Fighting games have been around since the 70s and later popularized by Street Fighter 2 in the early 90s. With various companies giving their own take in the genre, Fighting Games would bring a community of passionate players from around the globe to compete in tournaments, friendly bouts and even grudge matches. But fighting games as of late has become more of a niche genre, not attracting as many upcoming players into the ring as before and with an aging fanbase will fighting games die out in the near future?
Fighting games have been important in videogame history and made a huge impact in the industry. Fighting games, for those scrubs out there, usually start off by picking a character from a roster and you fight using that character’s moves and abilities in short bouts. Fights are quick, stimulating and challenging. Every character is different but also every person playing them, every fight is a different experience and is always exciting.
Let me start off with a bit of my history: I started playing fighting games when I was a wee lad on the original PlayStation. I played Marvel vs Capcom with a couple of friends for weeks, sure we were just mashing buttons but we were having fun. It was only a couple of years ago where I started to understand the genre and eventually fall in love with it. I decided to come over to a friends house when he said he had recently bought a PS3 and the game bundled with it, Street Fighter X Tekken.
It started as a little game, just a few hadoukens here and there, but we eventually learned mechanics, combos and even learned the terminology. There was electricity in the air. My Satsui No Hado, unleashed. It wasn’t just a game anymore. It was a competition. We wanted to win. See who the best was. We played other fighting games. We learned its mechanics and combos. We broke our controllers and arcade sticks, salt was sprinkled everywhere but we both knew and found out from then on, We loved Fighting Games.
Amazingly enough there are a lot of people who share this drive for fighting games as well. The Fighting Game Community, FGC for short, has been a strong force in advancing the genre for years. The community is not as big as other videogame community’s but it is a lot more passionate. The community drives the games forward, keeping them alive even after years of its initial release. They create content, hold tourneys and even help improve or create the games they play. What is a game without its players? But what if the players were on steroids? The scene is now bigger than ever with more official tourneys with bigger prize pools and more fighting games set to release in the near future, The genre is far from dead.
With the upcoming release of Street Fighter 5 and Mortal Kombat X the scene is more alive than ever and has no sign of ever dying down.
