Introduction.
We decided to write about fighting games because we don’t know that much about them and we both have friends who are playing them seriously. So we took the opportunity to check that genre out. We came up with some questions and posted them on two internet forums, the Swedish bitter harmony and the international forum shoryuken that have over 50.000 users and is one of the largest fighting games forum in the world with users all over earth. The questions we asked at both forums where the following:
- What’s your favorite game and character and why?
- Do you prefer 2D- or 3D games?
- Old or new fighting games?
- Favorite system to play fighting games on?
- How do you often play, do you play singelplayer, multiplayer, online on Xbox live/PSN or similar or do you play at an arcadehall?
- Would you call yourself hardcore gamer or casual gamer?
- Why do you play fighting games and do you play other genres to?
- Is there any special language in the fighting community/culture?
- Are there any big events that are known around the planet?
- Are there any collectables or memorabilia?
- Do you think people get affected of the violence in fighting games?
And this report is what we came up with.
Games and systems.
Fighting games have been around for a long time so there are a whole lot of games out there for the fighting games people. In the beginning they were all in 2D but in the middle of the 90’s they start to enter the third dimension as well. But fighting games haven’t as many other genres gone over all the way to third dimension. When we asked if people prefer to play 2D or 3D games, we got a clear answer that 2D fighting games are what people likes the most. Some people haven’t even tried any 3D fighting games. What makes 2D games so popular is that that most of the games that people prefer playing is in 2D but also the simplicity of pixel graphic and that in a 2D fighting game you have a smaller area to fight in then in 3D games.
People’s favorite games shifted a bit, but the Street Fighter and also Guilty Gear series was the two big ones. After those we see titles as Garou Mark of the Wolves, Soul Caliber 3, King of Fighters, Capcom vs SNK 2 and Marvel vs Capcom 2. All these titles are in 2D except Soul Caliber 3 so we see that 2D games are preferred mostly because their favorite games are in that dimension. When we asked if they preferred old or new fighting games the answer varied, for some it didn’t matter for others there was mostly new games and for some old games.
Favorite game character varied a lot. Many found their favorite character from the Street Fighter series with Ryu, Ken, Elena to name a few. Others liked A.B.A from Guilty Gear and Iora Yagami from King of Fighters. Many times the favorite character depends on how they are played others if they looked good.
Arcade seems to be the favorite system to play fighting games on, although not everybody has an arcade hall near to them or own an arcade system so the ordinary homeconsole was their second choice where the Playstation 2 was the one that most used to play on. A lot of people traveled to other cities to get together with people from communities. One example is here in Sweden, people travel to Stockholm and Dragons Lair, a game center, to meet and play fighting games.
Hardcore or casual gamer?
This question was a bit difficult for people to answer because there is no definition of the term hardcore gamer so it was up to the people to say what they fought and if they would call themselves hardcore or just casual gamer. Some people didn’t think twice before they said hardcore while others said that they aren’t really hardcore but neither casual gamers and that they would be somewhere in between. But on shoryuken 11 people of 33 who answered the questions said that they would call themselves hardcore gamers and 13 people placed themselves in-between hardcore and casual. We got the same answer from those who answered the questions on bitter harmony’s forum with some people calling themselves hardcore while other didn’t think they could call themselves hardcore for different reasons.
The how and why of fighting games.
People play fighting games for different reasons but one reason that a lot of people gave us were that it requires skills as no other genre and that you really could feel the difference when you trained with a character. For some people it was the competitive side of the games, it is just you and a opponent who need to fight to see who is the better one between the two of you, and for other there was the social aspect, to meet and play at somebody’s house or at some arcade hall. Mind games is another aspect of why some people play fighting games, mind game is about when you try to read your opponents next move and do an counterattack to his move. Another reason that was mentioned was the strategic thinking and the challenge.
To play fighting games against each other is the most popular way of playing and preferably on an arcadesystem. When they don’t have an arcadesystem close by people prefer battling their friends out on any homeconsole head to head. It is by meeting other people and fight against them that people gets better on their games. Singelplayer is only used to train combos in trainingmode pretty much.
Another interesting question we asked was whether they only play fighting games or if they play games from other genres too. A couple of those who answered said that they only play fighting games because they find it most fun and giving. Most people do play other games then fighting games and some popular genres are Real time strategy, first person shooters and role playing games. Some people had been playing other genres but now adays they didn’t have enough time for other genres then fighting games.
The language of fighting games.
Every community has its own language and so does the fighting game community. There are some words that are character- or gamespecific like Hadouken or Sonic Boom, both from Street Fighter games as attacks. When we asked them of other words in their community language we got recovery, crossup and okizeme as a few examples, these words means different moments in an ongoing game. Other words that describes the player or characters is scrub, grappler and anchor.
To describe different attacks or combo’s people uses a short-term language to keep it simple. An example is qcfx2+p which are quarter circle forward, quarter circle forward, punch. LK, HK, LP, HP are a couple of terms that is used where L stands for low, H for high, K for kick and p for punch. So it is low kick, high kick, low punch and high punch. A thing like this makes it easier to both write and read on forums. The language for combos is different from game to game.
Events.
There are a couple of big events both in and outside Sweden. The two biggest ones are Evolution and Tougeki Super Battle Opera. Evolution is an annual event in Las Vegas, USA and Tougeki Super Battle Opera is in Tokyo, Japan each year. The biggest event in Sweden was Versus last held in 2006, other events are often smaller and more of a get together with around 30-40 people. Geographical distances is of course one thing that can makes events and a get together difficult and why it’s not too common either.
Collectables and memorabilia.
When I comes to collectables and memorabilia are there a few things people most refer to. One of those is often the homemade arcadestick which is a popular to own, another thing could be dvd’s from tournaments, action figures from the characters in the games, artbooks, posters, limited edition form certain games and more. Some even collected whole arcademachine.
Violence in fighting games.
In the last question if they thought people can get affected of the violence in fighting games some just answered no or similar. The rest answered maybe if the person in question is very young and/or has psychological problem.
Thanks to:
Fredrik Hägglund
Johan Lindell
The people on the shoryuken and bitter harmony forum
By: Johan Lövdahl and Johan Waldemarsson