While fighting games have made a bit of a comeback in the videogame market these past few years, they’re still a little too complex for the average player that isn’t willing to spend hours of training time with them. You might love playing Street Fighter IV, but may not have the time and dedication required to learn how to dash-cancel or perform the lengthy, impressive combos often on display at fighting game tournaments, effectively meaning that you miss out on half the game.
Over on Capcom USA’s forums, one user brought this concern up, pointing out that, while he loved Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, he was no good at the advanced maneuvers in those games, and that there was no effective method in place to teach him how to learn more advanced playing techniques either.
Capcom USA’s Senior Vice-President, Christian Svensson, replied to his concerns, and his message gives a bit of insight as to what Capcom’s thoughts on the future of their fighting games is:
“We try to take into account non-competitive level players so that they can enjoy these games too. I’d say we have varying levels of success in making sure there’s enough content and fun in the mechanics even if you don’t know how to plink, FADC or DHC. SFxT was intended to be a bit more casual friendly and frankly, I think with the introduction of so many new systems (gems, pandora, etc.) I think we probably overcomplicated things and it worked against that objective.
More to the OP’s point, I strongly agree that we have not done a good job of truly teaching new players about the basics of fighting game strategy in our current crop of titles. This has been a hot button conversation with the producers in the past and some have embraced it. In the case of SF3: Online Edition, we tried to put in challenges and trials that would have explained a bit more of the "why" as opposed to just the "how" in traditional training modes but we probably didn’t go as far as we could have.
In future titles, this is an area that I hope that our teams will take more time with as I view them as critical to the expansion of the fighting game audience. I know some competitive players will scoff, but the vitality of the scene is linked to how successful we all are (I say all because the community needs to be accepting of new players too) in these efforts. "Scrubs" are just players who don’t yet have the same experience or knowlege [sic] that you do. And remember, once upon a time, you were a scrub too. I am the perma-scrub (ask Seth [Killian], he knows).
We need to provide the right tools for new players to learn enough that they’re motivated to take the "next steps" in their developing love for fighting games. I’d like to think we can do better in the future.”
Capcom have not yet officially announced what their next major fighting game will be, but rumours and hints suggest that they are working on Darkstalkers 4.
