/vr/ - Retro Games

Steep learning curve
People went with Tekken instead

Why did a series exclusive to post-Genesis Sega consoles be unpopular compared to series released on a variety of consoles?

Virtua Fighter was very popular in Japanese arcades, fyi.

>>4280583
Well, VF4 was on PS2, and it's a fucking great fighting game. Still, nobody cares about it and plays Tekken instead.

>>4280593
>>4280583
>>4280583
>>4280579
Which is better 4 or Evolution?

>>4280579
First off: Virtua Fighter is the best fighting game, I love it and I work in marketing and also create games.

Virtua Figher 'failed' due to LACK OF:
- special effects
- fancy creative character design
- crazy FMVs
- crazy story
- a huge character selection
- too sim
- sexappeal

and thus all weak marketing..

>>4280650
I forgot to mention, a successful game has nothing to do with how good a game is. It's all about marketing. Best example for that is Virtua Fighter and as an opposite example Candy Crush.

>>4280652

That's a horrible example because those aren't comparable.

One of the most popular phone games of all time was Flappybird, literally the helicopter game with Nintendo graphics, and exactly $0 in budget.

>>4280650
'too sim' doesnt fit into the lack of category but I hope you get my point.
Whats also worth mentioning is that aside from Bushido Blade and a tiny bit Dead or Alive, VirtuaFighter3 has vertical 3d stages which I love. I wish they have kept that. Hardcore might hate it for imba garbage, but man, there is nothing more boring and unbelieveable than those flat stages in almost all 3d fiting games

>>4280657
you dont understand what I am talking about. Very sad.

okay so for the people who can't think this very far like >>4280657 who is anonymus anyways here are more SIMPLE comparison:
VirtuaFighter - Tekken
Virtua Fighter - SoulCalibour
VirtuaFighter - Dead or Alive
no fx, barely sexapeal, basic FMV - crazy FX, stupid big roster, sexappeal, crazy stories

Man, kids nowadays need everything written out... this world is going down...

>>4280660

I understand exactly what you're talking about and I know that you are wrong.

Point of fact, in 2005, EA had to revamp how they made games because an investor report said that only marketing determined the success of their games. Marketing is unpredictable and meant that EA had no idea how to budget their games. This means that relying on market is -unusual-. Marketing is supposed to just introduce people to your products, if it manages to push a product that otherwise would not move then that is considered a miracle.

EA turned around and started making stuff like Dead Space. The reformation didn't last because the recession happened and EA's investors changed priorities again.

>>4280579
i feel like the time vf3 came out, it already had too much competition
vf3 was supposed to be on saturn

Virtua Fighter did well enough in arcades which have always been more active in Japan than in the west even at their peak. I think the biggest issue was that it didn't get promoted enough in the west and it didn't have enough to really make it stand out. Great gameplay is cool and all but people tend to gravitate towards what looks the most interesting visually first and foremost. Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter was huge in the 2D department while Tekken and Soul Calibur were also quite iconic but VF never really had a gimmick to make it stand out over other 3D fighters. Combine that with the comparative limited spectrum of systems it debuted on and there just wasn't much of an install base.

>>4280579
They had 5 sequels, I'd call that a success. Any other franchise would have died at just 1 game.

It was honestly boring. Fairly generic character design, low flash decisions on the martial styles of the characters, it's not very mainstream friendly, and after Sega dropped out of the hardware market, it seemed to lose relevance. I own 4 and 5 still, but they're basically collecting dust.

>>4280579
VF3 is aesthetic perfection, really dislike the artstyle of 4 and 5.

Who you guys main?

Can't imagine how mind-blowing 3 was when it came out. I still enjoyed the Dreamcast port, despite being rushed and going up against DOA2 and Soul Calibur.

>>4280579
>Why did Virtua Fighter never achieve mainstream success in the fighting genre

Because you don't live in Japan. Over there, it was more popular than Street Fighter.

In the USA, it almost always played second-fiddle to other fighting games at the time.

VF1 - 1993-95
The first fully 3-d fighting game, but it also looked like total shit. In 93/94 Killer Instinct, the Street Fighter series, the SNK fighting games, etc. all had beautiful graphics, presentation, and were more fun to play compared to VF arcade. In 1995 The Saturn VF port sucked (as did the 32x port that barely ran) and when it was compared to Toshinden, a 3-D fighter with horrible controls yet with a fun cast of characters and flashy effects, VF1 looked even worse. VF Remix wasn't enough to get people to take Saturn's 3-d capabilities seriously.

VF2 - 1995-97
In arcades VF2 did ok in the States, but it was only on the Saturn and not many people owned a Saturn. Compare this the huge install base for PS1, and the arcade-perfect port of Tekken 2 and though VF2 is a better game it was overshadowed by Tekken 2 and other PS1 fighters of the time.

VF3 - 97-99
Planned to be a Saturn port with some special hardware adapter included to run it (pic related), it was cancelled on Saturn and I never saw it at any arcade I went to. When it finally was released on Dreamcast in the states, it not only missed the launch but it was also another sub-par port and Soul Calibur and Dead or Alive 2 were much more popular.

Post 2000 - VF4 - The first VF on a non-sega system and it was actually a huge hit on the PS2. It sold more than enough to be a greatest hits title and the VF4 Evolution upgrade version was only $20 new when released and it sold really well too.
VF5 did well and the final version of VF5 that was a download only version always had players on it back when I was really into it about 5 years ago.

I think it achieved success when it was finally free of doomed Sega hardware. It's a wonderful series. I doubt there will be a VF6- The fighting game landscape is very small- Smash bros and SF5 are what most people play now :(

>>4280579
A combination of Tekken and the lack of hardware penetration Sega had.
VF1 did well and revolutionized everything. It was also early as shit, and Tekken was cheaper. When it came home, VF1 on Saturn was a mess. VF1 on 32X was okay for the machine, but why bother?
VF2 was fairly popular in arcades... but no one fucking had a Saturn. VF2 was a great reason to get a Saturn, but Sega fucked up so badly in 1995 that there really wasn't a chance, even though the Saturn library wasn't so utterly lacking compared to the PS1 library yet at that point.
VF3 didn't have a port for ages and it didn't look as good or exciting as SoulCalibur on the same machine when it did release. The arcade visuals were mindblowing for '96, but I'm pretty sure the only Model 3 game I've ever actually seen IRL was Star Wars Trilogy, I'm pretty sure arcades just bought cheaper Tekken cabs, especially since arcades were starting to fall out of favor.
Dunno what happened with VF4 though, that shit should have actually done pretty well with its PS2 release and the fact that VF still somehow was a household name (unless I'm misremembering things completely and it did)

and then VF5 came ages too late and had a reputation for being hard as shit

Not enough variety in character designs
Characters play the same compared to other series
And nobody talks about it these days because Sega doesn't want to make VF6, for some reason.

>>4281981
>Planned to be a Saturn port with some special hardware adapter included to run it

Yu Suzuki confirmed the game was running on stock hardware.

>(pic related),

No, that's not a Saturn version, that's an incomplete Model 3 emulator screenshot.

For better or worse, games like Tekken and DOA let anyone pick it up, push some buttons and have some cool shit happen.

With Tekken that approach obviously only gets you so far before someone who actually knows how to play shuts your shit down, whereas with DOA that's pretty much the extent of how deep it gets, but titties everywhere.

With Virtua Fighter there's no button mashing into an accidentally cool-ass combo. Anyone wandering into an arcade is going to either commit to learning the complexities because they recognize and accept its depth despite the dry presentation or they're going to get their shit kicked in by stage 4 and give up on VF forever. Guess which happened more often.

tl;dr accessibility was lacking.

>>4282174
Ah cool. I remember reading in magazines at the time that a graphic card add-on was being planned for the saturn but I guess that was not true. Did any footage or screenshots from the beta of VF3 Saturn like the Shenmue beta?

>>4280593

VF4 sold well you moron.

>>4282189
He never said it didn't, you illiterate slut

>>4281981
>32x port that barely ran
What are you talking about? Virtua Fighter on 32x runs just fine, I was playing it yesterday. It's a pretty impressive port.
Funnily enough emulation has redeemed this system imo, it has a lot of good titles despite its reputation.

>>4281957

They both look light enough they don't sink into the water...

>>4281957
Oh fuck me I laughed way too much at this

>>4280652
How were/are Candy Crush and Flappy Bird marketed and how much did it cost compared to gamedev cost?

I thought that any mobileshit that got huge simply got lucky in becoming a viral meme that spread across normgroid social media like wildfire without any management or shilling.

No one had a saturn, the port of VF3 was so bad that it doesn't work on some dreamcasts. We didn't get a good port of VF till VF4. By then we could never keep a big enough scene.

>>4282178
>With Tekken that approach obviously only gets you so far before someone who actually knows how to play shuts your shit down, whereas with DOA that's pretty much the extent of how deep it gets, but titties everywhere.
>With Virtua Fighter there's no button mashing into an accidentally cool-ass combo. Anyone wandering into an arcade is going to either commit to learning the complexities because they recognize and accept its depth despite the dry presentation or they're going to get their shit kicked in by stage 4 and give up on VF forever. Guess which happened more often.

What about Bloody Roar and Soul Calibur and any other noteworthy 3D fighters? Can you give a quick rundown of their accessibility vs depth and appeal vs gimmick?

>>4282520
Nah I can't because I'm not familiar with every single fighting game and don't want to talk about things I'm not personally experienced with.

For the record I enjoyed Tekken, VF and DOA fairly equally and I like contrasting them.

I remember when VF3 came out in the arcades. It must have been late 96. The game looked absolutely beautiful and exciting. VF3 was the best looking 3D game on the planet. There even wasnt tekken 3 yet.

In comparing the two, tekken always has deeply unsatisfying gameplay. But tekken also connects with individuals with low IQ's. People who rent vandamme movies and have that large bruce lee poster on their bathroom door.

>>4280719
>the time vf3 came out, it already had too much competition

Absolutely nothing touched VF3 graphics back then. It was mind-blowing.

>>4282520

Dunno about Bloody Roar but Soul Calibur is "easier" and meant to be faster paced than Tekken. There's nothing as difficult as EWGF in Soul Calibur even though both have just frame moves. Earlier Soul games made it easier to get ringouts and annoying aggressive strategies have always been more effective than Tekken. Movement options are simpler and faster, which encourages aggression and mixup more than spacing and whiff punishing.

Soul Calibur 2 was super buggy, too, which made competitive play undesirable to lots of people once you found out that it's possible to move and block high at the same time.

I wish SC6 would be confirmed by Namco :(

>>4282507
Candy Crush had TV ads at some point. Flappy Bird cheated with the rankings on Google Play.

>I thought it was just luck
Lol

>>4282564

Rankings on google play don't make a game a worldwide success overnight.

>>4282536
It sort of did at least in NA. Most NA arcades where playing Capcom games with maybe some Tekken.

VF2 Windows version was great fun. The first game had plenty of magazine coverage, even PC magazines mentioning it often during poly 3d craze.

>>4282567
It does if you cheat your way to #1 though.

>>4282558
>I wish SC6 would be confirmed by Namco :(

T7 just dropped so once the DLCs are done they can move resources back to Project Soul. Give it a year, anon.

>>4280579
It's basically the most technical fighting game series ever. Overwhelmingly so for the average person.

>>4282584

TxSF is next, I am hopeful for SC news after that. Here's hoping.

>>4280579
to hard and complicated for low iq normies, they preferred button mashing tekken.

>>4280579
All the characters looked dumb and everyone moon jumped -- no one in the arcades I went to wanted anything to do with it. The controls seemed awkward and you'd get your ass kicked by the ai so it was like throwing quarters away

Virtua Fighter didn't become as popular as other brands because Sega made too many wrong choices and the game was too unlucky in a sense.

It constantly got ported on consoles nobody cared about like the Saturn and Dreamcast while Tekken was on PS1 for instance, so Tekken already built a fanbase by that time when Virtua Fighter was going downhill with Sega and an episode not a lot of people liked (VF3) that did also bad in arcades not because the game was unpopular but because the machines were too expensive for anybody to buy back then so every arcade was equiped with a CPS and Street Fighter or MvC(that sort of fighting game)

So for starters, the only Virtua Fighter that was relatively known was VF4 and VF4 evo, that was a big success even back then when fighting games werent a lot popular on home consoles.

Then Virtua Fighter 5 was out on PS3 when the console was barely starting to make sale numbers, and didn't even have online.
Also the game was barebones, no tutorial mode whatsoever and not very appealing to casuals even though as a fighting game it was techinically superior in every way to games like Tekken 5 or 6.

Last Virtua Fighter never had a game during the "fighting game boom" following the success of games such as Tekken 6 or Street Fighter IV, back when fighting games started to become more popular outside arcades.

VF5FS was only popular in Japanese arcades.

The console version sold quite well, but Sega stopped supporting it, they went through another financial crysis at that time and layed off a lot of people in the arcade department, when they decided they would focus on mobile gaming and weeb shits.

>>4280579
Virtua Fighter 2 was fucking huge when it came out.

It catered to the competitive crowd by frontloading all their content into multiplayer components. Back in the arcade days, this was a viable strategy as every play netted Sega a return. However, in the console era, it backfired on Sega. The vast majority of fighting game consumers now consist of those who fire it up for a few minutes a week, and then don't touch it again for quite some time. In the console market, catering to the so-called professionals is not a profitable strategy, even if they do play the most actual hours of the game, they net less copies than the casual market. This is the importance of single player campaign in post-5th gen era. These games had no allure for the single player, once the casuals have gone through the arcade, they would consider the game beaten and done, which devalues the game.
Sega made the mistake then what Capcom is going through right now: they survey their most vocal consumers, the pro and their posse, whom are actually not profitable to market for.

>>4282623
>TxSF is next

Harada dropped that project over a year ago. It's not coming at all.

>>4282814
VF4 and VF4E on PS2 had extensive singleplayer components.

The iterations of 4 definitely had a high barrier to entry for execution, but 5FS did away with the most difficult (and interesting) things. This kind of undercut the competitive scene in Japan.

The series is just too different from other fighting games, fundamentals do not carry over as much, and the learning curve is just as steep as any other legacy fighting game. VF5FS emphasized accessibility, but by 2012 the game had already been around in Japanese arcades for 2 years. It hasn't been updated since. It's always been an AAA game and a technical showcase for arcade hardware, two things Sega isn't making much money on anymore.

>>4283004
I wouldn't call just costumes single player contents. Compared to Tekken, VF really didn't have much going.

VF was best of arcade 3d fighter game.
But not like other fighting game this game only fun when you play by joystick not game-pad.

>>4283110
>But not like other fighting game this game only fun when you play by joystick not game-pad.

While I can have plenty of fun playing VF on a regular controller, I do have to admit that it is the ONE SINGLE game that I can actually play better with an arcade stick.

>>4282683
All i got from that drivel is you watch and parrot e-celebs and you and your friends were pleb dumb cunts who couldn't learn anything beyond whack-a-mole.

>>4280583
>post-Genesis Sega consoles

>>4282814
Virtua Fighter 4 and 5 were highly praised for their singleplayer modes though.

>>4280579
>VF 3
Even Yu Suzuki himself has admitted that game is too hard and deeply flawed. It's way too fast for players to get their inputs in. And the system of uneven terrain and elevation fucks up things a lot.

Just talk about 4 like you want too without caring about /vr/ getting angry about it.

Because you can't be serious acting like 3 was the high point of the series.

>>4285182
>Because you can't be serious acting like 3 was the high point of the series.
OP is a contrarian hipster, maybe a Dreamfag

VF3 was a well know failure and a wrong step in the series

>>4282740
>Last Virtua Fighter never had a game during the "fighting game boom" following the success of games such as Tekken 6 or Street Fighter IV, back when fighting games started to become more popular outside arcades.


What gets me is that this boom hasn't actually stopped, really. Fighting games are just getting bigger and bigger. There's definitely still room for Sega to make a VF6 and comeback if they wanted too. Doubly so if they push it with an e sports angle, Twitch streaming, etc. Their only real competition in 3D fighters would be Tekken.

>>4285167
No. Also, that is a subjective point of view. Compare it to the other games of that era. VF was competing with Soul Cal III and Tekken 4. Shitty core games as they may be, they still had far more casual content than VF 4 ever did.

>>4285196
>No
Yes. Literally the only thing most people even knew about those games after fifth gen were the singleplayer modes. It's not the same level as Tekken but to say they didn't have any is absurd when it was damn near the only thing most magazines even talked about.

>>4285196
Honestly I'm as casual as you can get with fighting games and I ADORED the quest mode and how in depth they were with the training mode.