I enjoy Soul Calibur, and Mortal Kombat, but the majority of fighting games bore me.

I suck balls at fighting games. That's my reason plain and simple. I do however still play the ocassion game of MvC 2 or SF III on mah Dreamcast.

Its the ease of getting into the game. MvC2 is probably one of the easiest fighting games out there to get into since you have so many familiar characters with the same button command to do their moves. If you want them to get into a different fighting game then you're probably gonna have to go with another easy to pick up fighter like the Smash Bros series.

I love fighting games: Dead or alive, Soul Calibur, Street Fighter, King of Fighters, etc. etc.

People still play them. I'm not exactly a 'pro' at any of the fighters I play (I'm pretty good at DoA 4 though), but I think the whole competitive level of fighters turns a lot of people off.

I still play Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike which in my opinion is the perfect 2D fighter.

because... I LIKE TURTLES!

I used to play Mortal Kombat 2 on the SNES like a disease. I mastered all the moves including Johny Cages 3 head uppercut and I stumbled upon that move. I also liked Virtua Fighter at the arcades.

Then they just stopped being as fun, DOA was my 1st disappointment. I;m just not into them as much anymore as they get boring pretty fast, nothing to keep me going.

I love my fighting games but no one else does so I play them by myself. I'm such a loser...

The ONLY Fighting games they come out with anymore are ALL in Arcades.
( Exception : DefJam. )

I'm happy to own a PS3 for this sole reason!
( Sony gets more of the Genuine Fight Titles. )

@ least Sony gets them first too.

I played the new Mortal Kombats and Soul Calibur but i was never really a fan of tekken and doa. and i agree that emulation pretty much killed my fighting game jones, but that will end when ssfthd and IV come out

I love fighting games, but I think the problem is that people think they're too complicated. Smash bros is successful because there's no memorization and only a handful of advanced techniques that you don't NEED to memorize. Plus, games that have cheap last bosses that are impossible to kill destroy any hope of unlocking stuff. Also, remember Tekken 3? Each character had like, 15 moves. Remember Tekken 5? Each character had 300. Many were just small variations of others, and some I couldn't even tell the difference.

Seriously, I'd love for a new solid fighting game that was pick up and play like Smash bros but depended on moves more than items and crap. Just to get people interested in it again. But right now, many fighting games are NOT simple to get into, and their popularity reflects that.

@ notdryad:
Yeah arcades are dead, hopefully with the new breed of fighters coming out this year (SFIV, SFII HD, Tekken 6, SoulCalubur 4, KoFXII, BlazBlue... my there are actually a few arent there.) playing online may breathe the fighting genre.

God I love fighting games, was raised on them. I even tracked down a copy of Third Strike to play until SFII HD and SFIV comes out :)

Because they irritate me, its all about tiers and frames and all this other crap that kills the fun of it.

It doesn't help that most fighting games turn into "find the cheapest attack, exploit it" and final bosses are ALWAYS overpowered nightmares and possess skills not other fighter has, turning everything you've learned across the difficulties into blind stupid luck.

In Tekken 5, Jinpachi would demolish you if you fought normally, if you exploited a certain move that every fighter had, 2 perfects in a row.

In Soul Calibur III the A.I was so bad that only Mitsurigi with one particular move could even stand a chance at winning.

SNK boss syndrome is well documented.

And the other being the fact that online is full of tourney people, I played a grand total of 3 ranked VF5 matches, I had a close match with a Vanessa which I lost, I beat an Akira in a close match and then I got decimated beyond anything I have ever seen by an El Blaze.

It was after I was beaten in which I checked the guys gamertag, his name was JunoSynth, the very same JunoSynth that has his name in the game, I sent him message about and he told about how he's been playing VF since the VF1 days.

Never touched ranked again and don't plan to on any future matches in fighting game I may buy in the future, its way above my league and I have no interest in reaching that point, I like playing other games during the day.

Because this country is so HUEG and there aren't enough people in any one place to support arcades, which are where fighting games thrive.

Because online play is a fucking TERRIBLE way to play fighters, yet gamers and developers alike can't seem to realize that.

Because nobody wants to put in the effort to learn games anymore, opting instead for simple BUTTEN PRESSAN and SHOOTAN games that don't require thinking or effort.

Because a large % of the fighting game elite are assholes who refuse to help or explain things to anyone else.

Because fighting game players haet change so companies release the same games with a new name and minor move differences over and over and most gamers complain about it so companies stop releasing them at all. This is also the reason your friends refuse to play anything but MvC2.

@ gen eric gui

Fighters are in their infancy in terms of Online.
Especially with the hype behind modern day graphics. Could be the golden years for this Genre. There seems to be a reestablishment, of Quality franchises set to be released soooon.

My friends and I try to play fighting games, but inevitably someone is just plain better at the game than everyone else and always dominates, and everyone else loses interest. Fighting games in general are not newbie friendly, and its hard to get excited about getting your ass kicked while you learn how to play. Yay Smash Bros.

Because if there is anything more annoying than rubber-band AI in racing games, its superhuman-level AI in fighting games.

I still play fighters very frequently. Luckily, I have some good opponents - my wife and a friend who lives nearby. I bought the Hori Arcade Sticks for Wii to get in some old-school KoF and Street Fighter, as well as Guilty Gear.

Most players cannot handle the learning curve, especially those who started gaming during the PlayStation era. If games don''t hold their hands, they give up. It's sad really.