OK, the fighting game market is DEFINITELY OVER SATURATED!

Super Street Fighter IV AE, Street Fighter X Tekken, Tekken 6, Tekken Tag 2, Ulimate Marvel VS Capcom 3, King of Fighters 13, BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extended, Mortal Kombat 9, Persona 4 Arena, Virtual Fighter 5 Final Showdown, Dead of Alive 5, and other games I can't think of right off my head right now.

About 90% of these games listed are already out and about out in a few months and the rest before this year ended. Oh yeah, I almost forget to add Never Realm's new fighting DC game for 2013, Injustice Gods among us. Yeah, there are a ton of fighting games out now and more forthcoming and so much can be streamed and supported by the community.

Now this article is based from a tournament perspective and not from a casual point of you. Currently, Capcom games have the limelight, especially UMVC3, and non-Capcom games are struggling to borrow the fire, especially here in America.

Personally, I think King Of Fighters 13 is the best legitimate 2D fighter currently in the market due to its wealth of depth, complexity, balanced roster, and system that is designed to reward the most skilled player. Super Street Fighter IV AE, however, though is a good game can't compare to KOF13, let alone its prior installments, most notably Street Fighter III 3rd Strike and Super Street Fighter II Turbo. 3rd strike, in particular, was Capcom's most peak as far as their fighters goes.

I am strong advocate of giving the new fighters a chance to shine since most of them are excellent games but it is sad that won't happen. The streamers are becoming more like a business and like any business they are going to stream the games that brings the most traffic on their main stream while other games are dressed aside. Elite tournament players are only going to play the ones with the most reward and not every company have deep pockets like Capcom to incentivize the streamers to stream their games. Furthermore, not every game, because they are so many out there and more to come, can be streamed.

The fighting game community has marketed itself as the best community and in only time well tell. I think this community should support all fighters, especially the competent ones, and eschewed fighters like Street Fighter X Tekken.  Instead of a three day weekend for tournaments maybe the tournaments should be straight, although hard likely, so the better approach is multiple streams that mix up the lesser games with the most viewed to get awareness. Elite players should support other games to bring in more traffic since most viewers tune in to follow their favorite player.


As for me, I am going to play the games that are fun to play and have a decent online following. I am pretty excited for Person 4 Arena because of the aesthetics and the system and I will support the forthcoming 3D fighters like VF5, DOA5, and TT2 but I will only play them casually. The market is indeed saturated and it is impossible for a player to be good in all of those games but if most of these games are supported we will see new generation of players because not everyone likes SF and UMVC3. Capcom games will get the most attention, but it is up to us to support the Non-Capcom fighters as well otherwise they will die.