Why do fighting games lose players SO fast?

The offline content is usually bland. Playing online is only fun if you are almost evenly matched. Without a large player base, you just run into the most experienced players.

The fact that no one hardly play dnf Duel.. and when I do get a matchup it's against someone who just wipes the floor with me. It's not their fault.

I think the reason for the drop is fairly obvious. The extremely high barrier for entry. People with little experience in fighting games see some cool combos in a new fighting game and want to do that. Then they buy the game and realize that they can't do it, so they start practicing, but at some point they realize that it's going to take far longer to learn than they're willing to spend on it, and end up leaving the game. Then once the player count gets too low the experienced players will also start leaving.

As a casual player, most fighting games have close to NO single player content that has variety or is fun on its own. Usually its just training mode or story mode. Sure story mode is cool, but it's usually the same thing as a normal match but easier/a way to learn the game, not something I would consider very engaging. I think that's why a lot of people love smash games. They arent the same as traditional fighters for sure but they have a plethora of single player content in most titles that were just fun. smash bros melee had things like adventure mode where the game just became a platformer, fun minigames like break the targets, event mode for whacky scenarios, and quite a few others. Brawl also had a crazy single player experience. I'm pretty sure that traditional fighting games can create modes similar to these that take advantage of the game's central mechanics to make a unique and fun single player experience on top of the multiplayer experience fighting games are known for.

I think it comes down to the mentality "I Didn't spend x money to get tossed around all day" Fighting games are naturally a feels bad game because it does take time and effort to really improve. It takes a special type of person to really get enjoyment out of them. Similar to why people don't often do martial arts(competitively). The only real way to retain people is to add something more chill like what SF6 is doing with their adventure mode thing.

I used to play fighting games a lot back then. Games such as MK trilogy to Armageddon, Street fighter 2 to 3rd strike, killer instinct and tekken. But then after I got my hands on other games such as Grand Theft Auto series, midnight club series, max Payne series and others, I never went back to fighting games because of the amount of fun things to do in those games. Right now, open world games and MMORPGs are my favorite genres because of the level of freedom I have to do what I want in a big open space

I remember back when Tekken 3 came out and me and my brother started playing it. Our friends came over and we would play it for hours. But we weren't just playing vs, we were also playing the other modes like Tekken Force. We even watched the unlocked endings like Mokujin's multiple times because they were pretty funny. I think there should be more modes where you could enjoy the game with a friend rather it's on the couch or online.

A major problem im seeing with many fighting games released today is general lack of offline content, i get that playing these games against real human opponents is more engaging, but you’re not going to have internet all the time and sometimes i just want to play around a chill, so having next to nothing to do outside of online really sucks and it’s the reason why i drop most fighting games. I prefer to play older Tekken games for this reason when I don’t feel like hopping online for tekken 7, story mode and treasure battle is not enough, and that arcade mode is laughably short.

There needs to be more content for the casual player base. But also maybe just rewarding them with stuff for playing online win/lose as long as they play. For any of us who commit to fighting games we dont care about rewards/skins etc. we just want good matches. Curious to see how sf6 does.

Biggest thing that kills a game for me is when I can't find that one character I just LOVE playing. A game can be otherwise-perfect, but if no character just speaks to me, it will ruin the whole game, just like that.

I absolutely LOVED dnf duel and really hyped for its release last summer. It was actually the player drop-off that made me stop playing- when it got to a point you could barely find a ranked match and when you did you'd get the same opponent over and over again. The lack of developer support was the final nail in the coffin.

Like what others said, fighting games really need to have content than just PVP and arcade modes (or story mode if you’re lucky.) I remember sinking so many hours into soul caliber 2 and mortal kombat deception because of the interesting extra modes and unlockables the games had to offer that kept me coming back to play them more and more.

the sense of individuality that comes with fighting game can be appealing to some, but on the other hand it can be daunting to others. Having to work harder than you have in any other genre with no signs of it paying off any time soon can be exhausting, and the most important part is that's just not fun. as someone who's been trying to get their friends into fighting games for a very long time i've tried making the process as smooth as possible. but due to the 1v1 format it usually means you have to coach them by practice sparring, where they get mopped or you have to severely limit yourself which isn't fun for either of you. compared to mobas or fps', you can just hop on a team match, have fun regardless since you're playing with friends and that fun can turn into motivation to want to improve. i think in future fighting games they should go about making co-op play more standard to first emphasize the FUN part of the game, the stronger player can have their challenge while the weaker one can still have a great time and don't have to feel too bad for their lack of skill.

Honestly, it's the focus on competitive PVP that kills it for me. I like fighting games like Smash Bros and Soul Calibur III because without the online component, I can still go and enjoy plenty of game modes while using characters I like. Nowadays fighting games feel like they do the bare minimum to appeal to a larger demographic.

You're beating around the bush, it's a very simple answer: Lack of accessibility and unintuitive controls. The masses want simple games that you can just immediately get, like a shooter where you just move your mouse and click, not a game where you have to hit 4 different buttons to do an uppercut. I know obviously this is what makes fighting game fans like the genre, but it's just a massive, obvious barrier to anyone outside the niche. It's not any of the other points you mentioned, nor is it ambiguous, it's pretty clear cut.

There are so many choices out there it is challenging just to stick to one game of any category.

For me personally, it is because a lot of my friends are what you might call fair weather players. They play whatever game is popular for maybe a week or two before moving on to the next big trend. While I can stick with a game for months to even years, the fact that they don't stick around makes me way less motivated to learn a fighting game. Fighting games take a lot more dedication than your typical FPS or RPG to learn. You can get away with being lucky and button mashing your way to victory only for so long. Learning a character's input, combos and movesets and even just finding a character that fits your particular playstyle takes an inordinate amount of time compared to any other genre of gaming. For instance, I once spend weeks learning how to play as Tsubaki in BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend, learning all of her combos and memorizing her moveset. My friends play maybe a couple of times before they are all off playing whatever else just came out that strikes their fancy. We never go back to BlazBlue and I'm left with a pseudo-mastery over a single character in a game that we never touch again. While I could have taken to just competitive play, a lot of those players are just heads and shoulders above me in skill level that I just can't compete as I lack the sixth sense that they do since I'm not normally a competitive player in most games and it becomes very demoralizing to even launch the game.

Fighting games often have REALLY bad single player. Like a disposable "arcade" mode, a story mode with a bad story, and that's kinda it most of the time. Fighting games really need to pick up the single player aspect to really keep people playing them if they don't want to become the best of the best online. Make skill trees, good replayable and varied PVE, allow me to make different builds with different fighters, let me rank up fighters for cosmetics and skill upgrades, etc etc. Think of it like devil may cry or the new overwatch pve coming out, that is the type of stuff that would keep fighting games alive despite the online presence. Edit: A good starting point for this would be like Virtua Fighter 5 "Quest" mode. Go look it up, that's a good mode that kept me playing VF5 for awhile. It's not perfect and needs more, for sure, but as a baseline it's a great place to start

I never really considered that perspective, but it seems obvious now after you pointed it out - it's not "fighting games" that struggle with this /only/ because they're fighting games, but the market really is just crazy fluid - people pick up games then drop em or move on to the next new thing, just about every genre seems to be suffering from something like this

It definitely all comes down to love. For one you got to love the game. Then you got to find a character you love. Then you got to love it enough to improve through losses. Then extra love is needed because of the losses that occur due to things like lag. Like other games there's basically so many factors that can drive someone away so you're going to need enough sticking points that you love about it to keep you interested. I think one potential area to address is having people you enjoy playing the game with may help. Perhaps team-based, 3v3 MvC-style fighting games where people can coordinate assists, tag-ins, etc. with perhaps their family and can add some excitement and more reason to stick around. Like FPS games, some casuals will hop on because their friends want to get into some matches against the world. People love team content, even going into the newer Madden and 2k games that used to be all about the 1v1 match-up. Plus with a team you enjoy playing with, you can get external motivation to keep grinding.