I don't know how true this statement is. I honestly feel that the lack of depth in Brawl is going to limit its lifespan.
I was at a Brawl/Melee tournament the other day, and this is what I saw.
1.) Melee had 16 entrants. Brawl had about 22 or 24 entrants. Eight of the Melee players entered the Brawl tournament and most of them did so reluctantly. When I asked 4% APR why he entered, his response was something along the lines of "I'm just entering because everyone else is". I, personally, entered because I just wanted to try something new.
2.) Nobody watched any of the Brawl finals. Nobody cared. I believe that the grand finals featured a Pit player and a DDD player, but I'm not 100% sure because I wasn't really watching... and I was sitting right next to them. My back was turned, and I was having a conversation about Brawl and Melee with a couple of other people. In this conversation, we came to the conclusion that Brawl will die when someone loses in the grand finals of a major tournament (FC, OC, *pound*) because of tripping... but that is a topic for another time.
I was at a Brawl/Melee tournament the other day, and this is what I saw.
1.) Melee had 6 entrants. Brawl had about 36 entrants. The 6 Melee players were also all in the Brawl Tournament. Due to lack of participants in the Melee tournament, the 6 Melee players just decided to have friendly tournament amongst eachothers, with individual MM's.
2.) Everyone watched the Brawl finals. People cared so much and were cheering their favorites on, there was a lot of energy in the room. I am certain that the grand finals features an Olimar player and a Metaknight player because my eyes were glued to the television screen. At the end of it all, I had a conversation with one of my friends who is arguably one of the top Melee players in Canada. In this conversation we came to the conclusion that it's sad that the community at large won't return to Melee, even though its the more competitive title. Even if Brawl ends up singing its swan song early, people just won't have the motivation to go back to Brawl, they'll just quit all together and wait for SSB4.
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My point of this is that
YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCES is not valid argument here, especially one in dictating a local tournament results, when I have an exact opposite experience which totally cancels out yours. Seriously your entire example is similar to me saying "I beat my friend all the time as Ganondorf, he must be a top tier character"
You should have just stopped after the sentence "I honestly feel that the lack of depth in Brawl is going to limit its lifespan." To that I wouldn't even have to look far for a reply;
Synikal said:
1. Melee is the more competitively companionable title.
2. The competitive community at large will not return to Melee.
Number 2 has your answer. Melee will remain, it will continue to thrive, but it will never continue to grow. No
new players to the Smash series will start to play Melee. No melee veterans who are tired of Melee will go back to Melee. No players who care about winning money will go back to Melee, because there will be many more Brawl tournaments to win money from.
You might hate it, but that's just how it's going to be.