Oh man, I could go on for days about this topic. I'm going to keep it short since I know people dont wanna read rants.
1) This community is built around elitism.
-The community is the ONLY community where everything is collectively decided by a backroom. The rules, major metagame discussion (in the prime of the game), etc was all pretty much kept in a back room of higher ups.
-The community holds the game as an "elitist" game. "Our game is so great, we've got so much tech, only these characters work." Etc etc.
*Alot of people DONT want to be around that. It's annoying and unattactive
*Alot of people, for various reasons, DONT want to practice. (Even in the community, which is why "there are only 8 tourney viable characters")
-Smash holds itself as a "super unique, special entity" when it really isnt. This turns off alot of people
2) For what the game is (a fighting game), too much has to be done to play the game.
-Smash is the only game with an extensive rule list, including "unorthadoxed" character counter pick rules, that are "required" for tourney play.
-Smash flat out takes the longest to play by ages.
*1 game in smash can take up to 8 minutes.
*1 game in any other fighter is usually 1½ minutes, maybe more if there are frequent time stops (supers, ex flashes, etc)
I could go on and on, but meh atm.
Other points I could touch on.
-The "randomness" of smash. (As random as brawl is, when compared to other fighting games, melee is a very close second in randomness. Think of this, out of the all of the legal stages in the game, only 4 (maybe 5) have absolutely NO random elements. Battlefield, FD, POKEFLOATS AND CRUISE. So even if you play "neutrals only", you still have to fight random elements)
-Compared to other competitive fighters, smash is the only one where blocking is not a constant. (Shield stabbing). Big turnoff to alot of people.
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You have to look at it like this. There are 2 crowds of people you can pull from, people who play fighting games and people who dont. The way the community works and acts, we actually do alot to turn away BOTH pools.
We talk about how "technical and great" our game is, when it's really not. (Dont try this arguement with me, you wont win.) The community is built on elitism and takes forever to run a tournament WHEN COMPARED TO OTHER GAMES. (I mean seriously, look at ROM. You want to really try and tell me M2k and Mango seriously landed on the opposite sides of the brackets? That is far from the first time brackets were fixed, and it's far from the last time. That's actually how this community works)
Stuff like that turns off people who play other fighters.
Then we go around saying "Oh, there's no way Ness can ever compete. Not even if you pick up a decent character to cover your horrid matchups. You cant win playing Ness." That turns off alot of people who want to play and use their favorite characters. If your favorite character is kirby, "by law of the land, you're ****ed."
All in all, I seriously think the community did it to ourselves.
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tl;dr - No f**k it, you read this post. The whole thing is the tl;dr version of my arguement.
1) This community is built around elitism.
-The community is the ONLY community where everything is collectively decided by a backroom. The rules, major metagame discussion (in the prime of the game), etc was all pretty much kept in a back room of higher ups.
-The community holds the game as an "elitist" game. "Our game is so great, we've got so much tech, only these characters work." Etc etc.
*Alot of people DONT want to be around that. It's annoying and unattactive
*Alot of people, for various reasons, DONT want to practice. (Even in the community, which is why "there are only 8 tourney viable characters")
-Smash holds itself as a "super unique, special entity" when it really isnt. This turns off alot of people
2) For what the game is (a fighting game), too much has to be done to play the game.
-Smash is the only game with an extensive rule list, including "unorthadoxed" character counter pick rules, that are "required" for tourney play.
-Smash flat out takes the longest to play by ages.
*1 game in smash can take up to 8 minutes.
*1 game in any other fighter is usually 1½ minutes, maybe more if there are frequent time stops (supers, ex flashes, etc)
I could go on and on, but meh atm.
Other points I could touch on.
-The "randomness" of smash. (As random as brawl is, when compared to other fighting games, melee is a very close second in randomness. Think of this, out of the all of the legal stages in the game, only 4 (maybe 5) have absolutely NO random elements. Battlefield, FD, POKEFLOATS AND CRUISE. So even if you play "neutrals only", you still have to fight random elements)
-Compared to other competitive fighters, smash is the only one where blocking is not a constant. (Shield stabbing). Big turnoff to alot of people.
________________
You have to look at it like this. There are 2 crowds of people you can pull from, people who play fighting games and people who dont. The way the community works and acts, we actually do alot to turn away BOTH pools.
We talk about how "technical and great" our game is, when it's really not. (Dont try this arguement with me, you wont win.) The community is built on elitism and takes forever to run a tournament WHEN COMPARED TO OTHER GAMES. (I mean seriously, look at ROM. You want to really try and tell me M2k and Mango seriously landed on the opposite sides of the brackets? That is far from the first time brackets were fixed, and it's far from the last time. That's actually how this community works)
Stuff like that turns off people who play other fighters.
Then we go around saying "Oh, there's no way Ness can ever compete. Not even if you pick up a decent character to cover your horrid matchups. You cant win playing Ness." That turns off alot of people who want to play and use their favorite characters. If your favorite character is kirby, "by law of the land, you're ****ed."
All in all, I seriously think the community did it to ourselves.
______
tl;dr - No f**k it, you read this post. The whole thing is the tl;dr version of my arguement.