If I had to say which fighting games were the most popular right now, it would probably be Dragon Ball FighterZ, Street Fighter V, and Tekken 7. Online and offline, these games are attracting major numbers of players at weekly, monthly, and annual events across the globe. But as we all know, these aren’t the only fighting games in town - and not by a long shot. Just off the top of my head, games like Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, Guilty Gear Xrd Rev2, Blazblue: Chronophantasma Extend, and Injustice 2 are all competing with the top dogs for exposure and participants.
But what if you’re a fan of one of those less popular games, or worse yet, a fan of a game that isn’t among the most recent on this list? You might find it to be very difficult to get better in games that don’t have as widespread of an audience. The online games you will find are either matches with the biggest of fish who ready to stomp you out of existence, or new players who bought the game on sale and don’t offer much in the way of helping you get better, other than acting as a live target for you to practice combos on. Offline games? Forget it, nobody’s moving a DBFZ setup to make space for Killer Instinct in 2018. So what do you do? Do you give up on your quest to be the best in your favorite game and start playing a more popular game you don’t like? Do you toil the abyss of empty online servers to only find immovable objects in your path?
No. You follow this guide on how to find quality opponents, you become a leader in your community, and you remember that people had it much, much worse back in the day (as usual.)
The Cross Tekken Effect
The first time I ever found myself not playing the popular game was Street Fighter X Tekken. I’ve mentioned my past with the game in other articles, but it bears repeating here. I was the only person in my core friend group that really enjoyed SFxT, and often forced it upon them just so I could get my fix. I grinded a ton of Ranked as well, getting to pretty much the highest rank I’ve ever been in a game - mostly because that was the only place to find matches. The people playing endless were just weirdos who used the easy input gems, which offered no practical application because those gems were banned in tournament play. Once the player base started to die down, mostly due to Ultra Street Fighter IV’s release, it was harder and harder to find games. This was before the days of Discord, and before Reddit was really a viable platform to find matches, so I just kind of accepted the fate of the game being gone and moved on. While I was pretty happy with the way Ultra turned out, I still missed SFxT, and still do to this day.
SFxT has become the benchmark to other “failed” fighting games, and I think it’s unwarranted. Sure, Capcom’s DLC plan for the game was equal parts poorly executed and the start of their shady business practices, but when you looked past all that, the game was fun. Isn’t that all that matters? If all this sounds familiar, yes, it sounds a lot like the community’s feelings towards Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite (which I’ve covered in the past) and the battle between the community that loves the game versus the community that hates the game in both cases are pretty ferocious. It’s a welcome sign that the community around Marvel isn’t backing down without a serious fight, something I wished the SFxT community did a bit more of. Accepting the game’s fate just a few years after its release wasn’t the right thing to do, and I should’ve done a bit more to fight for the game in those days.
Suffice to say, I’ve learned from past mistakes, and now have made a nice gameplan for helping less popular games survive in the new age of the FGC.
Harness the Power of Social Media
The USF4 Revival Facebook group has been successful in uniting Ultra Street Fighter IV players from around the world and keeping the game alive online and offline.
I’m not saying shouting into the abyss on Twitter for BlazBlue matches is the way to go here. You might find someone if you have enough followers or get lucky, but Twitter is generally not the place to be looking for games. The best sites to use in this instance are Facebook and Reddit. Facebook groups are a great way to find competition of any level, and in my experience, Facebook groups are the most welcoming of all platforms. You’ll also have the added bonus finding groups not only based by game, but by geographical location as well. You’ll generally want to look at not just the total number of members, but also at the number of posts the group has made in the past week or month. What good is a group with 100,000 members if nobody’s interacting with one another?
A great example of the power of a Facebook group is the Ultra Street Fighter 4 Revival group on Facebook. The group often holds online and offline events around the world in order to keep Ultra Street Fighter IV from death, even if it's just for one more day. The community has successfully gotten Ultra onto a number of major tournament cards in the past, but hasn't done any yet. For anyone still interested in the game, the community is very active, especially on PS4 and PC, and games can be found at any time of the day.
Reddit is also a platform worth using for games for a number of reasons. One, you’ll be able to easily find a subreddit based on your favorite game, and generally that subreddit will be pretty active (unless you’re looking for an active SFxT subreddit. Those don’t exist.) The community will also definitely be down to play, just pop a thread up and you’ll be sure to get responses. The second, and probably the more important factor here, is that generally these subreddits will have links to active Discord servers you can join, leading me to my second point.
Use Discord for Fighting Game Discourse
The creation and success of Discord has been a blessing for gamers of all walks of life, but especially fighting game players. If you’re not familiar with it, Discord is a communication platform that combines the best parts of chat rooms, message boards, and voice chat clients into one, easy to use program. You can use it on a cell phone, tablet, PC, or through a web browser, making it adaptable to your hardware limitations (or lack thereof.)
Discord also takes things a step further than its social media counterparts, not only offering servers for geographical areas and games, but there also exist character discords for games like Street Fighter V that you can utilize, and other game communities might have similar servers. These servers are full of not only players who are skilled with your favorite character, but players who find your favorite character troublesome. Interacting with these players could bring some great results for your competitive future in these games.
The Tried-And-True Method of Getting Better
If you’re tired of seeing other games get the love you wish your game got, then maybe it’s time to stop waiting for others to take care of business yourself. Setting up your own sessions is just a matter of consistency and effort, but you can also utilize existing sessions to your advantage. If you know players in your area will be attending X event, then it might behoove you to throw out a feeler to see if players of your game will be attending. If not, then do like New Jersey fighting game community Leo Gonzalez said he did - host sessions at your place. “Me and like 3 other people would sit in a room with two setups,” he said. “Each person would pickup like half the characters in the game and keep two or three mains or teams.”
I respect this, because I feel the long, grinding set sitting next to your opponent has been lost with time, but is still one of the best ways to gauge your progress as a player. It’s harder with busier schedules, lack of offline training space, and a dwindling number of players willing to make the trek to the locations that are still functioning, but if you can - do it.
Just this past week, I visited the 8 on the Break arcade in Dunellen, New Jersey (pictured above.) I noticed that the Tekken 7 community was out in full force after not being represented the last few weeks. I was pleasantly surprised by the turnout of not just high-level players, but some mid-level players looking to get better as well. Apparently this was a coordinated effort from some members who wanted to revitalize the Tekken scene in northeast New Jersey. I couldn't be happier to see this group come together and have a great turnout, even if it was only for a session. It inspired me to start thinking about games I wanted to see come back, specifically Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.
To summarize, be thankful that you’re trying to play an unpopular fighting game in 2018. Just 4 years ago, the amount of resources to find other players were nowhere near as abundant as they are now. Use social media and Discord to your advantage, and don’t be afraid to try to run some offline events as well. If you need some more material that might benefit your journey, check out our general guide on starting your own fighting game scene and our tips for using Training mode to improve your abilities in your game of choice.
