And tournaments are the communal gathering. You can still be a fan of fighting games without engaging with the community, you're just not part of the FGC.
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It's only been a week and "core values" is already the most played out obnoxious shit in the FGC
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That's just, like, your opinion man. Sales numbers are one kind of prominence, importance is another. MK may have the sales, but it is definitely not as important as other fighting games.
Yep, its one of those memes when I got the context it was like " nah dog "
Maybe in the 1990's. These days we also have the Internet. Forums, social media, etc. All of that is the community as well.
You might be overestimating how many people talk about fighting games online. That's a pretty niche crowd. And sales don't really map to what games are talked about most online.
You think the vast majority of people who buy MK are interested in the FGC? They want to watch a few fatalities then go onto the next big release. The people who stick around, commit, get invested in the games, contribute. Those people are the FGC.
You're thinking of the lower case "community" or fandom. The "Fighting Game Community" is a the formal name of the eSports side of the fighting game fandom, which they use because the term "eSports" hadn't been coined yet when the FGC started running tournaments and they continue to use the term out of tradition - understand now?
That's not what it means anymore, and trying to keep that meaning is a losing battle.
Mugwhump perfectly summarizes the outrage, and it doesn't help that fgc doesn't really like wizard, so to them they don't want him to be the spokesperson for the whole community.
I'm not saying you have to like the term, I'm explaining who uses it and why. You can try and claim it for people who play more casually, but most of the people actively engaging in fighting game discussion and thinking about fighting games outside of when a new release drops are the ones playing them competitively - people who would use the term "FGC" the same way I would. If you check the MK11 OT here a year after it's release, do you think you're going to see more casual players in there or competitive ones? Fighting games aren't popular enough for the term FGC to shift to mean the mainstream audience, because there isn't much of a mainstream audience to begin with.
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If most people who have any interest in the competitive side of fighting games still refer to it as the FGC, even other competitive eSports communities when referencing fighting games, is it really a losing battle? I'm not saying it won't move on at some point, but your post kinda sounds like someone from the outside arguing the semantics of the term, when it just "is what it is".
I've been playing fighting games since the early 90's and considered myself part of the "FGC" for as long as the term has been around (or as long as I've been aware of it), and I only ever attended one local. And it was just a couple of years ago, for SFV. Prior to that I'd never been to a tournament.
Now arcades, I been to. That's where I first picked up the term "FGC" in the late 90's.
I think the niche tournament crowd is overestimating their importance here. FGC is not just fighting game eSports.
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Nobody said it was, its merely taking an active and ongoing interest in fighting games and the competitive scene that goes alongside fighting games.
Edit: I don't think anybody would argue that NRS games arn't FGC. Claiming them to be the top game of the FGC because of sales is just laughable though.
The FGC is the term for the niche crowd tho. That crowd is not just "fighting game esports," but it is absolutely the enthusiasts.
Where are all the people on social media specifically using the term "Fighting Game Community" or "FGC" and referring to something other than the competitive scene?
You said this was a semantic argument earlier, and it is. It's like if you were to complain that Bullet Hell shmups don't have any iconography of the Abrahamic Hell.
People give it shit, because it's laughable and pious coming from the source. Beyond that, its a meme. The solution to memes that annoy you, is ignore them shits. Beyond that as usual, a smaller group of people running with the meme is not reflective of an entire community, so rolling with a wide sweeping generalization is dumb.
MK is a fighting game. It gets played at Evo, it gets played at every one of the big majors in the US and Europe as well. It not being anywhere near one of the biggest communities does not change the fact that it is very much part of the FGC and part of local play tournaments. It maybe considered one of the weaker games in the genre (rightfully so), but the NRS scene is very much part of the FGC. Don't be obnoxious.
Eh, his biggest stage in terms of eye balls watching him were DBFZ, these days I think he's more known for his Video Game Award and beating Goichi fam.
LMFAO fuck no. Not even close.
This is the kind of thing that gives me pause when I consider taking a look at my local fighting game scene.
I think it's somewhat humurous due to how hypocritical the whole thing is.
Yeah, hiring gravure models, cleavage zoom ins, and using suggestive poses to sell your game are immature, but then cutting to footage of MK ripping faces off and commenting on "core values" feels like something from an Onion article.
The whole thing, to me, points out how backwards our society is.
Yeah, hiring gravure models, cleavage zoom ins, and using suggestive poses to sell your game are immature, but then cutting to footage of MK ripping faces off and commenting on "core values" feels like something from an Onion article.
The whole thing, to me, points out how backwards our society is.
Besides just being a dumb meme, it reflects the FGC's constant identity crisis, where players and viewers simultaneously want things to get bigger and more professional and smaller and scrappier. Mr. Wizard was wrong to say that it went against the scene's core values, and not just Evo's values, because anyone with sense knows that misogyny is still sadly a core part of the fgc, it's sold in costumes by developers, it keeps women from entering the scene, and it manifests itself in every stream's chat. It came off as artificial and not genuine at all, not reflecting the reality of the scene, so people are responding to that aspect, which has been a complaint about "esports" commentary for years, as much as if not more than the misogynistic reading.
I take umbrage with this since its implying misogyny is an FGC specific problem, instead of a gaming community problem. The FGC is definitely more open and inclusive than almost any other competitive scene, despite the rough and tumble environment.
I mean you could blow it out even further and say that misogyny is a societal problem (which it is) and ask why the focus is being put on gaming specifically. Regardless of the scope, it's a problem, and shit like this is part of it, because it conflates objectification and downplaying the reality of sexual harassment and assault with just "being fun" and "having a laugh" and "don't be such a prude, man."
Yeah I don't really agree that the Core Values meme is about misogyny/people wanting more stuff like that DOA stream, it's more about making fun of Mr. Wiz/EVO about being hypocritical.
Exactly.
Exactly.
FGC are sticklers for tradition as usual, so anything that disrupts that order will receive a lot of attention.
To think Street Fighter 4 was going to be a four button fighter, I wonder if it would've survived that well.
That's true, it goes way beyond just the FGC. I think much of the issue is the disconnect between in person events, where people are usually very welcoming, and the general online discourse where it's often difficult to avoid shitty behavior. They're arguably two different communities that just happen to be centered around the same thing but separating them is nigh impossible. I suppose it's tough to solve because so many people are exposed to the toxic stuff online and are discouraged from interacting with the inclusive in-person community.
To be the devils advocate, the FGC can be rowdy both on and off line, although the Stream Monsters (Kappa, for those who haven't gotten the joke) are freely loud, especially because their words literally can be blips on a radar in the more popular streams, there's a lot of instances of some rudeness in tournaments.
You're straight making shit up. The fgc has and always will be just people that play fighting games and extends to any skill level. You're on some elitist bullshit. There isn't much of a mainstream audience.... Mortal Kombat???? You know the thing people are talking about.
Also some talk about MK fans just being people that jump on whatever new FG. Maybe if Capcom could afford to make a new Street Fighter that isn't co funded by a platform holder they'd have a larger output and people wouldn't be stuck on a game so long. How many people would be on SF5 if SF6 was out? Fuck off with that bullshit.
If you asked a random Mortal Kombat fan off the street to describe themselves, they'd probably literally just call themselves "a Mortal Kombat fan". When have you ever seen someone use the term "FGC" outside of the context of the dedicated fighting game audience?
He's right you know. I wouldn't consider someone who plays the story content exclusively to be part of the competitive community,
Yeah, it's obnoxious and not funny. Like all of the FGC in-jokes that get parrotted by stream monsters. Get ready to see it in Twitch chat until the end of time, judging by how long "8.95" and other memes have lasted.
The irony is that misogyny and generally conservative ideas actually are Core Values of the online FGC, and a decent chunk of the offline one as well, as much as people talk about the scene's inclusiveness. Like... for example the idea of "anyone can be good at fighting games if you dedicate yourself and just put the time (see: 1000s of hours) in!" is pushed so hard by prominent players, and no one ever points out that 1) it's actually not true and 2) it's literally the "bootstraps" mentality applied to video games, lol.
Basically.
The irony is that misogyny and generally conservative ideas actually are Core Values of the online FGC, and a decent chunk of the offline one as well, as much as people talk about the scene's inclusiveness. Like... for example the idea of "anyone can be good at fighting games if you dedicate yourself and just put the time (see: 1000s of hours) in!" is pushed so hard by prominent players, and no one ever points out that 1) it's actually not true and 2) it's literally the "bootstraps" mentality applied to video games, lol.
Basically.
I'm not trying to take away from your main point, because there are problems with the FGC that need to be addressed, but how is saying that you will get better at an activity the more you practice wrong? That's not the same thing as boostraps, which is about privilege and inherited wealth.
Because the majority of the time you hear this from top-level players, they act like literally anyone can become a good player. And it's not true, because some just don't have the physical reaction times, mental awareness, or just straight up don't have the time required to reach base competence in FGs.
But top players can't understand this because their perspective is so skewed - if you're a top player in fighting games your reaction times are probably in like the top 1-2% of humanity. Which is kind of ridiculous when you stop to think about it. And that's a physical privilege that most players don't have and will never be able to achieve - so acting like literally anyone can hit a high level if they "put in the time" (which MANY prominent FGC people believe) reminds me of the bootstraps stuff.
I admit it's not a 1:1 analogy, I should maybe have worded it a little better, so I apologise. It's just the one thing that this aspect of the FGC has always reminded me of.
To 1-2% of humanity? Lmao.
Top Fighting game players aren't super human.
And brolylegs puts your argument to shame.
Fighting games isn't really about reaction time, but rather trying to out smart your opponents.
The "read", so to speak, is more like predicting rather than responding.
For sure, I get what you're saying. I just always thought of it like playing an instrument, anyone can learn to play a violin, just most people aren't going to dedicate their lives to it. But I guess what constitutes being "good" at fighting games varies from person to person as well. I never thought that someone has to be able to win tournaments to be considered good.
This is pretty much what Daigo has said, since his reaction times are getting a bit worse with age, he has worked on making up for it in other areas of his game.
You're reading too much into it, no one(well, or at least most aren't) upset about DoA stream getting banned, the whole joke is Mr Wiz using plain corporate speech which is hilarious if you've known him before this incident. Not many in the western FGC actually care about some Japanese stream getting stopped, actually barely anyone even care about DoA!
Believe me, I get you. "Mental processing speed" might be a better term? Idk.
This is obv anecdotal but I know plenty of people IRL (it's in double figures), myself included who literally can't get any better at reacting to stuff/processing what's going on during a match/making correct reads no matter how many hundreds of hours we grind in FGs.
This has gone way off-topic though.