So Riot Games just announced like 4 games...

[PenguinChan]

The one thing Riot has always done well is eSports. They're great at marketing them, publicising them and have some solid production values.

The one thing Fighting games have always done poorly, in my opinion, is eSports. Theres always an amaturish screw up at EVO. Every single year. This year they landed Tekken 7's director Harada in hot water, got on David Hayters shit list, angered Bandai Namco and Konami while also pissing off the fans there with a horrendously mistimed prank that overshadowed the finals of Tekken 7.

A company like Riot with the skills and the knowhow have the potential to reach a much greater audience and hopefully expand interest in the genre beyond the relatively minor market share it has at the moment. I suppose the better question would be "is Riots Fighting game going to be at EVO?". It may well be that Riot run their own eSports scene separate from the established Fighting Game circuit. I do worry that may be determental to the community as a whole rather than a positive influence.

From the footage, it's definately got that Rising Thunder vibe to it. The art style and animations are very similar. At the same time though it has also captured what makes LoL Champions fun. Darius gets to dunk people, Jinx has long range juggles and Katarina has teleports. I'm cautiously optimistic for it, even it's too early to really say if it looks good or bad from the limited gameplay footage we've seen so far.

I'll give you that, Riot is excellent at marketing eSports but they aren't without faults or huge outbursts due to their choices and reflection on incidents that have happened. But overall they are pretty excellent at keeping their one game alive and kicking - so we'll see if that experience can transfer over to another title of a different genre(s).

Which is the main thing I'm going to look for - they can hire all the talent and use all of their strengths, but they haven't created an FPS game, nor a fighting game, or an animated series... Etc. We'll learn when these products come out in about 1 - 3 years.

Even if a game has excellent marketing that won't make up for people not caring for the game long-term. Since it is basically Rising Thunder: LoL Edition, they are going for a more casual audience and trying to capture it to garner interest.

The fighting game is the only one i would want to play, if it's good. It better have good netcode.

Since it's made by the same people who made Rising Thunder (Riot bought them), and the people who made Rising Thunder were the original creators of GGPO... AND Riot is always heavily invested in reducing ping, creating an optimized netcode as humanly possible. So it'll have good netcode - otherwise what the fuck are they even doing?

[QuelDrathon]

The fighting game seems something out of the norm and deep in the Esports area. I like it.

[Rendark]

Since it's made by the same people who made Rising Thunder (Riot bought them), and the people who made Rising Thunder were the original creators of GGPO... AND Riot is always heavily invested in reducing ping, creating an optimized netcode as humanly possible. So it'll have good netcode - otherwise what the fuck are they even doing?

I hope you're right. So many good fighting games die because of shit netcode.

[lagiacrux]

the only thing that is remotly interesting to me is the animated series. im a sucker for nice animation

[StrawberryZebra]

Well, IMO BBTag is basically a stopgap while Mori plans whatever comes next for the BB franchise. It's an easy way to get some extra life out of old assets, experiment with gameplay, and keep money flowing. I expect in another year or two we'll see a new BB property on UE4, assuming he doesn't go off the wall and make it an RPG.

Honestly, I think BBXTag is it for the BB main series. Given how Central Fiction ended, they need a major plot loophole to bring back Ragna and given how much of the world of BB revolves around his actions, I don't think putting someone else in the protagonist role will really work out. Jin and Noel have pretty much completed their character arcs and lots of the other major players, Rachel, Yukki Terumi, Kokonoe etc are either dead, powerless or have completed everything they set out to do.

They could perhaps push Kagura into the Protagonist role, but he never exerted influence over events the way other characters have.

If anything, we're probably going to see more spin offs like Xblaze. Which would suck - Characters like Es, Mai and Naoto aren't really capable of carrying the series by themselves.

My main interest in the Riot fighter is how it may shape fighting game monetization and esports going forward, since Riot and League have already established such a big presence outside of the FGC. Will they try and make their way into existing tournaments with EVO as the end goal, will they piggyback on their existing infrastructure and hold their own finals? Will they push into the Korean scene, which currently doesn't have much FGC representation? For me, the game itself is rather secondary.

Monetisation is one of my biggest concerns. Typically in a fighting game you play one or two characters almost exclusively, where as LoL is monetised around you playing multiple Champions. A lot of it will come down to the business model, most fighters are currrently using a model where you buy the game then they charge you extra for DLC characters, skins and so on.

Assuming Riot go for a free to play model, it has worked out very well for them in League afterall, I do wonder what that would look like. They can't market you skins for characters you don't play. Buying the character you want to play directly doesn't leave a lot of room for them to sell you anything other than skins for that one character. They may go for a free to play roster every week to let you try out characters before you buy, but ultimately players are going to gravitate towards playing only at most two or three characters. That seems almost antithetical to the model that has worked so well for Riot with League.

As for the eSports... Who knows? They probably don't have any firm plans themselves at this point. I would like to see it at EVO though, a lot of the people working on the project were instrumental in making EVO a reality, it would be a shame if they created an eSports scene that was in direct competion with it.

The fighting game is the only one i would want to play, if it's good. It better have good netcode.

Tony Cannon was the creator of GGPO netcode. It worked out excellently in Skullgirls, Divekick and Them's Fighting Herds. I really don't think the Netcode will be anything to worry about.

Which is the main thing I'm going to look for - they can hire all the talent and use all of their strengths, but they haven't created an FPS game, nor a fighting game, or an animated series... Etc. We'll learn when these products come out in about 1 - 3 years.

Even if a game has excellent marketing that won't make up for people not caring for the game long-term. Since it is basically Rising Thunder: LoL Edition, they are going for a more casual audience and trying to capture it to garner interest.

Very true. I can't say much about their FPS, Card game or other projects, but I am cautiously optimistic for their Fighter.

Though I do think it's far too early to really say if the game will end up being Rising Thunder: LoL Edition. It's obvious that they've used Rising Thunder as a basis so far, but it doesn't mean the finished product is going to be anything similar.

For what it's worth, I enjoyed playing Rising Thunder. It had a lot going for it that made it easy to get into but hard to master. One button specials with cooldowns for instance is easy for the player to work with and understand, but offers a lot of depth when you know that the other player has just used their projectile and won't have another one ready for 8 seconds more.

A much more polished version of Rising Thunder with an established IP might just be what the genre needs to help it grow. Or it could be a complete disaster that flops hardcore after a couple of weeks. Only time will tell.

[Tic Tacs]

lol my naive child, tencent owns majority of EA and activation...

Where did you get your info from or are you trolling? Please link.

[Tech614]

A much more polished version of Rising Thunder with an established IP might just be what the genre needs to help it grow. Or it could be a complete disaster that flops hardcore after a couple of weeks. Only time will tell.

It will either be a giant bomb or a giant accident(MVC2, Melee for example) that ends up good in ways it wasn't supposed to be. When Seth Killian left the project for creative differences I kind of doubt it will be a good and solid fighting game, but some of the most successful fighting games like I posted above where broken beyond belief and ended up being good because of it so who knows.

[LuminaL]

Where did you get your info from or are you trolling? Please link.

just do a quick search and research on internet. Im not trolling anyone, if you believe it or not is your choice

[Tic Tacs]

just do a quick search and research on internet. Im not trolling anyone, if you believe it or not is your choice

Please provide a link to backup your previous statement, thank you.

[LuminaL]

Please provide a link to backup your previous statement, thank you.

Im gonna simplify what I just said: Its not my job to do the research for you, if you are interested yourself, you can easily use the vast internet on your fingertip the technology has provided to you. your welcome.

[Edge-]

Im gonna simplify what I just said: Its not my job to do the research for you, if you are interested yourself, you can easily use the vast internet on your fingertip the technology has provided to you. your welcome.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/...ctivision.aspx

They own a 5% stake, dude. That's about 46% short of a majority.

[Tech614]

Yeah yeah, Capcom is "big" but they don't really act like it.

They do act like it though. They where the only publisher willing to drop millions on trying to establish an esports circuit for fighting games. NRS and Bamco followed suit but Bamco is a joke when their world champs are making less money then someone who just wins a major in SFV.

Like there is no way in hell the CPT is generating a profit, at best it's probably breaking even but I doubt that even. Capcom keeps funding it though, they don't drop out in a year like NRS does for every game and they don't offer prize pools that don't even cover travel costs like Bamco.

Capcom even doubled down on esports with the SFL and their Olympics deal with intel. Like they're literally the only company pushing for big esports in the FGC while half of the scene wants to remain poverty because of some hipster take of "screw esports".

People think Riot is gonna come in with all this money, but unless their fighting game starts generating the revenue that LoL is it won't even be close.

[Djuntas]

https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/...ctivision.aspx

They own a 5% stake, dude. That's about 46% short of a majority.

Tencent still owns activisionBlizzard on mobile games etc. Look who made COD mobile...They are deeply connected.

PS Riot games owned by Tencent...NO THANKS, biggest copy cats in the world...They have no originality, all copies. Fuck em.

[Raven]

lol my naive child, tencent owns majority of EA and activation, along with many many other companies like Disney, WB ,Ubisoft and supersell.

in our friends circle we call it "the world eater" and for good reason!

No they dont, they do own 100% of Riot on the other hand.

[StrawberryZebra]

People think Riot is gonna come in with all this money, but unless their fighting game starts generating the revenue that LoL is it won't even be close.

I would expect that they'll probably host all of their games together at the same eSports events. They're already putting the money in for venues and production for League, having all of their games at the same events would be an easy decision to green light at a management level. My concern with that, as I noted above, is that it would separate them from the FGC at large. That could well be a huge benefit for Riot, the same way it has been for Smash, or it could be a massive detrement as the more established names within the FGC stick within their own circle.

The other thing Riot is great at is community Engagement. There are tonnes of sites dedicated to League that cater for players of all skill levels, right the way from Bronze all the way through to Challenger. There are thousands of LoL related Youtube channels, fan artworks, songs, the works. Riot frequently collaborate with some of their community content creators on these kinds of projects too

Fighting games have never really had that. There have been a few places that have been dedicated to fighting game content, like Shoryuken.com or Maximilian on Youtube, but never to the same degree as LoL has. Most of the resources that are out there tend to focus more on newer players too. I get it, fighting games can be hard to get into, but it can be hard for skilled players to find the resources they need to help them push to new heights.

Because of the cross over with the League IP, it's not a huge leap of logic to assume that some of those community creators are going to continuing to make the same kind of content around Riots fighter. That could well be a huge step forwards for getting fighters into the limelight. Even if some of these people aren't playing the game themselves, that kind of shared content helps make them part of the games community. It adds a more social aspect to the community that has never really had the chance to exist in any meaningful way.

[Big Thanks]

@StrawberryZebra

I love your passion for fighting games. We can see it on your posts.

We are a "niche" market...BUT we are:
-Big enough
-Very dedicated
-Excellet esport material (even people who dont play the game come to watch the fighting game pros)

We have the most eye candy material of entire esports.

[Mukind]

It's about 5 years late for Riot to compete with Valve

Just burning money at this point

They're just jealous of Epic

[vindicatorx]

Only thing I saw that interests me is the show.

[StrawberryZebra]

We are a "niche" market...BUT we are:
-Big enough

Are we, though?

Samurai Showdown is coming to PC soon and, quite frankly, I expect it'll be dead on arrival. Under Night In-Birth is an amazingly well put together game that is an absolute joy to play for beginners and experienced players alike but now the hype has died down from EVO it's back to it's old player numbers. If I want a game I almost always have to arrange it through Discord. Quite often I end up either playing the same 1-2 people exclusively because there's no one else in the same geographic region of the world who's looking for a game.

We're in a place now where outside of Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat and Smash most games have a very small very dedicated fan base. Outside of either their launch window or EVO, the rest are usually ghost towns. Finding a game with someone who is your skill level where neither of you are going to be getting unplayable lag is a challenge in itself. Getting new players in and to stick around is another huge challenge, they're a genre of game where even a small skill advantage can lead to massively one sided games.

While people like myself may be willing organise games through Discord or go to events in person, the average player isn't going to bother. The game industry has moved on from Arcade and face to face multiplayer and pre-arranged matches. Fighting games are still stuck in that pre-2000 bubble where matches are played in person and when you needed to connect directly to the other person in order to play.

Most of Arc's games have a multiplayer lobby which is trying to be a virtual arcade where you can hang out, chat with other players and organise games. Which is a cool idea in theory. In practice it's used as a substitute for proper matchmaking, which is something which is pretty much just expected in Multiplayer games these days. Of course, the games themselves are also too small for a matchmaking queue to work at all, making it something of a catch 22.

Which is a shame - There are tonnes of top notch, extremely well made fighting games which are stuck being played by just a hardcore few and will never get the attention they rightly deserve. When new players do come in, they find that there's barely anyone to play and generally just write the game off. It creates a situation where the genre is small because it small and it's always going to be small because of how dated it's practices are for new players. And I would really love for Riot to be able to break that cycle.

[Tech614]

We're in a place now where outside of Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat and Smash most games have a very small very dedicated fan base. Outside of either their launch window or EVO, the rest are usually ghost towns.

Outside of the big ones you mentioned fighting games are highly regional. GG has a massive scene in Japan, niche one everywhere else. KoF has a massive scene in China and Latin America and is niche everywhere else. Soul Calibur is HUGE in france and niche mostly everywhere else. Hell you can even see this with the bigger games as Tekken is king in Korea, SF in Japan and EU, Mortal Kombat and Mahvel basically only ever existed in NA scene wise. Dead or Alive basically only has a legit scene in NE USA.

Also fighting games are still developing an online scene, most of the serious competitive play still happens at local scenes which adds more to this regional tribalism in the genre. If more games had netcode worth a shit this might change.