Eliminate DOWNTIME

The biggest obstacle facing the online Fighting game genre is DOWNTIME and the problems which it creates.  When players sit down to play a game they demand some form of immediate entertainment. Every second spent not being entertained is a moment to think, “Hey, maybe I should be doing something else.”

The premiere games of this genre like; Street Fighter, Tekken, or Mortal Kombat, all emerged from a time where players would meet at Arcades and cheer loudly around a game cabinet pumping it with quarters and playing till their fingers blistered. With the emergence of online gaming, this scene is largely a relic of the past, and players now compete primarily from the comfort of their homes. Despite the significance of this change in venue, the format of these games remains largely unchanged. Now If you were to play any of these games online today, the majority of your time will probably be spent; navigating menus, watching loading screens, or waiting for the matchmaking system to find a suitable opponent. Unless you are already a dedicated fan, this experience can quickly grow stale, and it appears safe to say that the genre will need to embrace a new format in order to realize their true potential.

 To put it plainly, the online fighting game genre needs a way to alleviate the boredom experienced during the periods of time where the player is not engaged with an opponent, and furthermore the player must be convinced that he is not engaging in a solitary experience. I believe the most effective solution would be to add the presence of a game "Overworld", a place that encourages players to mingle and explore, while the matchmaking system runs hidden in the background. Even if this was done by allowing the player to navigate his character through an extremely simplistic 2-D world, it would succeed by giving players something to do in between matches, instead of presenting them with a screen that perpetually reads “Searching For Opponent." This would also help alleviate the feeling of disconnect exacerbated by a matchmaking system that pairs you with an opponent whom you have had no previous interaction with. There is no story being told when players are plucked from the confines of an ethereal pool and paired seemingly at random.  It is this profound lack of an engaging narrative combined with the drudgery of downtime, that dulls the game experience and continues to limit the genres appeal.

After playing the recently released Ultimate Marvel Versus Capcom 3, the game practically begs to be done in such a manner. Imagine walking through a snowy woodland as you play as the popular Marvel character Wolverine, out of the bushes comes another player who happens to play as your arch-rival Sabertooth. A challenge is issued and the game loads the “Snowy Woodland”, a stage that actually corresponds to your location within the 2-D Overworld. This format would really engage players and help to apply an overarching narrative to each game played. Instead of navigating menus only to stare at a loading screen while awaiting your next anonymous opponent, players could experience the joy of actually role playing their characters.

With the removal of players from the social atmosphere of a physical Arcade, some key factors of appeal have been lost and they remain missing. By giving online players the freedom to interact with each other both before and after their actual matches, you not only eliminate the problem of downtime but also help foster the communal and social atmosphere that contributed so much to the genres past success.