have more than 5 players you can still have fun in custom games. But in Street Fighter it’s just you and your opponent. The social aspect isn’t nearly as present. Don’t think it’s harder to conceptually grasp that slow punch is beat out by fast kick as opposed to trying to explain MOBAs. Honestly, explain LoL in the simplest terms possible without skipping over drakes, minions, towers, and the jungle. Now explain how in this supernatural street fight the karate dude is able to combo from medium punch to heavy kick to glowing uppercut on the American with stupid hair.
Learning the nuts and bolts of any game is hard, but not mandatory to get to the average level of play. People assume that because they sink 20+ hours into a single game that the average person does as well, which simply isn’t the case. Most players play a game or two of League with the homies after work/school and call it a day, tomorrow they might play Smash Bros at Sam’s. Once you understand this, the reason why fighting games are so niche becomes easy to understand. It’s not about the gameplay, it’s about the social aspects of the game, or lack thereof. This is the same reason Quake fell off. Quake is an undeniably good game, still is with Quake Champions. But as a 1v1 arena shooter the game simply doesn’t include the same social play that Valorant does, which is why one title is topping Twitch viewership on the daily and the other peaks at top 20.
Much like Quake, fighting games lack that social play for gamers at large. Sure there are pockets of players that congregate over a match of BlazBlue but it’s much rarer than the teams and clans running around in Call of Duty. The crazy high skill ceiling isn’t the reason BlazBlue is less popular than CSGO, the skill floor may be intimidating, but that cannot be the only factor at play. Most games at this point in time are complex and hard to learn. Look at Fortnite, it’s the most culturally relevant game as far as mainstream media is concerned. How do you explain what’s going on in literally any clip from that game to anyone unfamiliar with gaming? “So you see, they started building these walls and ramps at an exceptionally quick rate before pulling out a shotgun and shooting their opponent’s walls. After firing a few shots they return to building the Notre Dame, a classic build prioritizing defense, however they were half a second slow due to low APM, and now will lose out to the Fenway Park attack.” Obviously I’m making up some terminology but really, how are you supposed to explain even the most mainstream game to absolute beginners? Without a guide it’s near impossible, and fighting games only let two people into the match, either your ‘mentor’ or a real opponent. There is no social aspect in the gameplay loop, no teammates, and that’s the real difficulty of the genre, not your half circle specials and one frame links.
Because the game has weak social features, external forces have to create that bond. Meeting at the arcade every wednesday is a great example, which explains why the Arcade Era was so big for fighting games. The arcade brought people together to play fighting games. Without them, the decline in popularity of the genre is clear to see, despite better and better games coming out as time goes by. 2022 is being referred to as a second Golden Age of fighting games because of all the strong titles coming out or being updated with rollback netcode. Some are aimed at lowering the barrier to entry while others only care about those dedicated enough to learn the title, just like CoD and CSGO. So it isn’t the gameplay itself causing this problem, its a change in the average gamer and what they want out of games. If fighting games manage to solve this, they’ll inevitably blow up again, but how that happens I have no clue.