Yes, you'll have more players, but how many of them are going to be long term players? Like Fatman said earlier, you can have a case where X game is trendy and then people will later move on to the next big game. Yes, Brawl has lots of hours logged in, but can we determine how spread out those hours are? You can have a small minority that logs in several hours.
Most Smash players play the game forevger. You can talk to many people and they'll tell you that they stil;l play Smash. Aagin, you're saying that these peoploe don't play the game long enough.
The competitive players will always buy and play the next Smash Bros. This is a given. People complained about Brawl, and there is still a competitive scene.
I'm also tired of your concern for weaker players.Everyone starts off sucking when they play a game for the first time. People get better by playing people who are as good or better than them. In this genre, it's eat or get eaten.
And look how unsuccessful that model has been. Tekken and Smash bros rule fighting games. Tekken isn't to hard to get into. I've played some real competitive people ans did OK. In Street Fighter, I'd get creamed. 3D fighting games are easier then 2D ones, which is why 2D fighters are niche. I've already explained in detail how Street Fighter has gone and died and is on life support thanks to competitive players. Smash is still healthy and kicking, and so is Tekken.
Easy to enter games is what defines multiplayer. Rock Band is a lot easier then Guitar Hero because it is a party game. Wii Sports, Mario Kart, even the original Street Fighter, are all easy to pick up games.
I'm all for removing barriers for beginners, but only some barriers, not all. The only barrier that should be present is the control learning curve in general. Afterwords, you have characters and their learning curves along with using game mechanics wisely. There, you're on your own unless you ask for advice from people, which is more often than not how people get better.
Basically, you're advocating learning curves. The point is to make the game as easy as it can be. The player shouldn't have a hard time controlling the game. It should be seamless. The only learning at that point is the game. Street Fighter 2 was seamless as well. The only hard part were the specials, but the game rewarded you for being able to do one, something that feels lost in fighting games today.
Street Fighter, in total, has sold 21.66 games out of 23 games in total, meaning an average of 940K per game. Smash Bros has sold 21.33 million games between 3 games, making the average a whopping 7.126 million games. Tekken has sold 28.87 games between 9 games, making the average 3.20million games. Street Fighter is also older then both and has far more games, and it only competes with Smash Bros, a series with three games. Most of those games are Street Fighter 2. Street Fighter has been dead for a while.
The Nintendo Channel says how long the games have been played on average. You have the number of hours clocked in, not the time span the game has played for. Basically, it's recording the playtimes of everyone that has an internet connection and plays Brawl. Before my Wii got fried in an electrical storm back in August, I had probably over 1,000 hours clocked in. I spent a lot of time practicing for online competitions. As it stands, I believe the average is something like 74-78 hours per person. For a game like Brawl, that's kind of low especially when some of the accomplishments require you to play 100+ hours. With this being said, something is heavily bringing down the average and that something is people who played Brawl for like a month or two, got bored and decided to play newer games. It has nothing to do with people being ********, it's just how most people who play video games are. Outside of competitive gaming, you usually don't have a large number of people who will continue to play a game religiously after the first month. You beat it or you decide that getting 100% is not worth your time and move on.
All games will lose playtime, but Smash is still being played by a lot of people. The Nintendo Channel data is good, people are online, and if you ask around, you'll still find people playing the game with friends every weekend. Melee easily lasted for 7 years with or without competitive players. This is why people craved the next Smash Bros so much. Everyone and there mother was excited. It would not have gone over so well if people only played it for a month or two.
This is the nature of multiplayer games. They get played a lot. People still play Starcraft. They still play Halo. They play Mario Kart. Smash Bros is no exception.
Street Fighter is still a million seller franchise so I wouldn't call that "crash and burn." If you want to talk about crash and burn, look at Crash Bandicoot or Spyro. Street Fighter 2 is still going decently strong competitively despite being nearly 20 years old. Also, Tekken? That's a niche fighter. You might as well be talking about Bloody Roar. Tekken 6 has only sold about 1/8 of a million while, in comparison, Street Fighter IV has sold nearly 11 times that amount. Also, Smash isn't a leader in anything. In all honesty, Street Fighter 2 probably has more of a competitive prescence worldwide than it and I'd even go as far as saying MUGEN probably has a bigger competitive scene than Smash.[/quote]
You don't know much about fighting games.
Fighting games sales data
Notice how Smash Bros and Tekken dominate the top stops, along with WWF games. Street Fighter 2 is in the top spots, but no other version. If you want to find it, you'd have to scroll down to #31, and then #40. All four of those games are Street Fighter 2. The lowest in the top 50 is WWF WrestleMania 2000 at 1.48. All other versions of Street Fighter have been below 1.48. Street Fighter 4 did decent, but is no where close to Street Fighter 2's numbers. Heck, every version listed (as some probably are not) beat Street Fighter 4 on one console.
Street Fighter has died a long time ago. Street Fighter 4 helps, but it still can't compare to 2. Tekken still stays strong at ~3 million for 4 and 5. Despite it has fallen in years (from ~6 million with 2 and 3), it can compete. Tekken also has a strong competitive base, meaning that the lower slaes could be increasing barriers.
@Smashchu
Has the Casual scene sufered fromt he option of turning off items? No.
And I'm referring to the stages whose hazards don't make the game playable (Not fair, playable) If I turn on items and go play on WarioWare it's still not much fun because every 5 seconds I have to freeze, or jump really high, or avoid getting wet. I don't mind if there are lava, water, evplen the Arwings on Corneria don't bother me. It's the ones that make the level, or sections of the level, unayable. This only applies to Mario Circuit, The F-Zero stage, and WarioWare. The hazards in the other levels are tolerable.
To the first part, understand this has a much bigger effect. Items simple span on a stage, so turning them off or changing their levels. Levels are written into the game, so how they act is a part of them. It would require more coding and probably longer load times to turn them off.
All stages are playable, you don't know how to play them. The fight never stops, and if you think that, let me get your friend code and stomp you on Warioware. When it says "Don't Move" you can still move. It's one way to take advantage of the situation. Or, why don't you try to knock players out under that umbrella, or try to get them hurt from the falling arrows.
If only three levels are bothering you, then I do not see the point in programming something. Most levels are OK, just that competitive players will ban stages before they ban a broken technique or tactic. Even with hazzards off, you won't play most of them anyway.
Also, How come anything that can help a competetive player, regardless of a casuals control over it, will destory the franchise. If hazard switch is an option, alls the casuals have to do is not turn it off...
Long story short: adding things competitive players likes add barriers. Adding things they hate removes barriers and can actually add more fun (Warioware for instance, which is a really popular stage). Fewer barriers will mean more people will be able to play your game.
