Why is the Fighting Game Community so different?

 I love fighting games. 

I always have, and I always will. There’s just something wonderful about the genre that hits me on every level. The carnage, the combos, the high execution barrier, the linear but refined style of gameplay, the eccentric characters, the crazy mechanics. Many of my favorite games of all time are fighting games: Dragon Ball FighterZ, Super Smash Bros, Mortal Kombat, and so many more. 

I also love the fighting game community. They encompass some of the kindest, most skilled, helpful and knowledgeable people in Esports. Yes, there are always toxic people, but I’m often astonished at the sheer camaraderie and kindness I find in the FGC. I always love watching content made by the community, reading about professional fighting game players and their stories, and learning about the community’s reaction to every new game in the genre. 

A big part of why I love the FGC is because it’s ridiculously interconnected. We aren’t a bunch of separate communities dedicated to our respective games; we’re one huge community dedicated to all fighting games, whether they be recent or decades old. But why is that? Why is the FGC so different? 

The first and most important thing that separates the FGC from other gaming communities has to do with the nature of fighting games themselves. Fighting games are a notoriously linear genre, and by linear, I mean that there is always the same basic goal in every game: stringing together combos and special moves to defeat your opponent. This is the core of all fighting games, and while fighting games these days are more open to story modes, that gameplay is still the dominant focus of the genre. 

A lot of other genres have much more varied gameplay than this. For example, it wouldn’t make sense if I tried to organize an RPG Community, because there is so much variety to RPGs as a genre. 

• We have turn-based RPGs, such as Pokemon, Shin Megami Tensei, and so on. Branching off of this, we have gacha games like Granblue Fantasy and Fate/Grand Order.

• We have RPGs with hack-and-slash style combat, such as Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts.

• We have RPGs with FPS elements. Deus Ex is the originator of this, with Prey and Dishonored being in the same category.

• We have dungeon crawler RPGs such as Ultima and Rogue.

• We have Soulslike RPGs with collectible currency after death, an emphasis on dodging and parrying, and stamina management.

• We have tactical RPGs such as Final Fantasy Tactics and strategy RPGs such as Fire Emblem.

• We have Roguelikes, such as the aforementioned Rogue. Spelunky and Hades are then part of their own sub-category called "Roguelites."

• We have MMORPGs, with Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft being the most popular.

• And that's not even getting into the fact that Western RPGs emphasize character creation and player choice, and are often set in more standard sci-fi and fantasy settings, such as Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect and Dragon Age; whereas Eastern RPGs have a more anime-inspired aesthetic and puts you in the role of a specific character in a more structured narrative, such as with most mainline Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games.

Fighting games aren’t necessarily like this. Since the gameplay is so single-minded, and the gameplay is the only real focus, we all kind of flock together. Obviously some games are quite different, which is why we group games into categories like 3D fighters, tag-team fighters and platform fighters; but for the most part, our games have more similarities than differences. 

This leads to a wide transference of skills. It’s very common to see the best fighting game players excelling in many different games, not just one. It’s why Justin Wong can comfortably play several different Street Fighter and Marvel vs Capcom titles simultaneously, and why Sonic Fox is a globally-ranked player in Injustice, Mortal Kombat, Skullgirls and Dragon Ball FighterZ. 

That brings me to another point. Individual fighting game titles aren’t really outpaced by their successors, at least not always. In other genres, a technically-advanced sequel might completely replace the predecessor and blow it out of the water. However, if the old game has enough neat mechanics, it will withstand the test of time. 

In fighting games, this is almost always the case because in addition to having different mechanics, older games also usually have entirely different rosters and glitches, leading to a new meta all-together. 

This leads to a sort of “cumulative effect,” wherein the old guards of the genre (like Melee, MvC2 and SFII) are never outright replaced when new titles come out so much as they all exist alongside each other. That’s why it’s not uncommon to see people playing SFV at EVO the same day as a SFII tournament. It creates a lot of diversity, and it encourages newer members of the community to look back at old titles and see if anything clicks. 

Because of that singular focus on gameplay, and the cumulative effect of the genre, there are always lots of titles floating about for developers to take inspiration from. This is one of my favorite things from the genre, as new studios constantly look back at their personal favorites and incorporate the best pieces of it into their own projects. Every developer has their own opinion on what made a game so great, and they’ll implement different parts of it into their newest title. It leads to truly amazing games like Marvel vs Capcom inspiring equally amazing games like Skullgirls and Dragon Ball FighterZ. That not only ties into what I was saying earlier about the wide transference of skills, but it also encourages casuals to experiment. The main reason I got into DBFZ was because I knew it took so much inspiration from MVC, for example. 

All of these factors---the single-minded focus on refined and precise gameplay, the tendency for old titles to exist alongside new titles, the wide transference of skills, and the fact that developers constantly inspire each other---leads to a community like no other. The FGC is without question my favorite video game community, and I’m always excited for new developments in our little group.