Year under reviewWe look back at the highs, lows, surprises and highlights in and around this year’s video games.2020 under. You know, I know. In the midst of this chaotic year, the fighting game community has found itself pushed out of arcades, hotels and convention centers to which competitors have become accustomed and into the unpredictable world of online gaming. At first, the organizers were not sure if the community could survive, but now it is clear that its competitive spirit continues. It’s just a matter of whether the game developers can get their own acts together.
In the months leading up to the covid-19 outbreak, the fighting game community functioned fairly normally. Regional tournaments offered captivating moments regularly, Tekken 7 world final ended with a new bastard, and announced the prestigious Championship Series Championship its range from 2020.
The first sign of trouble did not come until February 20, when weekly Granblue Fantasy Versus the tournament in Japan was canceled out of concern about what was then a new outbreak of a new coronavirus strain. Fighting tournaments around the world quickly noticed the dangers posed by covid-19 at their events, with some organizers openly worried about the future of their events, following the strong financial success of canceling contracts at the venue and reimbursing potential participants. .
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t look good to us yet,” organizer and veteran NorCal Regionals street fighter competitor John Choi said Kotaku then. “We are able to cope with several thousand dollars lost for sunken materials, labor and various costs, but we are not able to cope with the cancellation fee of the place for which the hotel is responsible. That blow to NorCal Regionals is about $ 50,000, which we are not able to handle and it will give us instant bankruptcy. “
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From there, the community saw a cascade of canceled and condensed events. SNK postponed indefinitely It is King Fighter XIV and Samurai Shodown championships. A high profile Tekken 7 exposure between teams representing Japan and South Korea was reduced after two Korean players chose to stay home rather than travel at risk. Final Kombat, an end of the year Mortal Kombat 11 competition, canceled a last chance rating and reduced the spectators in person. Capcom canceled the first half of the tournament Capcom Pro and Evo finally he called it quit for 2020.
While some organizers, like Rick Thiher of Combo Breaker, hoped the offline events were still in the books for 2021, leaving players wondering what to do for the rest of the year. This gap was soon filled by both existing and newly established online competitions, but it was not the same. Because fighting games typically require split-second decision-making and the ability to execute strategies in simple frames, the inherent latency of online gaming has been a consistent obstacle to high-level competition in many games. With no way to play personally without risking infection, the demand for the competent network code began to grow.
This reason for support, especially with regard to a technology known as ‘rollback’ network code, did not fall on deaf ears. After a unofficial way improve Street Fighter Vown (and faulty) return network code, Capcom tried similar improvements inside, although that didn’t stop top players from giving up official competitions. Bandai Namco did the same for Tekken 7, with slightly better results. Classic games like Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus R and Garou: The Wolf brand received the net return code via post-release patches and saw massive peaks in their online player bases. Guilty Gear the Arc System Works developer has since promised that the future Guilty Gear Strive will use the net return code.
Unfortunately, not every fighting game developer is as connected to the community. When a group of Super Smash Bros. my fans made Slippi, a third party program who added network code back to the old-school platform fighter via the Dolphin emulator, seemed rough Coup the community finally had a light at the end of the tunnel. But the first major online tournament that used the mode, the Great House, was forced by Nintendo to cancel its competition after the corporation learned that they would emulate the 19-year-old GameCube game.
“I am just happy to be here [where] our only option is to play online during the pandemic and when we are told the road has been closed, “The Big House organizer Robin” Juggleguy “Harn said about Nintendo’s decision since then. “I do not have all the answers, but I still believe my will find a way. We always have and we will do it again. “
Nintendo’s dominant policies triggered a firestorm in Coup community that continues to this day, with many high-quality players and personalities asking the Japanese company to work with the community to resolve these issues, rather than completely shut down the event. Nintendo has claimed that it is falling within its rights to shed its weight, as The Big House has used “illegally copied versions” of my posed a threat to “intellectual property and trademarks”, as I mentioned earlier absurd nonsense.
This does not mean that the developers of fighting games have completely given up the official tournaments. After the first half of the Capcom Pro tournament was canceled, Capcom resumed Street Fighter V play with an online variant that is will end offline in the Dominican Republic next February. street fighter League, the company team Street Fighter V competition also continued in earnest, although it was forced to push its start by a few months and replace a handful of players who have either been unable to travel due to restrictions in their home countries or have voluntarily moved away from prudence. Bandai Namco has just completed a series of national online championships for Dragon Ball FighterZ in four countries. But none of these events have managed to rise to the level of grassroots tournaments that the community lost in 2020.
Fighting games have long been destroyed by their lack of a stable online game. When the only way to get a good, fundamental experience is to travel to an offline place, it adds another barrier to entry for newcomers. Several developers, including Killer InstinctIron Galaxy studies and The deadly beatingNetherRealm studios have taken significant steps towards implementing the net quality return code by 2020.
But that is no longer enough; the larger scene of the fighting game is indeed a complex ecosystem of many smaller communities and requires depth and variety to survive. Every company that makes fighting games needs to have a serious internal discussion about how their games are played and how to make the online experience feel as close as possible to what players enjoy offline.
If players cannot return to personal competition soon, it is imperative that the next generation of fighting games have a fair online game. I don’t see much in the way of future growth for the competitive community where players, newcomers and veterans alike would be forced to struggle with the current constraints and frequent and predictable frustrations of today’s online gaming. The power of this community has always been linked to consistent organization at the local level, and that means making the competition viable for as large a group of people as possible.
When a virus blocks them all at home for a whole year (and counts), state-of-the-art net code is extremely important for achieving this goal. The community knows this, and publishers need to listen to whether the continued existence of the competitive scene is a priority.