Nobody is arguing the FGC would be the same w/ or w/o SFIV. SFIV made it's impact and many games started looking at it as the template to make the most money. Dumbing down fighting games to get the new blood in made more sense to the companies then making games for the hardcore crowd.
What is being argued is the FGC would be alive, and doing quite well without SFIV. Now do I think the FGC would be as mainstream as it is? No, however this is a double edge sword. Personally I think we are now on the down slope of this push in the FGC.
They were arguing this in the other thread. Some people thought there would be some alternate timeline where "skill" fighting games would take over the world, which is a laughable idea.
We are already seeing too many games being released too close to one another, causing very good games to be pushed to the way side to play more popular titles. Games like KOF XIII and Soulcalibur V are losing their online communities in a matter of a couple of months. Both titles are highly acclaimed, yet cannot sustain their communities. Even Street Fighter x Tekken is not as popular as Super Street Fighter IV was 1 year after release, and we are talking about a game that just got released. On Arcade mode with request match open I can go a match or 2 without anybody coming in during the afternoon. I find it next to impossible to go half a match with the same parameters in SSFIV at 5 in the morning.
KOFXIII is losing its online community because of a bad netcode, SCV has many reasons for having this, whether it be the lack of SP content, the fact that people now notice the game isn't that good, lack of iconic characters, etc., etc.
SFxT losing steam is very obvious. It's NOT A GOOD GAME. The only reason it's got competition is because it's on Evo and people underestimate how much disdain people have for Capcom as of late. The fact that this game has plenty of glitches, extensive on-disc DLC, Fat Megaman, an inferior Xbox version and rushed out the gate doesn't help matters at all.
You could make an argument that it was like when Capcom used to make fighters within a months of each other.
The community is starting to get tired of dropping $50 - $60 for a game then x amount more on DLC every few months a new game drops. More then likely the community will only get worse as this continues. Remember Tekken Tag Tournament 2 is coming soon and it is a tag game with 1/2 of their cast the same cast that's in SF x TK. Do you think that will go over well with a community that is already tired of spending so much money? Not to mention Tekken x Street Fighter coming sooner or later. If SFIV came out I don't think the DLC would be as ridiculous as it has become and we would still be on the upswing since we would have never have had that giant spike of interest in the FGC. The newer games would be more spaced out and the older titles, which would be the majority of the games being released rather then the $60 games with DLC that go $15 to $20 more at least, would only top out at $15 where most would be around $10. Very affordable for people wanting multiple titles while still giving you enough money to save up for the big release once or twice a year.
I don't agree with this at all. I think TTT2 will do very well, because (NEWSFLASH!)
not everyone plays every fighting game. The people that play Tekken are very far from those that play Capcom games. Most people play Tekken HATE SFxT and don't care for SF in general. Not to mention it's coming way into the end of the year. I can't say much for TxSF because we have no real clue when it's coming out. The ones that might have an issue are VFFS and Skullgirls because they both have an uncertain audience.
As for SFIV and the DLC problems? No. For starters, DLC isn't a bad thing at all. I wouldn't mind being able to have basically a new game for cheaper unlike the "good 'ol days" where you paid full price every time. SFIV was pretty much good out the gate. Sure there was the costumes and they were WAY overpriced, but they're not integral to the game at all. They even had a 40 buck Super version and then 15 dollar DLC Arcade Edition. You can't really compare that to having
12 fucking characters locked. That's almost the equivalent of a new game.
I'm not scared at all, because I have faith that SFxT will blow up in Capcom's face and the other companies will take notice.
