I'm not one to get involved in stuff like this, but I felt like there might be some benefit in examining some... really
bad posts flying around. Maybe someone could learn something from this, I dunno.
So, let's break this down.
The only argument I've heard about why Steve should be in Smash is because "Minecraft is popular".
You may have only heard that argument, but that's not the only one. Within this thread alone other arguments have been presented. This is using a strawman to make a case.
If sheer popularity were the only thing that determines whether or not a character gets in we'd have seen characters from Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and Madden in Smash a long time ago. These franchises are not represented because they are just as out-of-place in a game like Smash as Minecraft would be.
This is correct in that raw popularity isn't everything. However, the claim that those games are "out-of-place" is meaningless on its own, as is the lumping of Minecraft with games like Call of Duty and Madden. Claiming that this "out-of-place" factor is why these games aren't represented is likewise unsubstantiated.
Minecraft was created by a programmer who didn't really seem to give any forethought or care into how the game would look or be received, and as a result, it has a very awful art style that makes a terrible attempt at replicating early 3D PC games. The only problem is, early 3D PC games did not look like Minecraft. They did not have deliberately cube-shaped objects, characters and enemies, and attempted to deliver graphics with as much realism and high quality as they possibly could, with their only limitation being the power of the hardware they were using at the time. Minecraft throws this history out the window for the sake of very simplistic and blocky characters that don't look anything like the classic games they are attempting to emulate.
I think this reason alone is sufficient to keep Minecraft out of Smash for a very long time - you see, the artists working on Smash take the utmost care in making sure characters look as beautiful and close to their original game art as possible, while also giving them an art style that lets all the characters blend in with each other. Because of Minecraft's extremely amateurish and terrible art style attempting to recreate PC games of the 90s, the Smash artists would have a really tough time trying to make him look good enough in Smash and not stick out like a sore thumb - essentially they would have to completely design an original model for him, which would most likely look nothing like the original character model from the game due to how amateurish it is.
This entire tirade is complete nonsense. It presents the bold claim that Minecraft would be ignored for Smash because (paraphrasing here) it's ugly and bad. This is especially irrelevant because:
1.) Regardless of your thoughts on the game, people still like it. Quite a bit, I'd say.
2.) Regardless of your thoughts on the game, Sakurai still likes it.
3.) We have no indication that a game's art style is actually relevant to deciding who gets into Smash. This is baseless conjecture.
4.) If anything, Smash's roster contradicts the notion that characters have to look "good" and "not stick out" when we have characters like Mr. Game & Watch, Snake, and Bayonetta who (while this may be subjective) do seem to stick out quite a bit compared to the rest of the cast.
5.) The notion that they'd have to design an original model for him that'd look nothing like the original character is also baseless speculation.
I don't mean this in a condescending way, but I honestly, truly believe that the only people supporting Steve getting in Smash are ten year olds, or sub-18 minors who grew up with Minecraft and don't have any consideration for the standards of Smash. It's just "I played Minecraft a lot so I think he should be in Smash".
More strawman. Also blatantly false.
Goomba meets all the same criteria as Steve supposedly does. He's iconic and famous. He "could" have a fun moveset (just like literally any character you could think of since fun is subjective). There's a good reason why Goomba isn't playable in Smash, and that's because Smash has standards. Smash isn't MUGEN. We don't need a million crappy filler non-characters.
So, this is a weird one. The comparison is drawn between Steve, the protagonist and face of one of the most popular video game series ever, and a Goomba, a generic enemy in one of the most popular video game series ever. The post draws a lot of comparisons between the two in order to address the "iconic" argument and asks why Goomba is considered unviable while Steve is, before seemingly dismissing them both as "filler non-characters."
The problem here is that the comparison fails once you get to the reason why Goomba isn't considered a viable candidate.
"Because there's way better Mario candidates?"
Goomba is an extremely minor entity within a much larger series with far more prominent and beloved characters that would likely take priority. Steve is the protagonist of his own series. The reason Goomba won't get into Smash is not the same reason Steve wouldn't get into Smash.
The comparison I think the post was going for is that both Goomba and Steve are trashy, unimportant characters in the grand scheme of gaming as a whole, rather than within their individual series, which...
No, sorry, this is just a failed comparison. There's a reason no one understood this.
I've wasted enough time on this and you still seem very slow to catch onto the point, so I'll just tell you. A third party character being "iconic" is almost COMPLETELY irrelevant to whether or not they get in Smash. A character getting into Smash is the combination of MANY factors acting in their favor, not simply one. And that's all that Steve is, a one-trick pony. His "one trick" is his game's popularity. He's not unique, he's not interesting, he's not thoughtfully designed, he's extremely dated, he's amateurishly modeled visual-wise, and he's not in high demand as a Smash character. All the third party characters who got into Smash so far have had ALL these qualities in their favor. Steve does not. As a Smash candidate, he barely has anything going for him outside of his popularity and the sheer novelty of his visual appearance.
Again, this is more strawman based on the idea that people only want Steve for popularity and that he has nothing else to offer. It also argues that Steve is "not unique," which is incredibly subjective and something that I, personally, would disagree with given that we have yet to have a character in Smash from a true sandbox game like Minecraft.
You've failed to address any of my points, which isn't surprising as I knew you had no argument from the moment you first quoted me.
Danth's Law.
I'll just end this by saying Banjo is in significantly higher demand than Steve as a Smash fighter. This is an objective fact and there's a good reason for it. Deal with it.
Citation please.
You're really showing a massive amount of bias here. Not only are those 6 points not actually clearly defined by Sakurai, but you also answered nearly all of them in the positive, putting the negative ones in the "maybe" column. I'm not trying to be rude but this post seems like blind fanboyism at its peak.
Those points were almost word-for-word lifted from Sakurai's actual statements. These are the closest things to his actual guidelines we have.
Also, Pacack put the "negative" points as neutral because they are, in fact, neutral. An unknown factor cannot be accurately read as a positive or a negative.
Steve, despite being popular, is very much a "just anyone" character, in the most literal sense - he's a template character that everyone can reskin into any character they like.
We already have "just anyone" characters in the literal sense. See my literal avatar of a literal avatar.
Why do people still act like this is a good point?
2. "Both companies have to want to include the character."
So far we've seen no evidence that this is the case from either company. Phil Spencer from Xbox seems to want Banjo, and Nintendo has issued no comment on putting in a Microsoft-owned character.
This is a restatement of what Pacack said for this point. This is saying stuff for the sake of saying stuff.
But even so, there isn't really much to "have creative control over" with Steve. He's not a very well defined character, he has no personality that we know of, and you can't really make the argument that anything done with him would be "out of character" for him since he doesn't really have an established character. There isn't much for Sakurai to alter to his personal tastes - animation-wise, Steve just swings single limbs at a time without any expressiveness shown in his animations. Model-wise he'd also be difficult to inject any personality into, because of the very amateurish art style of Minecraft. Sakurai could opt to just design a completely new character model for him that is able to animate well and give emotion and animation, but then it could be argued that he's not really paying homage to the source material.
How is this even a remotely viable argument when characters like Mr. Game & Watch, ROB, Villager, and Wii Fit Trainer exist?
Smash has standards. So it doesn't put in just anybody for one-trick pony reasons, like "popularity". Popularity is not taken ON ITS OWN, it's not sufficient ON ITS OWN to get a character into Smash. It has to be taken into account along with a number of OTHER factors, such as uniqueness, fan demand, the ability to create interesting gameplay with them, their historic significance to gaming and Nintendo in particular, how confident the team is in replicating their art style, what type of fanservice would go along with it, the list goes on and on. These factors have to be taken with each other AS A WHOLE. If he has only one thing going for him out of a hundred different things, then it's an extremely weak argument for him being put into the game.
Hello strawman.
When Sakurai says "standards of Smash" he means the ability to deliver a character that is of HIGH QUALITY in every regard - in visual and sound design, in having fun gameplay, in respect to source material. These are the standards he's talking about. So when you have a game like Minecraft that has extremely LOW standards in one or more of these aspects, how do you expect to deliver something high quality that adheres to your high standards? You can't replicate the source material without replicating their very low standards, such as Steve's very simplistic and poorly-designed art style. So if a character doesn't even meet the standards set by Smash as a result of their OWN design, it isn't the fault of the Smash team that they can't create something high quality with that source material. I don't think Sakurai or his team would want to work on Steve or Minecraft characters for this very reason. I'm confident they would agree with me that he is very ugly, amateurish-looking and boring, and they would see fit to either totally redesign him for Smash, or (more likely) just not include him at all because of all the work they'd have to put in to redesigning him "in a way that pays homage to the source material".
This is, again, complete nonsense based on some preconceived notion of "standards" that is not in any way based on any semblance of Sakurai's standards.
6. "Characters being iconic is a major plus."
Okay, fine, so he's famous. You get one out of six. Who cares?
Apparently, Sakurai does.
While I'm here...
Steve
Chance: 5%
Want: 90%
He's a possibility. And I think he'd be fun.
Welp, g'night everyone.
