Japan Vs NA?

Re: Here Piggies, Have a Pearl!

Now that was the funniest post in the thread, and I knew you were going to post because all the past locked ones were from you!

 

"Maybe Shou believes it's a matter of agency: One player with iron determination could rise above the rest and beat the Japanese at their own game, inspiring others to do the same, and changing the whole NA scene in the process. But this interpretation would focus solely on agency, and not give us an insight on the context."


It is a matter of agency and context. To the extent that the Japanese players are stronger than NA players, it can be explained by the longevity of the strong NA players. It takes strong competition to get strong. The more strong players you have the more strong players you'll get through competition. NA's problem is that gaming often has a 'fad' dimension to it.
People tend to flock to the games where all the action is for the moment.

Strong players in NA often move on to other more highly marketed games, or games with more hype and competition. This leaves the noobs, or mediocre players with no measuring stick. Nothing that really lets them know, how good is good. NA is much more version driven. Once 3.0 is out, NA players aren't interested in 2.0 or 1.0 NA tends to have more disposable income for gaming, also allowing them to move on
to the newest version, or most popular game. Brand Loyalty in NA is rare thing these days. The idea of building a lasting community around VF4 Evo in the face of newer released versions is ridiculous for NA. NA gamers move on to the newest and latest. How can the noobs and the mediocre ever get stronger if there is no reasonably sized body of competition with a reasonable amount of really strong players. So NA is stuck in a chicken or egg scenario.

In order to get strong (possibly stronger than Japan) you need a stable steady pool of strong competition. In order to have a stable steady pool of strong competition, the strong players have to stay put. For several reasons, many (not all) of the strong players or potentially strong players in VF in NA have moved on to other games with more Marketing, more Hype,
and bigger player bases.

In some sense, it boils down to the fact that NA gamers have enough disposable income to stay with the 'in-crowd' and the NA gamers have some need to disassociate themselves with things that have 'played out', or "yesterdays news". Sega's lack of marketing and bare bones approach to the game puts it at an immediate disadvantage in NA be NA is bred and raised on marketing, hype, and the "next version"

How many NA players are playing Modern Warefare because that's what everybody else is playing, Or how many jumped onto the Wii because that what everybody else was playing. NA does suffer somewhat from Monkey-See-Monkey-Do and this fact has caused strong and potentially strong VF players to move on to more popular fighters. Which in the long run results in a VF scene in NA that does not have as many strong players as Japan.

So it is partly Sega's fault for not creating a real Marketing Franchise around the VF series in NA, and it is partly the fault of the culture of the gaming mindset in NA where gamers want to get credit for being good at the most popular games, the most hyped games, the games with the biggest installed base.

I do not think the Japanese have any special affinity for VF, they simply have a more stable competition base for the game. This allows the mediocre to get good, the good,to get strong, and the strong to become superior. the NA VF competitive community is geographically dispersed, small, and transient, making it very difficult to produce superior players, and even when superior players created, they are not given very much incentive to stay in the VF scene in NA so many move on.

Agency would allow a superior player from NA to dominate a superior player from Japan and thus inspire other NA players to become strong. But 'Context' the NA fascination with being on the most popular team, or running with the incrowd,
or wanting not to be associated with the 3rd place keeps NA from taking VF as seriously as it takes a franchise like Tekken.

So the Japan Vs NA is more a clash of gaming culture than any measure of skill, intellectual aptitude, or discipline.

The fact of the matter is that no one country has a monopoly on strong VF players. Strong VF players can be found throughout the world and come from many different nationalities and ethnicities. It just turns out that NA are slaves to Marketing, Adverstising, and Hype, and that has a direct impact on the size and strength of any gaming community.

 

I think the "NA" can be replaced with many locations. I don't think VF would be as popular today in Japan without all the constant updates of items, modes, tournaments, etc.


Also...

1) VF gets no marketing in NA because the player base is small.

2) The NA player base is small because VF gets no marketing.


If there was marketing and a reason to learn VF beyond love of the game (prizes, etc.), there would be more VF players. My parties are VF marketing on a small scale. Attendees get more than a chance to play VF. An awesome DVD (that's still in progress) would be one of those things.

 

True words. I bet if you raised a few grand and put it in a VF at a major consistently you'd probably get more players. Risky business but just saying. When I ran tournaments a lot of people came when I just said the winner would get a "trophy."

Trophy was tight though.

The thing is, I think some of the people here like the "small club feel" that VF gives.

 

I don't think that a "small player base" should be a reason VF gets little marketing or advertisement... I also believe we can prevent the little advertising by merely convincing other companies like IGN to play segments involving "tips and tricks" or "the basics" of VF. A guy called Gootecks from the Shoryuken.com site has held an event called "Bar Fights" (top tier players play SF4 @ certain bars)... All I'm saying is just as we want Sega to give to us, we need to give to them, outside of buying and playing the game.

There are Japanese players who have blog sites, and other sites that have notes pertaining to VF and all they have learned for a certain character or characters. Yes, we have VFDC and a few other places to go for VF (I mean even Shoryuken and some other sites cater to our game), but we can do a little more. Even if that little more is just merely talking about it to our Tekken/SF/SC friends, we are still doing something big.

As far as strong communities go, I agree that strong communities make stronger players, I personally know that from my experience in Hawaii. I also feel that with determination, strong players can come out of a small batch of 2 or 3 people. I know that from experience as well. I'm pretty sure some people here can relate to being in a small group but training vigorously and becoming good competitive players also.

Speaking of communities I also believe that the player base really isn't small per sé. There are tons of people who want to try out VF but are afraid of it, because it doesn't seem "welcoming" or "noob-friendly"... I feel that VF is viewed like a math problem at times. Some people look at it and say "Trigonometry", whereas others see it and say "Basic Arithmetic". Me personally I'm in the middle when it comes to the game, but if we (and I mean those that actually know the system well enough) can break it down and help people understand it so that the newblood sees it as "Basic Arithmetic" (or at least something close to it) and not "Trigonometry", then others around will take notice, and then the wildfire will start spreading. Ultimately VF will be a common interest in many communities, and thus the VF community at large (in the US and elsewhere) will grow... People will want to train harder to become better fighters, and maybe one day someone outside Japan will take the WCG title, or EVO 2K1x... Hell, we might get an invite to Super Battle Opera and crush cats and do a better job than Combofiend and Alex Valle did in the SF4 bracket.

If VF5R were to be released, what will YOU be doing to help promote it??? How will you train??? Will you put your all into it, and never give up and be consistent. Or will you stop and hop on the next trendy game that gets released??? Will you help the community by making in-depth tutorial videos for characters??? Will you help create a better VF5R guide that crushes VF5R guide that Bradygames could ever create??? Will you help Bradygames make a superb black-white book-like guide that will help the most noobish of noobs become a threat in the VF community??? Will you hold major tourneys and promote the crap out of any VF event??? Will you attend any VF event for that matter??? Hopefully the answers are yes, because if we don't show and prove to Sega how much we mean business, we might not see another one for quite some time...

Simply put, if this game were to drop, we need to make this seem like the release of the PS2, iPhone, and WoW:BC combined. We have and are putting so much effort into this potential release. If we were to get this release, we need to start busting chops and become super saiyans of VF, and give Japan a run for their money Zerg style...

If this post seemed random, or if you are left discombobulated in anyway, I'm sorry. My mind runs like the autobahn times five trillion, so when I put my mind on paper (or forum post) it tends to seem either encrypted, enigmatic, or something worse...

 

VF has been at EVO three times and Sega didn't care (except that one time that Sega sued EVO for trying to make a VF DVD). Sega also sued Beat Tribe and other arcades that made VF DVDs in Japan. And Sega IP banned people from watching VF streams of their national VF tournaments who lived out side of Japan. And where has Sega been for WCG? Nowhere near it in any capacity. If EVO and WCG don't register on Sega's radar then something as insignificant as bar fights isn't going to matter at all to them.

 

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If EVO and WCG don't register on Sega's radar then something as insignificant as bar fights isn't going to matter at all to them.</div></div>

Quoted for truth.

I've tried many times to get people near me into VF but when there are more popular beginner friendly titles out there no one seems bothered.

 

I put more hours into SF/T6 than VF just because there's sooo much love and ear from Capcom and Namco. Who in their right mind would stand behind Sega and their genocide-type decisions?

 

AMERICA!

 

I did it also. Got some friends to play casual matches at my house but none of them really got into it.
Dropped VF for SF and it was a very good choice, a big player database around where I am.

 

looooooooooooool that one is new to me.

 

I had some people come try out VF and they beat my ass, so I said lets play Tekken.

 

Well, they did that in a more indirect fashion, it's the Gyao site they used for streaming that didn't allow foreign IPs rather then Sega themselves.

 

The arcade scene is a huge reason. Arcades are dead in most of america. Not to mention, you can get across most of Japan in a few hours. Not so in America.