Been gauging the (online) FGC a lot lately, and with the talk of how other scenes for certain FG are doing, we might be somewhere mid-tier. Lots of talk on EVO lately with SFxT, and as I think about our success at EVO, I have to remind myself that EVO isn't the epitome of KOF/SNK success in the US/world, it's a stepping stone, but an important one. The next step has to be a strong, permanent foothold wherever fighting games are played.
Been hearing some people talking about their scene in how Capcom-exclusive it is and making contradictory exceptions for new games like P4A while they remain the only ones open to other fighters or remotely playing XIII. So here's a few suggestions I've got for scenes:
-Hold some kind of small tournament for your local scene. Make it like a $1 entry fee where the winner gets the pot, or a free tournament where the winner gets $10 or something. If you're the best XIII player, don't compete, coach players and answer questions or let everyone else who's new get into it and discover on their own. If their totally clueless about KOF but know how to play SF, just emphasize the 4 jumps, running, rolling, EX, and drive-cancelling. Other stuff can come later as they play.
-Hold weekly practice/teaching/casuals for KOF XIII. This is where you need to know the game more than anyone else. Bring your system, show off some good replays to them, and one thing that worked for me is uploading some tutorial vids I found online, like Dandy J's and showing those there. And show them the active difference between how you can play restrictively like SF, or how to take advantage of more of the systems.
-With anything you try to arrange yourself, like the examples above, don't expect overnight success. Just keep showing your love for it and bringing the game around. If people ask to use your system to play something else (especially if it's AE or Marvel and they've already got setups for it), politely say something like "sorry, but this is my system and I brought it for people to play KOF specifically. I'm trying to support this game."
-If there's a big tournament close to you that has KOF XIII, but you're short on funds, see if you can get a carpool going with a few guys. Pitch in, and as they're going for AE, MVC, etc., you go for KOF.
-Like choysauce mentioned, start up and keep a social network group going for KOF locals, facebook, twitter, something. Or keep up KOF content in the facebook group your local scene already has (Max playing KOF XIII, tournament from _________, etc.
And a question for you guys, is this a good enough place to talk about actual attempts at scenes and where they stand, or just ideas?