so here is an idiot (me) talking interesting dev video • Japanese Game Developm... LIVE EVERYDAY / havokerino #fgc #fightinggames #sf6 #tekken8 #guiltygearstrive
Fighting Game Dev here: Fighting games aren't hard just for the skill it takes to make them, but also you have to understand fighting games at a fundamental level to make something that feels really good. Almost nothing strays too much from SF II, so you need to know how things interact, but also many different concepts and vocabulary to avoid situations where your game is dominated by one tech because you didn't know about it, and then didn't balance your game around it. Overall, fighting games are an extremely rewarding experience for indie game devs, but not for big companies (at least in the west), and that's why I think you see a much bigger disparity of popular AAA fighting games vs indie fighting games, because the return is too low and the risk is too high. shout out to my fellow indie fg game devs, please go look at a few of them, they all have great ideas and characters
@@NoxLegend1better than they rushing it. They are still new to fighting game, so I can give them some slack. Game not for me tho, so what do I know 😂.
Yah, about that, things have iterated pretty far from what even super turbo codified (let alone world warrior), like 20 some years of iterating on the same core concepts (and a couple others added for various sub genres along the way like air dashers and 3d games), like what is expected from the minimum mechanics you have has crept up quite a bit, stuff like a second resource meter and/or ex moves (or at least an alternative way to spend the super meter) has become pretty expected i. the last decade. So like a modern era game as "bare bores" as st would be a rough sell in the modern market. Like the bar for having a competitive game in this market is a lot higher than when sf2 and all it's often cash grabby clones where around, most of them were terrible licensed tie in games but almost all of them ended up underselling expectations. You really do need some understanding of how things got the way they are and be able to afford to have a shit launch or public beta (these have become very popular for a reason, easy to fuck up bad in and fix it without tanking player approval), and be able to figure out fixing thing from there because even Capcom spent decades fumbling balance on release each street fighter, you just have to be able to nail doing something fun that's core to your game and works, because polarizing universal mechanics is literally the thing Capcom changes out each new street fighter because those are just par for the genre. 2 had throws, fireballs, and push back like they would never do again, 3 had a cast reset and two button throws and eventually parries, the alpha series all have their own unique to them meter system, like if you don't have some love it or hate it mechanic no one will talk about your game, figuring out if it's actually too strong or just hoes mad because they don't like it is honestly the hardest part tbh.
Because Arcade Sales are the majority of Fighting Games profit. It's part of the reason they still have Arcades. Like a good majority of "Why does this still exist?" Is because in Japan Arcades still exist. If Arcades were DEAD in Japan we'd probably have a completely different landscape for competitive games.
This is a largely significant factor. You'll notice, most action RPGs and FPS games are produced here in the West and very few Eastern devs touch those; likely for the same kinds of logisitic reasons; the availability of really good engines/tools for production.
Arcades do help JP fighting games, but they aren't really the primary income source anymore. I think it's just because Japanese gaming culture promotes quick, easy to hop into games. That's why Japan is also really prolific when it comes to shoot'em ups, gachas and rhythm games.
Arcades in japan are mostly used by rhythm junkes. Its been that way for about 10 years. Found an arcade I didnt know about the other day and was happy to see a UNIEL (I've yet to see a UNIST version) cabinet - but no one playing anything but rhythm despite the 20 fighting games there. It was the same in 2016 - even with my favorite spot having a Tekken 7 cabinet with LAN. This was before the console release, but the machine was always free. Luckily, when I hopped on, I did get a LAN challenge, so someone was playing somewhere. But the most popular NON-rhythm was certainly the Gundam arena fighting game. Its still played these days and I'm not sure why. Dissidia was popular too in 2016, though that was an arcade we never got. I think theres a stripped down port on Steam, but it has weird patches
Having been to Japan, arcades are still around. But fighting games are a minority in them, even in Akihabara. Right now the hottest game is Gundam Overboost, which is a Virtual on style arena fighting game (it's pretty awesome actually) and after that it's Rhythm games and Claw machine games. Even if you go to Round one, which they have in cities in US, RARELY are people on the cabs, they are playing literally everything else
I feel like by the time Xbox exclusivity ended it was too late. I grabbed it off steam and was impressed it was actually every bit as good and then some as Max D00d was hyping it up to be. But alas, Mortal Kombat hasn't been good in nearly a decade, but holy hell did it hit a peak with X.
In the 90s, the fighting game market was equal parts japanese and western, but the thing is MK and Killer Instinct are probably the only two franchises who developed an unique identity and gameplay to stand the test of time
@@Evilbadguy-d3g mk lore, blood, it played different than SF and other Japanese games that came out.digitL GRAPHICS FOR THE 1ST MK. KILLER INSTIC COMBO SYSTEM AND COMBO BREAKER. KT WAS COMBO FOCUS. OTHER GAMES WAS NOT DOING THAT
As a guy who plays around with game development. I would say fighting games from a game dev perspective is incredibly niche. I don’t know of any real information about how one would go about designing one. And they are very very time consuming to make. Blazing Strike, an Indie game, took years to complete. And it’s just now coming out despite being announced years ago. The concept of the modern fighting game (meaning from SF1 and onwards) came from Japan. Early designers and developers have been in the industry for decades. And generally they move between companies very often. There is just a lot of expertise in Japan. And they made the highest quality games. Western FG design was much less inspired. In the 90s games were made for really fast cash grabs. That is why lots of western arcade FGs are barely remembered. And on console the quality was even worse. However in the West experise fighting game designers do go between different companies. There are just a lot less of them than there are in Japan. Guys who made KI and MK have been in the industry since the 90s. In Japan fighting games are still a fairly popular genre. In America is far more niche. While SF6 is popular it doesn’t hold a candle to Fortnite or League Of Legends. So the TL;DR. There is a lot of institutional knowledge from fighting game design being circulated in very small groups. Newer devs really don’t have the knowledge or resources to make fighting games. And they are difficult to make.
Also people are just unwilling to venture out to a new IP when it comes to fighting. If you're invested in a game, learning a new fighting game can be daunting. People don't realize that the presentation is super important for fighting games (especially new franchises). You have to hit on all cylinders in order for the game to hit. *Great character designs *Character balance *Beautiful settings *MODES!!! *Interesting move sets *Intuitive mechanics *Immersive soundtrack *HYPE!!! Fighting games are more prone to be dead on arrival. Mess up a majority of these and people will rarely care. Many fighters are coming out, but they are a waste of potential.
Fortnite and League Of Legends are both free games though so that removes the barrier to entry. 2XKO is going to be free (fighting game version of League of Legends) and with their tag style way of playing, there can be up to 4 players at a time, so you can have teams. I think it's going to be the first fighting game to be at least close to the level of popularity that FPS and Battle Royale games like COD, Fortnite, Apex Legends, Overwatch and CS:GO get.
Seriously though, when you look at games in the 90s vs now, the shift in genre balance really did seem to move toward FPS in the west (really just US and UK) once the 2nd analog stick came around. Chasing Doom and 007 seemed to be all that mattered, outside of 3D platforming (this is dead now, but was a huge phase- oddly bigger in the west than east )
UFC has no frame data and stuff. There is a bit of a neutral in the sense of 3d fighters like Tekken, DOA and VF like you can try play small in a sense. At the same time it’s completely Rng cause you can get get knocked out in one hit and stuff like that so I wouldn’t consider it a traditional fighter. There’s no sense of balancing imo.
@@Havokerino I Will argue that these types of games are called more into fisical simulations. In real Life, fighting is 70 % prep to fight 20 % match Up 10 % skill. There are some games and the thing you aspire is to get good well position hits that destroy or your oponents leggs to then get a good hit. There are interesting games that are a lot of fisics based. Some interesting are bushido blade, Hellish Quartz (a simulator of HEMA, like the old art of killimg each other with Blades and stun weapons), there is another based in boxing that you must do dodgees and get good hits being very fisics based Hajime no Ippo 2 Victorius Road.
@@pepe2011pley Technically, they ARE fighting games because there's fighting in them in the literal sense of the word. But what i've heard stated that characterizes games like Fight Night and UFC very well is "combat simulators". We can also just call them MMA/Boxing games.
@@markmessi9020He mentioned them in the video, but another one he didn't mention was Lethal League Blaze. East tends to make more traditional, martial arts (with a dash of Anime) fighting games. West tends to make "slippery slope" fighting games.
I know people don’t want to hear this, but IMO it’s because the majority of Western developers don’t have the skills or knowledge to create “good” fighting games especially traditional ones. There’s a reason why fighting are a rarity outside of Japan. Why did Microsoft apparently approach Namco Bandai awhile back for the rumored Killer Instinct sequel out of all the developers for example? Fighting games are extremely difficult to make, especially 3D fighting games so most developers in general avoid them. Can someone explain to me why Tekken 8 is he only recent 3D fighting game available now? Isn’t that a wide open market? They are pretty niche as well, so many probably feel it’s not worth the time and effort compared to other genres that typically make more money for them.
The fact that the 3D fighter market is wide open is its own detriment. It means that the skills you learn from 3D fighters are less transferable to other games. Whereas I can pick up almost any 2D fighter and transfer a massive portion of what I learned to another 2D fighter.
3:30 I think ufc and games similar count as fighting sims Even if they are unrealistic in some ways they usually try to replicate actual combat sports instead of embracing fighting game culture
I've been trying to make my own 3D fighting game since 2011 called GigaMaidens. Gamedev is fucking hard even when you know what you're doing, and I do not. My road has been fraught with hurdles, finance trouble and development pauses. Programming is a nightmare, finding and keeping reliable long term help is a nightmare, acquiring funding is a nightmare. And I don't have the money to pay freelancers on my own. All I really know how to do is the art & models, and even that's tough. If you want to know why we don't make fighting games, the answer is simple: it's too hard. People have different waffle about fighting games "being too niche and unprofitable" but that's not the main problem, the main problem is just that making them is too difficult. I haven't given up though.
Its not like anyone else in the east is making them, just Japan. The country literally created the boom for them 30 years ago and continued catering towards it far longer when home consoles and pc gaming got popular * Basically more people want them there * A lot of them are just labors of love rather than fully finance driven, and like you mentioned fighting games are super hard to make lol. No wonder 1 dlc character takes 1/4th a year to make for a WHOLE team these days
"It's because shooters dominate the gaming scene in the USA, and fighting games just aren't as easy to monetize. At least, that's my theory. Plus, the last truly great fighting game needs to make a comeback the Def Jam series, specifically Def Jam: Fight for NY. That game was the perfect blueprint for modern fighting games: easy to pick up and play but hard to master. It didn’t overwhelm you with long combo lists or complicated mechanics it kept things simple and didn’t need all that extra stuff."
The main reason for why Western Fighting Games aren't as big mainly stems from the audience. Most Companies in the west mainly invest their money into live-service FPS because it's the most popular types of games there. While in Japan, Fighting Games are very popular which is why there's a bigger demand there than any other.
you’re curious why they don’t have alot we have to make sure we don’t copy we can base them off of characters but we wouldn’t be able to mimic their moveset or title
You’re one of the few smart one…American white men make most games that come from USA and American white men are mostly into war strategy fps medieval middle earth dungeons n dragons shit.
@InTheKitchenWristStirFry it's not a tough question to me lol The developers make games based on what they like. And American white men just so happen to love guns,middle earth shit.
I think what makes something a fighting game is how stylized it is in its art direction whether that be with graphics or costumes and also how stylized it is with its physics.
i see what you're saying lol... but if you can describe the game with "its a game where you fight another player"...y'know, it becomes hard to deny that its ... a fighting game.... it may not be a "traditional" fighting game 😏
@@mclemonnSo would this make GTA Online a fighting game? Because you can 1v1 another player with fists. Well no it's not, but definitely a funny thought.
Fighting games aren't hard to make. No scratch that, that sounded too disrespectful. What I mean is that they're not RESOURCE INTENSIVE to make. Very small dev studios like Mane6 (Thems fighting herds) and Lab Zero (Skull girls) can put out titles that rival major dev studios in quality with a fraction of their budgets. But can a small dev studio make an open world title with the same fidelity of a Rock star Games Title? Absolutely not.
I feel like an indie studio can make games that compare to rocksteady. It won't be realistic graphics. It'd have to use an art style, probably a smaller map as well. But if we're being honest those are probably upgrades.
My brother in Christ, fighting games are probably the hardest to make (if networked). FGs and RTS games both depend on determinism and that is difficult and non native in commercial engines and needs to be done by scratch. Take it from a dev:(
Fighting games are SUPER hard to make. They are equally hard to "dress" (Graphics, artstyle, environment) than other games but need less dressing to work, so they can reduce costs by cutting the total number of assets: by using less and smaller maps, art styles with less fidelity requirements and the minimum possible props, there is a significant reduction of work and costs. But on the other hand, fighting games require extremely complex gameplay, with hundreds and hundreds of interactions that need to be precise to a single pixel and a single frame, with specific outcomes that can't be just calculated on the fly by the machine, but have to be specifically predefined on the gameplay level of the design. A single fighting game character has more interactions and animations than almost any FPS protagonist, including their story and enemy specific sequences, and fighting games never have one, two or five playable characters... they normally have 15 as a minimum (30+ is a very common number currently). And all of them interact against each other, frame to frame. Fighting games are MAD HARD to make.
@@Sy-The-Wolf The only reason it's not native to to commercial engines is simple: BILLIONS have been poured into making FPS and Open World Games and the engines cater to this since the majority are designed by Western FPS/ Open World devs. Even Japanese companies, when they make engines, make engines for Open World Games (Square Enix: Crystal Engine, Konami: Fox Engine) because of the intense amount of resources (textures, meshes, environments, psychics...etc) required to make them. Not saying it's not difficult but Mike Zaimont designed a fighting game engine in his spare time so what's preventing Epic Games, EA, Ubisoft or any of the big publishers with hundreds of millions in revenue from doing the same? Simple: They don't care about fighting games. Not saying that's a bad or a good thing. No one wonders why Japan doesn't make lots of FPS games, either. It's just what it is. SNK and Capcom in the 90s were putting out multiple fighting games a year cause they had the assets and the engine figured out and streamlined their production. SNK was even putting out yearly releases ala COD and FIFA but those days are over. Without the Arcade market to support it, Fighting games are too niche for risk-averse publishers to try it.
They may not be "resource intensive" but they however require an immense amount of talent and a fundamental understanding of how fighting games work at their core to even begin to make a half competent FG game. The difficult part of creating a FG is entirely different from what makes something like RDR2 hard to make.
I think it is easier for a japanese company to understand the market, mechanics and nature of a fighting game, therefore they are way more inclined to create them. Martial arts are much closer to the traditions and daily life in Japan than in the west. On the other hand, the USA just love guns too much (see Squirrel with a Gun as an example! XD).
Indie devs in the west are filling that void when it comes to fighting games but because they're indie they don't get as much publicity or budget to maintain development for a long period of time. Meanwhile big western companies are mostly interested in team based shooters or AAA cinematic games because those are very hot genres right now, while fighting games have always been niche and probably not as profitable for those big companies.
In general, video games have been demonized constantly in the west thanks to the media. That is and always has been the biggest roadblock to making any forms of media here
yeah its the same with anime and manga. However people have been catching up to it specially with the comic book industry going downhill. anime and mangas are becomig more normalized little by little.
Well, I know Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat are US-Developed... I think it's a different perspective on it. That said, most of the good fighting game engines are japanese in nature and so it lends itself to a self-eating snake kind of thing. I'd really love to produce a few!
The TH-camr Electric Underground has a great topic on the shmup equivalent: the Euroshmup. It’s not strictly Europeans, but it definitely started with them making some pretty horrible shmups, because they had none of the infrastructure or experience with the granular, iterative design of arcade games. There are western fighting games, but they are pretty bad and so they gain zero traction. Of course that is always subject to change, and it’s definitely been changing within the shmup scene, but that trend is definitely the precedent. Great video though, I’m glad you got into fighting games. I also got into them somewhat recently, and I’ve been having wayyy too much fun haha. The old games are really fun too
I truly think that the west when it comes to fighting games They don’t do 6 things 1.Put their heart and soul into in the game 2.Actually make the game both look and feel entertaining 3.Listen to the players of the fighting game community 4.Release the game as a finished product 5.Bad marketing 6.Not releasing a beta or demo These six things are usually why the west don’t excel when it comes to fighting games There’s more reasons but I‘ll say these alone are normally why they aren’t normally made as much by the west They also don’t look appealing as well and do poorly The game at launch feels and plays sluggish also usually looks boring to play It’s sad for the west but it’s something we have to realize that the west focuses more on making money rather than making masterpieces
@@jayfirson13 Yea I’ve seen this from the west a lot as a fighting game player and an action RPG fan the east and among others have produced masterpieces outside the west while some of what the west makes feel bland or generic
@@Zaiberu_xay I mean...everything. I agree with everything you said. It just so happens that modern Mortal Kombat is *_THE_* example of everything you talked about. To the point that I'm surprised you're still repping it. That's all I'm saying. Then again, that's not to say Western Devs _can't_ make fighting games. Modern Killer Instinct was great, Skullgirls was great, and 2XKO seems to be shaping up to be pretty good. So I guess we'll see 🤷♂️
I feel like it could be because most popular games came from Japan back in the arcade. I think the reason why you don't get a lot of big new ips is because of how grounded in the arcades they were which are now dead, so western developers might not see the point? I don't know though
how to get people into fighting games = How to get kids to want to teach them selves math and science. Fighting games are kind of an ego shattering genre of game, so it's hard to expect people to pay money to get beat up for like 3 month before they start really getting it. Even though games like league are way harder to learn and play, it doesn't feel as bad to lose in those games. FG's are a straight punch to the face, only certain people will fight back after the adrenaline where's off.
@@Havokerino i think the hardest part of a new fighting game is the frame-cancels. Because you have to rotate the joystick 360° then gonna push the buttons. Most People don't even know what frame-cancels are. Even a knowledge on "hitbox" would be an alien concept for them.😅. It would be easier if fighting games invest time on good tutorials for gamers.
And you have to spend time learning before you actually can play the game. Games that involve teams are easier on you because you can be carried to wins. Fighting games is 1v1. You get your butt whooped until you learn what to do to stop it and return the favor. It's all on you.
thats one thing i think why it might not do crazy good is because i dont think it will have a lot of single player content but who knows maybe they will do something cool. league characters have always had really good lore i mean look at arcane
@@ThaClipKeepahwhy are they at evo? Why do fundamentals transfer over ? Why are there mixups, 50/50, wakeups, meatys. The genre is literally called platform fighter lol
@@tedjomuljono3052 mario kart was there one year in 2006 as a fun side event. Please stop being disingenuous lmao. And you ignored everything else I named. How about you show me neutral, a combo game, and wakeups in Mario kart. Then after that show me where mario kart is categorized as a fighter. This is an argument that mostly comes from internet randoms.
Most if not all East Asian players pay extreme attention to the 「hit feedback」in all action games (including fighting games of course), which consist multiple effects on visual and sound, e.g the deform and knockback animations, slowdown, hitting sound, etc. All of these contributed to make the hits feels great and satisfying. Capcom is universally praised for doing exceptionally great on this discipline and lay down the foundation for their success in various action game genres. Others like Arc system works, Namco and SNK also pay great attention to this, and together they formed the general rule of thumb about how fighting games would feel right One important reason games like MK and KI never took off in the East, is that these games are not paying enough attention to the「hit feedback」know-how that those gamers are cherishing so much for decades, and with the other half of the world doesn’t enjoying these games, that explains why the West cannot makefighting games within a similar budget
You can look up to the Skullgirls animation seminar on GDC, the presenter proudly admitted Street Fighter 3rd Strike was one of her major reference sources to make her own animation.
Any smash lite isnt really seen as a fighting game to most.( its seen as and labled as a family game) IP recognition is a really big one just look at dungeon fighter online's fighting game, if the game or ip isnt recognized it can die and quick. The dev can give the game a breathe of life but theyll have to be "all hands on deck" to ensure it dosent die on arrival. Fighting games take more effort in more both ways of the consumer and dev, but if the consumer gotta learn something in a new field that they aren't familiar with they're more apped to leave thats why we have "M" and "D" controls in newer games to try and make the crash course smoother but being bad and having to grow in it is like looking at the complaints of a souls like game.
off the cuff, - less arcade scene, yeah - japan being a smaller country with a denser population & more infrastructure -> online play has been more reliable this entire time for them. rollback kind of caused this latest renaissance, elsewhere. anyone who's tried to play networked games outside of a major city or suburb can attest that it's often just, not an option with delay-based netcode - gaming is more of a social hobby, as an experience it is commonly shared with your friends. often directly, hence the... again... arcade machines ... that support multiplayer/cab interconnectivity. a bit less emphasis on non-networked, single player games that don't invite conversation/discussion w/ your friends around there - speaking from experience i don't think they're any harder to make on their own merit than any game of any other given genre. in numerous ways they're easier, even - the american game industry is run + its decisions are generally made by executives and investors, so new US-based fighting games are pretty much always passionate indie efforts because the big boys are, as ever, chasing fifa and fortnite money. the only "big" US fighting games one can think of today are probably mortal kombat, which subsists on prestige, and injustice, on recognition, and they're done by the same people - traditional fighting games are, put bluntly, unintuitive. there is more upstart to the learning process. smash is arguably the most intuitive fighting game franchise at the casual surface level- generally, if it looks like it hits, it does, and you're less concerned about combos than landing stray heavy hits that launch someone off the screen - immediately understandable win terms. you have a block button, no lengthy history of command inputs, and all the characters are recognizable and their attacks/abilities pretty much always have easy-to-understand properties- no fiddling about with high or low invincibility, blocking, any of that, which is why pretty much anyone can pick up the controller and get a sense for how to do the thing within 20 minutes. meanwhile, a sf newcomer historically would exclusively eat shit for their first 20+ hours anyway, thanks for the video & the discussion. cheers
First, I wanna say that this is a really good video and I agree pretty much 100% with what you had to say. Personally, I feel like the biggest thing about it is the social factor. FGC boomers always talk about how they got together in some dude's garage and setup tournaments and casuals just so they could dick around and hang out. I didn't live the arcade era, but I heard that a big driver for revenue at the time was arcades holding events to get people with quarters in the door and them sell them food and drinks. Nowadays, looking at the conditions within the U.S., the conditions have changed a lot. Nowadays, the world is changing a lot, and as "esports" are on the decline, it seems like fighting games are picking a lot of steam. EVO has grown year over year, and at least in my area, the local tournament is growing to a regional, two-day tournament. I think we should still consider that the west's population is a lot smaller than that of Asia, so we might do some things at a slower pace, and our environments are totally different. That being said, I think that if we stick to our guns (supporting the local scene), we can only go up. Strength is in numbers and people, so with the next generation of fighting games on the horizon, let's strive to make our scene as good as possible. I'll remind you that 2xko started as a no-name indie game whose studio got bought out by Riot. The U.S. can make total powerhouse industry-dominating games. League of Legends, COD, Counter Strike, World of Warcraft and Starcraft- all of these games are by American companies. If we play strategically to our strengths, we will reap great rewards in ten years' time. In conclusion, I think that if you want to help the likelihood of more fighting games in the world, your best bet is to support your local scene. Unlike other gaming circles, the strength of the FGC comes from the roots. Every last community member, be they a T.O., influencer, commentator, or 0-2er, started their FGC journey by just showing up. All you need to do is show up. Let's do it!
The US is a lot bigger than Japan, Korea, Singapore and Thailand combined, which is where most, if not all of the of the major Eastern tournaments take place. I dont think any major tournaments take place in China, Russia or Mongolia, so we cant count them. America's doing fine as far as numbers. The issue has always been how BIG the country is, which makes it harder for people to make the tournaments as far as money and travel is concerned.
To be fair to the west, I’m pretty sure all of the major fighting games are produced by different companies or individual devs, where as all of the major fighting games, at least the ones in the thumbnail, from Japan are made by like the same 4 companies, so at least there’s diversity in the west that way.
Firstly, fighting games should be MORE than just niche…. And secondly, it would be more interesting to see many triple A companies trying their hardest on making a fighting game, like makings a God of War fighting game, an Assassin’s Creed fighter, and much more!!!!
love this type of videos bro! also on a side note, i did NOTknow that was why you stopped playing ranked, i'm sorry for asking you EVERY time i join your live lmfaoo
Killer Instinct was originally developed by Rare, a western developer team. And why is that surprising? Lots of western developers gave us great games during the 80s and 90s, you'd no idea where to start. And yet Killer Instinct remains the only freestyle combo fighting game, unrivaled by others in what it does. No wonder when it was designed to compete directly with Mortal Kombat and nothing else.
Good discussion. Few things just to add on. -The entire arcade genre(shoot em ups, beat em ups, Run N Guns etc ) as a whole primarily comes from Japan. -Culture is also another primary factor. To simply my example with a question, why do shooting games mainly come from the west? Great video, question for you tho, as a new age FGC gamer, what about fighting games keeps you engaged ? Also, any interest in any of the retro fighting game collections? I’m really curious what you would think of them compared to the new fighting games. Nice video man
Last ufc i played was undisputed 3, I never learned frame data, there probably was frame data but, for me it was more of a game you felt, theres a stamina/injury/fatigue system so overtime your fighter just does worst and worst. Your not really concerned with frames but more so about not getting rocked (hit critically) or ko'ed Getting rocked opens up everything for your opponent whether that be better ground control, standing clinch, submissions and premature stoppages. Also yes for honor is a Fighting I mained it before sf6 dropped. Also I play fighting games, im addicted to Tekken
the #1 reason why fighting game are hard to make is the balancing aspect of the making it, the dev need to make all character have the same chance to win a match and how do you do know if the roster balance are the match up. Take example if there 15 base roster then there is around 225 match up you need to run with and that the bare minimum which impossible
funny, I actually don't play team games because if I win I just feel like my team carried me, and if I lose I feel like it was my fault that the whole team lost. I'd much rather not affect other people's enjoyment as much, so 1v1 is my type of game.
>"fighting game doesnt have singleplayer content" >Granblue Versus Rising has Beat Em Up singleplayer mode with new stuff added with every major updates >the game also have Fall Guys mode that is also being updated >made by Arc System Works (Guilty Gear devs)
expand your vocabulary so you need not constantly reach for an approximation of what you mean, you can just have a handy word that is more precise and fitting.
@@TheTomac thank you sir idk if writing a script would help too but i was just talking off the dome in this video but expanding my vocabulary is a must if want to do more videos like this
@@Havokerino be warned, it will make simpletons think you are some kind of effete pseudointellectual just for knowing and using multisyllabic terminology, heh
I think it's mostly different culture. Japan was big on arcade. The west, mostly the US, is big on fps. Supply and demand and all that shenanigans. Even in Japan, the number of games is decreasing. More and more legacy titles not getting continuation, let alone a whole new original game.
You have other American games (other than MK and KI), but they're just not well known. Like Thems Fighting Herds and Skullgirls. And 2XKO is on the way. That game will be free to play, so it's going to be a major game changer in fighting games imo.
Mainly cause back in the day, those western fighters was made by the western branches of Japanese companies, Eternal Champions did so well being an MK competitor that Sega Japan legit shut that shit on Sega America making a sequel cause they feared the lost of money that Virtua Fighter could of got. Fighting games just now became AAA products aka made for the console/PC. It took the pandemic for devs to make the online playable, we finally got good single player modes back since the ps2 era fighting games, which they had to force that back then to get players off the arcades cause they just play for cheaper.
Try Brawlhalla it's more floaty and emphasizes on using dodges and movement for defense. Rivals is less floaty and has many more movement options and character variety, using very potent defence with the parry mechanic which leads to hard punishes. Rivals definitely has more replayability because of how much you are able to learn on each individual character. Brawlhalla is much more straightforward and is essentially a platform fighter stripped down to its basics, which isn't a bad thing. You will find matches much faster in brawlhalla
Fighting games are very, intensive, arcade style games. In the west, arcade culture died too earlier compared to Japan, so there is way less know how about fighting game design in western devs, so the game design here tends to be more focused into cinematic and simulaic design concepts. But we're getting more devs, i think
For the most part, the Western made fighting games are a minority because of the lack of the arcade scene I feel. But also going through the indie scene is where you find more Western fighting games compared to the Western Arcade scene. But they'll never be as AAA because fighting games are incredibly niche and don't make as much profit as a non fighting game most of the time and many Western companies are "this must make a ton of money" to even want to put any attention on it.
I think they're gonna come back better than ever. People are begging for more genuine skill based experiences, just gotta push them away from the needing a team to blame mentality and everything. It's the same for action games, rpg mechanics are diluting everything and making the genre dull, we need some real deal fighting to come back.
I think because in the 90's mortal kombat clone didn't get enough fans, so the fighting game that evolved from the mortal kombat system didn't have any successors
Cause they are made by NRS and they are known for Mortal kombat, also because of nrs game cycle, there is a new one every 2 -3 years, it's been 7 years since injustice 2 came out, it basically been forgotten... till the next one
Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat is fictional fighter since day one. The complaint that non of these fighters are unrealistic is pointless asf! It's a critique that I never toke seriously, cuz why complain about something that you should already what that fighter is about? Example: "Super Smash Bro is unrealistic 🤓" I'm like, well now, you don't say! 😐
i dont belive that fighting games is hard to make after i saw one student made a fighting game called dong dong forever is it balance no but sure as hell looks fun
Maybe its because making a fighting game needs people who could understand the concept I mean most of the games I can think of in the west are just shooting, rpg, and etc. You got a lot of talent in japan since fighting games is just kinda a norm right?
Skull girl would do even better if added more there's a lot you cannot do after you get caught in a combo in that game so I think they should a break and one hit ko's like persona for that game to really shine stage changes would do good and honestly hype of they level 3s more it's a great game dont sell it short and same with battle of the grid tbh these are great fighting games they just didn't get no love and sometimes that's okay just Polish them and we fighting gamers come back you'll make your money bc unlike other gamers fighting game players just like good fighting games and good ideas sometimes we dont even care how it looks if the macnics are to good
I don't know, but at the same time, why doesn't Japan make FPS games? Or RTS? Or why is it that the trashiest free to play games are almost always korean or chinese? I guess each country/region is clearly more suited for some types of genres.
If they pick up fighting games they will make them so boring. Everyone will look cheesy and boring and not sexy or cool like skull girls or gg strive. They just aren’t allowed. Like imagine a western game developer making a character like cammy in 2025. It wouldnt go through everything will look like concord and honestly no one in fgc wants to play only body positive characters.
10:39 Point of total bullshit incoming. Japanese game market is just as marketing driven as is the western market. Developers from Japan also have to live and money makes them so. They do not just develop games because out of pure fun. Nintendo and Sony are into marketing shares like every other company around the world. Good luck with your delusion to think otherwise.
Fighting Game Dev here: Fighting games aren't hard just for the skill it takes to make them, but also you have to understand fighting games at a fundamental level to make something that feels really good. Almost nothing strays too much from SF II, so you need to know how things interact, but also many different concepts and vocabulary to avoid situations where your game is dominated by one tech because you didn't know about it, and then didn't balance your game around it.
Overall, fighting games are an extremely rewarding experience for indie game devs, but not for big companies (at least in the west), and that's why I think you see a much bigger disparity of popular AAA fighting games vs indie fighting games, because the return is too low and the risk is too high.
shout out to my fellow indie fg game devs, please go look at a few of them, they all have great ideas and characters
Any suggestions or references for a dev who wants to develop a fighting game?
Yeah otherwise your games will take like 100 years to make ahem Project L ahem.
@@NoxLegend1better than they rushing it. They are still new to fighting game, so I can give them some slack. Game not for me tho, so what do I know 😂.
Yah, about that, things have iterated pretty far from what even super turbo codified (let alone world warrior), like 20 some years of iterating on the same core concepts (and a couple others added for various sub genres along the way like air dashers and 3d games), like what is expected from the minimum mechanics you have has crept up quite a bit, stuff like a second resource meter and/or ex moves (or at least an alternative way to spend the super meter) has become pretty expected i. the last decade. So like a modern era game as "bare bores" as st would be a rough sell in the modern market. Like the bar for having a competitive game in this market is a lot higher than when sf2 and all it's often cash grabby clones where around, most of them were terrible licensed tie in games but almost all of them ended up underselling expectations. You really do need some understanding of how things got the way they are and be able to afford to have a shit launch or public beta (these have become very popular for a reason, easy to fuck up bad in and fix it without tanking player approval), and be able to figure out fixing thing from there because even Capcom spent decades fumbling balance on release each street fighter, you just have to be able to nail doing something fun that's core to your game and works, because polarizing universal mechanics is literally the thing Capcom changes out each new street fighter because those are just par for the genre. 2 had throws, fireballs, and push back like they would never do again, 3 had a cast reset and two button throws and eventually parries, the alpha series all have their own unique to them meter system, like if you don't have some love it or hate it mechanic no one will talk about your game, figuring out if it's actually too strong or just hoes mad because they don't like it is honestly the hardest part tbh.
@@theprismaticsystem2833 spit 🔥
Watching this while planning for my fighting game
Fr! >o
Because Arcade Sales are the majority of Fighting Games profit. It's part of the reason they still have Arcades. Like a good majority of "Why does this still exist?" Is because in Japan Arcades still exist. If Arcades were DEAD in Japan we'd probably have a completely different landscape for competitive games.
This is a largely significant factor.
You'll notice, most action RPGs and FPS games are produced here in the West and very few Eastern devs touch those; likely for the same kinds of logisitic reasons; the availability of really good engines/tools for production.
Nice pfp
Arcades do help JP fighting games, but they aren't really the primary income source anymore. I think it's just because Japanese gaming culture promotes quick, easy to hop into games. That's why Japan is also really prolific when it comes to shoot'em ups, gachas and rhythm games.
Arcades in japan are mostly used by rhythm junkes. Its been that way for about 10 years. Found an arcade I didnt know about the other day and was happy to see a UNIEL (I've yet to see a UNIST version) cabinet - but no one playing anything but rhythm despite the 20 fighting games there. It was the same in 2016 - even with my favorite spot having a Tekken 7 cabinet with LAN. This was before the console release, but the machine was always free. Luckily, when I hopped on, I did get a LAN challenge, so someone was playing somewhere.
But the most popular NON-rhythm was certainly the Gundam arena fighting game. Its still played these days and I'm not sure why. Dissidia was popular too in 2016, though that was an arcade we never got. I think theres a stripped down port on Steam, but it has weird patches
Having been to Japan, arcades are still around. But fighting games are a minority in them, even in Akihabara. Right now the hottest game is Gundam Overboost, which is a Virtual on style arena fighting game (it's pretty awesome actually) and after that it's Rhythm games and Claw machine games. Even if you go to Round one, which they have in cities in US, RARELY are people on the cabs, they are playing literally everything else
Mortal Kombat is like the only fighting game franchise made in the west that lasted the longest. Killer Instinct is underrated.
I never knew killer instinct was western
Boxing and UFC
@@bokc_nonpopularsalt1011 not those type of fighting games
Killer Instinct has the ability to be the best selling western fighting game it’s just Microsoft is too fucking lazy to make KI a whole franchise.
I feel like by the time Xbox exclusivity ended it was too late. I grabbed it off steam and was impressed it was actually every bit as good and then some as Max D00d was hyping it up to be.
But alas, Mortal Kombat hasn't been good in nearly a decade, but holy hell did it hit a peak with X.
In the 90s, the fighting game market was equal parts japanese and western, but the thing is MK and Killer Instinct are probably the only two franchises who developed an unique identity and gameplay to stand the test of time
Do u mind explaining what makes the two franchises unique identity and gameplay?🤔
@@Evilbadguy-d3g mk lore, blood, it played different than SF and other Japanese games that came out.digitL GRAPHICS FOR THE 1ST MK. KILLER INSTIC COMBO SYSTEM AND COMBO BREAKER. KT WAS COMBO FOCUS. OTHER GAMES WAS NOT DOING THAT
As a guy who plays around with game development. I would say fighting games from a game dev perspective is incredibly niche. I don’t know of any real information about how one would go about designing one. And they are very very time consuming to make. Blazing Strike, an Indie game, took years to complete. And it’s just now coming out despite being announced years ago.
The concept of the modern fighting game (meaning from SF1 and onwards) came from Japan. Early designers and developers have been in the industry for decades. And generally they move between companies very often. There is just a lot of expertise in Japan. And they made the highest quality games.
Western FG design was much less inspired. In the 90s games were made for really fast cash grabs. That is why lots of western arcade FGs are barely remembered. And on console the quality was even worse.
However in the West experise fighting game designers do go between different companies. There are just a lot less of them than there are in Japan. Guys who made KI and MK have been in the industry since the 90s.
In Japan fighting games are still a fairly popular genre. In America is far more niche. While SF6 is popular it doesn’t hold a candle to Fortnite or League Of Legends.
So the TL;DR. There is a lot of institutional knowledge from fighting game design being circulated in very small groups. Newer devs really don’t have the knowledge or resources to make fighting games. And they are difficult to make.
Also people are just unwilling to venture out to a new IP when it comes to fighting. If you're invested in a game, learning a new fighting game can be daunting. People don't realize that the presentation is super important for fighting games (especially new franchises). You have to hit on all cylinders in order for the game to hit.
*Great character designs
*Character balance
*Beautiful settings
*MODES!!!
*Interesting move sets
*Intuitive mechanics
*Immersive soundtrack
*HYPE!!!
Fighting games are more prone to be dead on arrival. Mess up a majority of these and people will rarely care. Many fighters are coming out, but they are a waste of potential.
Fortnite and League Of Legends are both free games though so that removes the barrier to entry. 2XKO is going to be free (fighting game version of League of Legends) and with their tag style way of playing, there can be up to 4 players at a time, so you can have teams. I think it's going to be the first fighting game to be at least close to the level of popularity that FPS and Battle Royale games like COD, Fortnite, Apex Legends, Overwatch and CS:GO get.
Blazing Strike taking so long is also a fault on the publisher
The arcade argument will always be popular, but I guarantee you its because PEW PEW PEW PEW
Seriously though, when you look at games in the 90s vs now, the shift in genre balance really did seem to move toward FPS in the west (really just US and UK) once the 2nd analog stick came around. Chasing Doom and 007 seemed to be all that mattered, outside of 3D platforming (this is dead now, but was a huge phase- oddly bigger in the west than east )
UFC has no frame data and stuff. There is a bit of a neutral in the sense of 3d fighters like Tekken, DOA and VF like you can try play small in a sense. At the same time it’s completely Rng cause you can get get knocked out in one hit and stuff like that so I wouldn’t consider it a traditional fighter. There’s no sense of balancing imo.
thank you for this! was wondering if anyone would that plays fighting games play ufc. really crazy that it really does have rng sounds like a mess
@@Havokerino I Will argue that these types of games are called more into fisical simulations. In real Life, fighting is 70 % prep to fight 20 % match Up 10 % skill. There are some games and the thing you aspire is to get good well position hits that destroy or your oponents leggs to then get a good hit. There are interesting games that are a lot of fisics based. Some interesting are bushido blade, Hellish Quartz (a simulator of HEMA, like the old art of killimg each other with Blades and stun weapons), there is another based in boxing that you must do dodgees and get good hits being very fisics based Hajime no Ippo 2 Victorius Road.
@@pepe2011pley Technically, they ARE fighting games because there's fighting in them in the literal sense of the word. But what i've heard stated that characterizes games like Fight Night and UFC very well is "combat simulators". We can also just call them MMA/Boxing games.
On the Japanese side you have 6 companies putting out fighting games and for the West you have....five.
True but I feel like the Japanese side they produce wayyyy more games. West also is mostly indie companies except for maybe riot and nether realm
More than 6
What are the five western games? I only know Mortal Kombat
@@markmessi9020He mentioned them in the video, but another one he didn't mention was Lethal League Blaze.
East tends to make more traditional, martial arts (with a dash of Anime) fighting games. West tends to make "slippery slope" fighting games.
They also have a round table conference.
Because Americans like FPS games more
Kojima said it best
America = Shoot, shoot.
Japan = Punch, punch.
I know people don’t want to hear this, but IMO it’s because the majority of Western developers don’t have the skills or knowledge to create “good” fighting games especially traditional ones. There’s a reason why fighting are a rarity outside of Japan. Why did Microsoft apparently approach Namco Bandai awhile back for the rumored Killer Instinct sequel out of all the developers for example?
Fighting games are extremely difficult to make, especially 3D fighting games so most developers in general avoid them. Can someone explain to me why Tekken 8 is he only recent 3D fighting game available now? Isn’t that a wide open market? They are pretty niche as well, so many probably feel it’s not worth the time and effort compared to other genres that typically make more money for them.
The fact that the 3D fighter market is wide open is its own detriment. It means that the skills you learn from 3D fighters are less transferable to other games. Whereas I can pick up almost any 2D fighter and transfer a massive portion of what I learned to another 2D fighter.
3:30 I think ufc and games similar count as fighting sims
Even if they are unrealistic in some ways they usually try to replicate actual combat sports instead of embracing fighting game culture
WWE games are in this bucket
oo fighting sims is a good way to describe them
@@Havokerino think of Street fighter as Mario kart and UFC as Forza
really good topic, its def gotta be the money and the uncertainty on returns and whatnot
it has to be the one of the main factors. im glad you think its an interesting topic too!
I've been trying to make my own 3D fighting game since 2011 called GigaMaidens. Gamedev is fucking hard even when you know what you're doing, and I do not. My road has been fraught with hurdles, finance trouble and development pauses. Programming is a nightmare, finding and keeping reliable long term help is a nightmare, acquiring funding is a nightmare. And I don't have the money to pay freelancers on my own. All I really know how to do is the art & models, and even that's tough. If you want to know why we don't make fighting games, the answer is simple: it's too hard. People have different waffle about fighting games "being too niche and unprofitable" but that's not the main problem, the main problem is just that making them is too difficult.
I haven't given up though.
How's progress going? I'll subscribe if it helps anything
Its not like anyone else in the east is making them, just Japan. The country literally created the boom for them 30 years ago and continued catering towards it far longer when home consoles and pc gaming got popular
* Basically more people want them there
* A lot of them are just labors of love rather than fully finance driven, and like you mentioned fighting games are super hard to make lol.
No wonder 1 dlc character takes 1/4th a year to make for a WHOLE team these days
i shouldve mentioned that!
Taiwan and South Korea joined the chat
"It's because shooters dominate the gaming scene in the USA, and fighting games just aren't as easy to monetize. At least, that's my theory. Plus, the last truly great fighting game needs to make a comeback the Def Jam series, specifically Def Jam: Fight for NY. That game was the perfect blueprint for modern fighting games: easy to pick up and play but hard to master. It didn’t overwhelm you with long combo lists or complicated mechanics it kept things simple and didn’t need all that extra stuff."
Def Jam Fight For NY was PEAK. Was sooo disappointed at Icon.
The main reason for why Western Fighting Games aren't as big mainly stems from the audience.
Most Companies in the west mainly invest their money into live-service FPS because it's the most popular types of games there. While in Japan, Fighting Games are very popular which is why there's a bigger demand there than any other.
you’re curious why they don’t have alot we have to make sure we don’t copy we can base them off of characters but we wouldn’t be able to mimic their moveset or title
Probably the same answer as Why japanese doesn't makes RTS games.
You’re one of the few smart one…American white men make most games that come from USA and American white men are mostly into war strategy fps medieval middle earth dungeons n dragons shit.
@@sadetwizelve 🤔
@InTheKitchenWristStirFry it's not a tough question to me lol The developers make games based on what they like. And American white men just so happen to love guns,middle earth shit.
@@sadetwizelveracist
UFC isn’t a fighting game it’s a sports game that has fighting
Its like an EA game taking the form that is as close as they can get to fighting games ig
I think what makes something a fighting game is how stylized it is in its art direction whether that be with graphics or costumes and also how stylized it is with its physics.
i see what you're saying lol... but if you can describe the game with "its a game where you fight another player"...y'know, it becomes hard to deny that its ... a fighting game....
it may not be a "traditional" fighting game 😏
@@mclemonnSo would this make GTA Online a fighting game? Because you can 1v1 another player with fists.
Well no it's not, but definitely a funny thought.
A better way to put it that i've heard was that it is a combat sports simulator
Fighting games aren't hard to make.
No scratch that, that sounded too disrespectful.
What I mean is that they're not RESOURCE INTENSIVE to make. Very small dev studios like Mane6 (Thems fighting herds) and Lab Zero (Skull girls) can put out titles that rival major dev studios in quality with a fraction of their budgets.
But can a small dev studio make an open world title with the same fidelity of a Rock star Games Title? Absolutely not.
I feel like an indie studio can make games that compare to rocksteady.
It won't be realistic graphics. It'd have to use an art style, probably a smaller map as well. But if we're being honest those are probably upgrades.
My brother in Christ, fighting games are probably the hardest to make (if networked). FGs and RTS games both depend on determinism and that is difficult and non native in commercial engines and needs to be done by scratch. Take it from a dev:(
Fighting games are SUPER hard to make.
They are equally hard to "dress" (Graphics, artstyle, environment) than other games but need less dressing to work, so they can reduce costs by cutting the total number of assets: by using less and smaller maps, art styles with less fidelity requirements and the minimum possible props, there is a significant reduction of work and costs.
But on the other hand, fighting games require extremely complex gameplay, with hundreds and hundreds of interactions that need to be precise to a single pixel and a single frame, with specific outcomes that can't be just calculated on the fly by the machine, but have to be specifically predefined on the gameplay level of the design.
A single fighting game character has more interactions and animations than almost any FPS protagonist, including their story and enemy specific sequences, and fighting games never have one, two or five playable characters... they normally have 15 as a minimum (30+ is a very common number currently). And all of them interact against each other, frame to frame.
Fighting games are MAD HARD to make.
@@Sy-The-Wolf The only reason it's not native to to commercial engines is simple: BILLIONS have been poured into making FPS and Open World Games and the engines cater to this since the majority are designed by Western FPS/ Open World devs. Even Japanese companies, when they make engines, make engines for Open World Games (Square Enix: Crystal Engine, Konami: Fox Engine) because of the intense amount of resources (textures, meshes, environments, psychics...etc) required to make them.
Not saying it's not difficult but Mike Zaimont designed a fighting game engine in his spare time so what's preventing Epic Games, EA, Ubisoft or any of the big publishers with hundreds of millions in revenue from doing the same? Simple: They don't care about fighting games. Not saying that's a bad or a good thing. No one wonders why Japan doesn't make lots of FPS games, either. It's just what it is.
SNK and Capcom in the 90s were putting out multiple fighting games a year cause they had the assets and the engine figured out and streamlined their production. SNK was even putting out yearly releases ala COD and FIFA but those days are over. Without the Arcade market to support it, Fighting games are too niche for risk-averse publishers to try it.
They may not be "resource intensive" but they however require an immense amount of talent and a fundamental understanding of how fighting games work at their core to even begin to make a half competent FG game.
The difficult part of creating a FG is entirely different from what makes something like RDR2 hard to make.
I think it is easier for a japanese company to understand the market, mechanics and nature of a fighting game, therefore they are way more inclined to create them.
Martial arts are much closer to the traditions and daily life in Japan than in the west. On the other hand, the USA just love guns too much (see Squirrel with a Gun as an example! XD).
Indie devs in the west are filling that void when it comes to fighting games but because they're indie they don't get as much publicity or budget to maintain development for a long period of time.
Meanwhile big western companies are mostly interested in team based shooters or AAA cinematic games because those are very hot genres right now, while fighting games have always been niche and probably not as profitable for those big companies.
In general, video games have been demonized constantly in the west thanks to the media. That is and always has been the biggest roadblock to making any forms of media here
yeah its the same with anime and manga. However people have been catching up to it specially with the comic book industry going downhill.
anime and mangas are becomig more normalized little by little.
Well, I know Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat are US-Developed... I think it's a different perspective on it. That said, most of the good fighting game engines are japanese in nature and so it lends itself to a self-eating snake kind of thing. I'd really love to produce a few!
The TH-camr Electric Underground has a great topic on the shmup equivalent: the Euroshmup. It’s not strictly Europeans, but it definitely started with them making some pretty horrible shmups, because they had none of the infrastructure or experience with the granular, iterative design of arcade games. There are western fighting games, but they are pretty bad and so they gain zero traction. Of course that is always subject to change, and it’s definitely been changing within the shmup scene, but that trend is definitely the precedent.
Great video though, I’m glad you got into fighting games. I also got into them somewhat recently, and I’ve been having wayyy too much fun haha. The old games are really fun too
I truly think that the west when it comes to fighting games They don’t do 6 things 1.Put their heart and soul into in the game 2.Actually make the game both look and feel entertaining 3.Listen to the players of the fighting game community 4.Release the game as a finished product 5.Bad marketing 6.Not releasing a beta or demo These six things are usually why the west don’t excel when it comes to fighting games There’s more reasons but I‘ll say these alone are normally why they aren’t normally made as much by the west They also don’t look appealing as well and do poorly The game at launch feels and plays sluggish also usually looks boring to play It’s sad for the west but it’s something we have to realize that the west focuses more on making money rather than making masterpieces
It's bold of you to know this, post this, and _STILL_ have that Mortal Kombat profile pic lol
@@13Kr4zYAzN13 What does that have to do with anything😭 you just yapping ong also I know MK1 is mid that’s why I don’t have it lmao
@@Zaiberu_xay I agree what you're saying
@@jayfirson13 Yea I’ve seen this from the west a lot as a fighting game player and an action RPG fan the east and among others have produced masterpieces outside the west while some of what the west makes feel bland or generic
@@Zaiberu_xay I mean...everything. I agree with everything you said. It just so happens that modern Mortal Kombat is *_THE_* example of everything you talked about. To the point that I'm surprised you're still repping it. That's all I'm saying.
Then again, that's not to say Western Devs _can't_ make fighting games. Modern Killer Instinct was great, Skullgirls was great, and 2XKO seems to be shaping up to be pretty good. So I guess we'll see 🤷♂️
I feel like it could be because most popular games came from Japan back in the arcade. I think the reason why you don't get a lot of big new ips is because of how grounded in the arcades they were which are now dead, so western developers might not see the point? I don't know though
how to get people into fighting games = How to get kids to want to teach them selves math and science. Fighting games are kind of an ego shattering genre of game, so it's hard to expect people to pay money to get beat up for like 3 month before they start really getting it.
Even though games like league are way harder to learn and play, it doesn't feel as bad to lose in those games. FG's are a straight punch to the face, only certain people will fight back after the adrenaline where's off.
ego shattering it is man.... tell me about it
@@Havokerino i think the hardest part of a new fighting game is the frame-cancels. Because you have to rotate the joystick 360° then gonna push the buttons. Most People don't even know what frame-cancels are. Even a knowledge on "hitbox" would be an alien concept for them.😅. It would be easier if fighting games invest time on good tutorials for gamers.
And you have to spend time learning before you actually can play the game. Games that involve teams are easier on you because you can be carried to wins. Fighting games is 1v1. You get your butt whooped until you learn what to do to stop it and return the favor. It's all on you.
"Sees the dragon horse"
It still hurts
"Sees the nurse"
I dont even know what to think about you anymore..
MK is surprisingly successful considering the mature audience. Maybe 2xko can surpass it, if they focus on single player content like Netherrealm
thats one thing i think why it might not do crazy good is because i dont think it will have a lot of single player content but who knows maybe they will do something cool. league characters have always had really good lore i mean look at arcane
Knowing riot they will 100% not do single player content
Most plat fighters except smash are not from japan
interesting actually didnt look at it that way either brawlhalla, mvs, nasb, and rivals of aether are all from the west
Those aren't fighting games.....
@@ThaClipKeepahwhy are they at evo? Why do fundamentals transfer over ? Why are there mixups, 50/50, wakeups, meatys. The genre is literally called platform fighter lol
@@tsukune2910 Mario Kart was also in Evo
ditto with Rock Paper Scissors
@@tedjomuljono3052 mario kart was there one year in 2006 as a fun side event. Please stop being disingenuous lmao. And you ignored everything else I named. How about you show me neutral, a combo game, and wakeups in Mario kart. Then after that show me where mario kart is categorized as a fighter. This is an argument that mostly comes from internet randoms.
If I had to guess one singular reason, it would probably be the cultural relevance of arcades in Japan.
Japan has both Arcade Culture and a Martial Arts Culture. 🇯🇵 🕹️
Most if not all East Asian players pay extreme attention to the 「hit feedback」in all action games (including fighting games of course), which consist multiple effects on visual and sound, e.g the deform and knockback animations, slowdown, hitting sound, etc. All of these contributed to make the hits feels great and satisfying. Capcom is universally praised for doing exceptionally great on this discipline and lay down the foundation for their success in various action game genres. Others like Arc system works, Namco and SNK also pay great attention to this, and together they formed the general rule of thumb about how fighting games would feel right
One important reason games like MK and KI never took off in the East, is that these games are not paying enough attention to the「hit feedback」know-how that those gamers are cherishing so much for decades, and with the other half of the world doesn’t enjoying these games, that explains why the West cannot makefighting games within a similar budget
You can look up to the Skullgirls animation seminar on GDC, the presenter proudly admitted Street Fighter 3rd Strike was one of her major reference sources to make her own animation.
Mortal Kombat is banned in Japan 😂
Please make a video as to why shopping is a fighting game, please.
let me cook.
Any smash lite isnt really seen as a fighting game to most.( its seen as and labled as a family game) IP recognition is a really big one just look at dungeon fighter online's fighting game, if the game or ip isnt recognized it can die and quick. The dev can give the game a breathe of life but theyll have to be "all hands on deck" to ensure it dosent die on arrival. Fighting games take more effort in more both ways of the consumer and dev, but if the consumer gotta learn something in a new field that they aren't familiar with they're more apped to leave thats why we have "M" and "D" controls in newer games to try and make the crash course smoother but being bad and having to grow in it is like looking at the complaints of a souls like game.
Man i love fighting games
off the cuff,
- less arcade scene, yeah
- japan being a smaller country with a denser population & more infrastructure -> online play has been more reliable this entire time for them. rollback kind of caused this latest renaissance, elsewhere. anyone who's tried to play networked games outside of a major city or suburb can attest that it's often just, not an option with delay-based netcode
- gaming is more of a social hobby, as an experience it is commonly shared with your friends. often directly, hence the... again... arcade machines ... that support multiplayer/cab interconnectivity. a bit less emphasis on non-networked, single player games that don't invite conversation/discussion w/ your friends around there
- speaking from experience i don't think they're any harder to make on their own merit than any game of any other given genre. in numerous ways they're easier, even
- the american game industry is run + its decisions are generally made by executives and investors, so new US-based fighting games are pretty much always passionate indie efforts because the big boys are, as ever, chasing fifa and fortnite money. the only "big" US fighting games one can think of today are probably mortal kombat, which subsists on prestige, and injustice, on recognition, and they're done by the same people
- traditional fighting games are, put bluntly, unintuitive. there is more upstart to the learning process. smash is arguably the most intuitive fighting game franchise at the casual surface level- generally, if it looks like it hits, it does, and you're less concerned about combos than landing stray heavy hits that launch someone off the screen - immediately understandable win terms. you have a block button, no lengthy history of command inputs, and all the characters are recognizable and their attacks/abilities pretty much always have easy-to-understand properties- no fiddling about with high or low invincibility, blocking, any of that, which is why pretty much anyone can pick up the controller and get a sense for how to do the thing within 20 minutes. meanwhile, a sf newcomer historically would exclusively eat shit for their first 20+ hours
anyway, thanks for the video & the discussion. cheers
First, I wanna say that this is a really good video and I agree pretty much 100% with what you had to say. Personally, I feel like the biggest thing about it is the social factor. FGC boomers always talk about how they got together in some dude's garage and setup tournaments and casuals just so they could dick around and hang out. I didn't live the arcade era, but I heard that a big driver for revenue at the time was arcades holding events to get people with quarters in the door and them sell them food and drinks. Nowadays, looking at the conditions within the U.S., the conditions have changed a lot.
Nowadays, the world is changing a lot, and as "esports" are on the decline, it seems like fighting games are picking a lot of steam. EVO has grown year over year, and at least in my area, the local tournament is growing to a regional, two-day tournament. I think we should still consider that the west's population is a lot smaller than that of Asia, so we might do some things at a slower pace, and our environments are totally different. That being said, I think that if we stick to our guns (supporting the local scene), we can only go up. Strength is in numbers and people, so with the next generation of fighting games on the horizon, let's strive to make our scene as good as possible. I'll remind you that 2xko started as a no-name indie game whose studio got bought out by Riot. The U.S. can make total powerhouse industry-dominating games. League of Legends, COD, Counter Strike, World of Warcraft and Starcraft- all of these games are by American companies. If we play strategically to our strengths, we will reap great rewards in ten years' time.
In conclusion, I think that if you want to help the likelihood of more fighting games in the world, your best bet is to support your local scene. Unlike other gaming circles, the strength of the FGC comes from the roots. Every last community member, be they a T.O., influencer, commentator, or 0-2er, started their FGC journey by just showing up. All you need to do is show up.
Let's do it!
didnt know that 2xko was an indie game bought out by riot thats cool! and yes the roots will always be important
The US is a lot bigger than Japan, Korea, Singapore and Thailand combined, which is where most, if not all of the of the major Eastern tournaments take place. I dont think any major tournaments take place in China, Russia or Mongolia, so we cant count them. America's doing fine as far as numbers. The issue has always been how BIG the country is, which makes it harder for people to make the tournaments as far as money and travel is concerned.
To be fair to the west, I’m pretty sure all of the major fighting games are produced by different companies or individual devs, where as all of the major fighting games, at least the ones in the thumbnail, from Japan are made by like the same 4 companies, so at least there’s diversity in the west that way.
More videos like this
I’ll try 👨🦲
Firstly, fighting games should be MORE than just niche….
And secondly, it would be more interesting to see many triple A companies trying their hardest on making a fighting game, like makings a God of War fighting game, an Assassin’s Creed fighter, and much more!!!!
love this type of videos bro! also on a side note, i did NOTknow that was why you stopped playing ranked, i'm sorry for asking you EVERY time i join your live lmfaoo
(i want a video in dept on groceries)
You’re good lmao 😭 I’m just an idiot I’ll return one day
Killer Instinct was originally developed by Rare, a western developer team. And why is that surprising? Lots of western developers gave us great games during the 80s and 90s, you'd no idea where to start. And yet Killer Instinct remains the only freestyle combo fighting game, unrivaled by others in what it does. No wonder when it was designed to compete directly with Mortal Kombat and nothing else.
Good discussion. Few things just to add on.
-The entire arcade genre(shoot em ups, beat em ups, Run N Guns etc ) as a whole primarily comes from Japan.
-Culture is also another primary factor. To simply my example with a question, why do shooting games mainly come from the west?
Great video, question for you tho, as a new age FGC gamer, what about fighting games keeps you engaged ?
Also, any interest in any of the retro fighting game collections? I’m really curious what you would think of them compared to the new fighting games.
Nice video man
15:45 what song was playing in the background
open.spotify.com/track/6Ub1bwmjr23RhBDklb7uXl?si=PApqWAjWTrqon76EAMuPEg
Last ufc i played was undisputed 3, I never learned frame data, there probably was frame data but, for me it was more of a game you felt, theres a stamina/injury/fatigue system so overtime your fighter just does worst and worst.
Your not really concerned with frames but more so about not getting rocked (hit critically) or ko'ed
Getting rocked opens up everything for your opponent whether that be better ground control, standing clinch, submissions and premature stoppages.
Also yes for honor is a Fighting I mained it before sf6 dropped.
Also I play fighting games, im addicted to Tekken
the #1 reason why fighting game are hard to make is the balancing aspect of the making it, the dev need to make all character have the same chance to win a match and how do you do know if the roster balance are the match up. Take example if there 15 base roster then there is around 225 match up you need to run with and that the bare minimum which impossible
Cool video, Killer Instinct is another big deal fighting franchise made by a Western developer. Check out that series if you're interested.
This is a real good question
I didn't think about it 2XKO might end up the biggest game in the west
The only competition is MK1 but people have been disappointed with it lately
funny, I actually don't play team games because if I win I just feel like my team carried me, and if I lose I feel like it was my fault that the whole team lost.
I'd much rather not affect other people's enjoyment as much, so 1v1 is my type of game.
Crossover games are originated in japan since 1988.
Great vid. N good points
It depends if you count wrestling, but the answer is people like authenticity, and besides boxing and wrestling, the west couldn't care less.
I would love that arcade still existe. I am from franve and there is nothing
>"fighting game doesnt have singleplayer content"
>Granblue Versus Rising has Beat Em Up singleplayer mode with new stuff added with every major updates
>the game also have Fall Guys mode that is also being updated
>made by Arc System Works (Guilty Gear devs)
I'm looking for a fighting game with good single player content
if soccer players was put into fighting games, just have to walk into them and they will fall down in pain, but you will lose cause of a yellow card.
😭😭 this is too real
Street of the Wolves
take a shot everytime i say like (no seriously help me how do i stop saying like)
I now have alcohol poisoning.
@@masontem7526I’m sorry 😞
expand your vocabulary so you need not constantly reach for an approximation of what you mean, you can just have a handy word that is more precise and fitting.
@@TheTomac thank you sir idk if writing a script would help too but i was just talking off the dome in this video but expanding my vocabulary is a must if want to do more videos like this
@@Havokerino be warned, it will make simpletons think you are some kind of effete pseudointellectual just for knowing and using multisyllabic terminology, heh
I think it's mostly different culture. Japan was big on arcade. The west, mostly the US, is big on fps. Supply and demand and all that shenanigans.
Even in Japan, the number of games is decreasing. More and more legacy titles not getting continuation, let alone a whole new original game.
You have other American games (other than MK and KI), but they're just not well known. Like Thems Fighting Herds and Skullgirls. And 2XKO is on the way. That game will be free to play, so it's going to be a major game changer in fighting games imo.
Mainly cause back in the day, those western fighters was made by the western branches of Japanese companies, Eternal Champions did so well being an MK competitor that Sega Japan legit shut that shit on Sega America making a sequel cause they feared the lost of money that Virtua Fighter could of got.
Fighting games just now became AAA products aka made for the console/PC. It took the pandemic for devs to make the online playable, we finally got good single player modes back since the ps2 era fighting games, which they had to force that back then to get players off the arcades cause they just play for cheaper.
Try Brawlhalla it's more floaty and emphasizes on using dodges and movement for defense. Rivals is less floaty and has many more movement options and character variety, using very potent defence with the parry mechanic which leads to hard punishes. Rivals definitely has more replayability because of how much you are able to learn on each individual character. Brawlhalla is much more straightforward and is essentially a platform fighter stripped down to its basics, which isn't a bad thing. You will find matches much faster in brawlhalla
Fighting games are very, intensive, arcade style games. In the west, arcade culture died too earlier compared to Japan, so there is way less know how about fighting game design in western devs, so the game design here tends to be more focused into cinematic and simulaic design concepts. But we're getting more devs, i think
I don’t know but I hope we keep letting Japan make more fighting games than us because they kinda kick our ass in every game genre
For the most part, the Western made fighting games are a minority because of the lack of the arcade scene I feel.
But also going through the indie scene is where you find more Western fighting games compared to the Western Arcade scene.
But they'll never be as AAA because fighting games are incredibly niche and don't make as much profit as a non fighting game most of the time and many Western companies are "this must make a ton of money" to even want to put any attention on it.
I'm trying to make it happen.In My situation it's because college is a road block I'm looking into other sources to make it happen.
I think they're gonna come back better than ever. People are begging for more genuine skill based experiences, just gotta push them away from the needing a team to blame mentality and everything. It's the same for action games, rpg mechanics are diluting everything and making the genre dull, we need some real deal fighting to come back.
I get angry, too 😅
I think because in the 90's mortal kombat clone didn't get enough fans, so the fighting game that evolved from the mortal kombat system didn't have any successors
Killer instinct!?
MK is more like butcher simulator than fighting game as the series continues. Cuz fatality in late MKs look like slaughtering process.
Mortal Kombat which is only from West(USA) 😂
For Honor isn't traditional but it's the last interesting game Ubisoft put out and it's a pretty decent fighting game
Why is nobody talking about Injustice and Injustice 2?
Cause they are made by NRS and they are known for Mortal kombat, also because of nrs game cycle, there is a new one every 2 -3 years, it's been 7 years since injustice 2 came out, it basically been forgotten... till the next one
Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat is fictional fighter since day one. The complaint that non of these fighters are unrealistic is pointless asf! It's a critique that I never toke seriously, cuz why complain about something that you should already what that fighter is about? Example: "Super Smash Bro is unrealistic 🤓"
I'm like, well now, you don't say! 😐
i dont belive that fighting games is hard to make after i saw one student made a fighting game called dong dong forever is it balance no but sure as hell looks fun
if only guilty gear strive didn't make zato the worst character in the game for 400 days
Skull Girls is the best Western fighting game. Why havent those devs made any other fighting games?
Because the west is too scared, ha ha ha ha ha.
Maybe its because making a fighting game needs people who could understand the concept I mean most of the games I can think of in the west are just shooting, rpg, and etc. You got a lot of talent in japan since fighting games is just kinda a norm right?
Fighting herds deserved better
No participation trophies in fighting games.
Skull girl would do even better if added more there's a lot you cannot do after you get caught in a combo in that game so I think they should a break and one hit ko's like persona for that game to really shine stage changes would do good and honestly hype of they level 3s more it's a great game dont sell it short and same with battle of the grid tbh these are great fighting games they just didn't get no love and sometimes that's okay just Polish them and we fighting gamers come back you'll make your money bc unlike other gamers fighting game players just like good fighting games and good ideas sometimes we dont even care how it looks if the macnics are to good
I don't know, but at the same time, why doesn't Japan make FPS games? Or RTS? Or why is it that the trashiest free to play games are almost always korean or chinese? I guess each country/region is clearly more suited for some types of genres.
But call of duty literally just make the same game and people buy idk why at least with fighting your getting a different game period
K.i.?
If they pick up fighting games they will make them so boring. Everyone will look cheesy and boring and not sexy or cool like skull girls or gg strive. They just aren’t allowed. Like imagine a western game developer making a character like cammy in 2025. It wouldnt go through everything will look like concord and honestly no one in fgc wants to play only body positive characters.
Would you watch American cartoons or anime? Basically why fighting games are better when made in Japan
Brawlhalla, All-Star Brawl, Multiverse and Smash are not fighting games. Multiplayer couch co-op party games, main genre platform brawler.
w vid
W person
play KOF !
i wanna try kof13! it looks so nice
@@Havokerinokof 13 is the goat
Where brawlhalla at?
Well, just ask yourself why the japanese devs don't make shooters and you'll find out.
😊 16:02
😍
Japan has more arcades.
They are not good at it. Mortal Kombat isn’t even a good fighting game imo. Not mk1, nah. Any MK game.
10:39 Point of total bullshit incoming. Japanese game market is just as marketing driven as is the western market. Developers from Japan also have to live and money makes them so. They do not just develop games because out of pure fun. Nintendo and Sony are into marketing shares like every other company around the world. Good luck with your delusion to think otherwise.