Yeah, but it was icky.

leo j and soriku should sheild there eyes!!!!
anyways.
i think ssbb is the best fighting game!!! all the way!!!

I think designers are just too cautious when it comes to innovation. The success of Smash Brothers is very strong evidence towards the fact that you can make sweeping game balance and mechanic changes while still increasing in sales. The trend is easiest to note right now in the change from SSB to SSBM but that is for good reason. SSB was a throw away game, and SSBM was given a development budget and team. The very basics are the same, but once you start delving down into it you have a ton of changes that even the most casual of player will eventually pick-up on.

In Brawl you have to get slightly technical about it to know the changes. Wavedashing and SHFFLing are all but gone and used to be staples. Knockback on moves is now diminished by over use as well as damage. The balance of power between characters has also shifted dramatically. Before the entire top-end characters were all super fast. Game mechanics just screwed the slow people way too much. Now there are slow characters becoming serious threats. The idea of Dedede being a high tier character would have been laughable in Melee, but might be a reality in Brawl. While the hardcore Melee players bemoan the loss of all their advanced techniques (only a few survived) it has not hurt the sales of the series at all. It is looking to be the best selling in the series yet.

The only catch to all of this is you have to stay true to the spirit of the game. If you make changes that don't feel right then players all over will hate it. This essentially means you want to keep the same core development team from one game to the next. Sadly this is an extremely had feat to accomplish and as a result I fear fighters will continue down the path of minor changes from one game to the next.

As I've mentioned before in this topic, fighting games declined with the arcades. They were born and bred in the arcades and declined after the arcade scene went kaput. There really isn't much else to say about it. Smash Bros lives on because it's filled to the brim with Nintendo. I don't mean to say that's why it's a great game, but that is why it's such a phenomenon. I believe if Smash was filled with nobodies that Nintendo made up, then Brawl would have struggled to pass 2 million. It's hard to compare sales data because VG Chartz doesn't have much for games in the earlier gens to compare with.

I would echo Bodhesatva's comments on the fighting genre. This type of games peaked in the early to mid-90s, and sales have been falling steadily ever since. Initially, these games just moved from the arcades to the home consoles (series like Tekken and Soul Calibur had great sales on the Playstation/Dreamcast), but over the past five years they've been dying there as well.

To add some numbers to the discussion, here are the sales for all of the major fighting series (Street Fighter, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Guilty Gear, Soul Calibur, Mortal Kombat, King of Fighters) released so far in the current generation:

Virtua Fighter 5

Sega

0.47m

7.43

0.47m

Virtua Fighter 5

Sega

0.13m

7.25

0.13m

Soul Calibur: Legends

Namco Bandai

0.10m

7.45

0.10m

Mortal Kombat Armageddon

Midway Games

0.11m

7.24

0.11m

Street Fighter, Tekken, Guilty Gear, King of Fighters: None (no games released yet)

So there you go. Not a single traditional fighting game has managed to exceed 500k yet on a platform, and most of the released games have been dismal failures. Of course, you can argue "the main titles for Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, Tekken haven't come out yet" - but isn't that kinda the point as well? Publishers don't feel obligated to hurry these games along much, if at all. When discussing what games everyone is anticipating on VGChartz, I almost never hear any of these franchises mentioned anymore. Fighting games have become so niche, they've virtually disappeared entirely from the market.

Now compare to some of these games:

Fight Night Round 3

EA Chicago

1.67m

5.82

1.67m

Fight Night Round 3

EA

0.53m

6.23

0.53m

WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2008

Yuke's

1.14m

6.76

1.14m

WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2008

Yuke's

0.78m

6.46

0.78m

Now that's just sad, seeing Virtua Fighter outsold almost 4:1 by an EA boxing title, and a crummy THQ wrestling cash-in. Don't expect Tekken and Street Fighter to fare much better whenever they come out. Both series have been in decline for ages, and they'll be lucky to push more than a million.

Also look at this chart of the top-selling "Fighting" games all time: http://vgchartz.com/games/index.php?name=&console=&publisher=&genre=Fighter&keyword=&order=Sales If you look only at traditional fighting games (no Smash Brothers, boxing, or wrestling), the first current-gen title is Virtua Fighter 5 at #49! There's not a single traditional fighting game in the top 45! Now that's just sad.

Meanwhile, the demise of the old-fashioned fighting game, with its extremely complexity and button memorization, has been Smash Brothers' gain. The reception of Brawl has been very different from Melee. Six years ago, the game received very good reviews, mixed in along with constant scorn and disdain from fighting purists who derided it as a party game. It's been fascinating to me to see how gaming has changed in the intervening half-decade; those individuals have almost entirely disappeared since then, as the fighting genre has collapsed in upon itself. Go back and look at some of the old Melee reviews if you don't believe me. There's a bunch of 80% ranking from jaded fighting gamers who can't avoid using the phrase "sure it's a fun game, but it's nothing more than a button masher".

When genres become too niche, they disappear, simple as that. As Bod said:

The only thing I'd add is that we *HAVE* had 10 years to watch this market (since the glut of fighting games circa 1995), and we already know what the correct answer is. All of the old games that failed to reinvent themselves are dying. (For another good example, see Tony Hawk Pro Skater and its fall from 5 million seller to nothingness today. Guitar Hero is another likely candidate 5-10 years from now.) But you almost had to live through the 90s as a gamer to realize just how big fighters were in their heyday, and how far they've fallen today.

It is like saying that Gran Turismo is the best racing game ever why would you buy burnout? Project Gotham, Need for speed etc???

I can't compare Brawl with games like Virtua fighter...

If I play virtua fighter I am training with one character whole the time to be the best and beat my enemies;

While I play Brawl for other reasons.

Especially for the fun but also because it haves Characters like Mario, Pikachu etc..

If Brawl would exist of infamous characters people would love the game less...or atleast I do..

Good post as always Sullla, but I think you misinterpreted my last point.

I absolutely agree, traditional fighting games are dying (or growing less and less significant. Point and click adventures are "dead," but there is still the occasional revival). What I'm saying is that for some developers, that can be fine.  Let's simplify this just to get the point across. If you were a producer with a dying franchise, here are the two options:

1) Continue making the games just as they are. There is a 95% chance you'll earn a small profit on these titles until they finally fade away into oblivion.

2) Dramatically change the franchise. There is a 25% chance that the sales of this franchise will explode, but they could also fall flat on their face and cost you a good deal of money.

Obviously I pulled those percentages out of my butt; they're only intended to highlight the point. A bird in the hand is often better than two in the bush, as they say. Or at least, it sometimes is. I doubt Nintendo would agree, but Sega likely would.  

I don't really have time to give Sulla's post a good reply, but I do think he desperately needs a fact check.

For instance, Soul Calibur Legends isn't even a fighting game.

In the sense of gameplay, no. Not at all. I still prefer various classic Capcom and SNK fighters. For the total package though, yes.

I'm not sure "dated" is really the right word, but I think it could be seen as a model for what a fighter needs to be successful in the modern market, and it's all about content. If you look at other fighters they pretty much all have the same modes and little extras. You can fight against the CPU, fight against a real player, or train. There might be some characters to unlock or online, but the single player portion can generally be completed extremely fast (sometimes less than an hour). Even if the game is great, they often feel very shallow.

Brawl adds so many extras and different modes that it really feels like a full fledged title, even in single player, and not just a multi-player game though. By going the extra mile with extras, mini games, challenges, and the adventure mode, I think it set a new standard for how to make a fighting game a truly relevant in the modern market.

Speaking of threads that are completely ripped from NeoGAF...