I$AAC
Kombatant
As you all know by now NRS made an announcement last night that they will be taking a break from the MK franchise for a while. This brought out a different response from everyone (good and bad) but one thing that people kept saying that somewhat bothered me that because NRS is taking a break is that the game will die off and there will be no scene for it because the rest of the FGC will show even less respect for the game. I for one, beg to differ and explain to you why IMO the MK scene will not die and in fact will grow stronger because of this. Here are some reasons why I think the MK will not die off and be just fine. I will also explain why we DON'T need the rest of the FGC for the game to survive and why we don't need their "seal of approval. First let’s look at the reasons why NRS taking a break is a good thing:
Reason #1: No more patches
Now this maybe a double-edge sword here, but the good things that come out of this is that you never have to worry about the game changing overnight. One of the biggest complaints that people had about MK9 is that there was so many patches and no one wanted to take the time to learn a character because they were afraid that the patch will kill whatever strategy they developed. Now, that’s no longer a problem. No more worrying about throwing a tourney and wondering if you have the latest patch or not. Everyone knows what we have for now and can game plan around it. I've been around fighting games all my life and what thing I've learned is you never find EVERYTHING there is to know about a game. Look at ST, that game is older than some of the players on this site and people are still finding new stuff in that game.
Reason #2: We don't have to worry about the game being obsolete because a new game is coming in 2 months
What would've been worse than NRS taking a hiatus from the MK franchise you ask? How about them announcing a brand new game in 2012 that would make the current game useless? THAT would've killed any momentum we still have as a scene. We would have more people just quit if that would've happened and "will come back when the new MK comes out". Next thing you know you'll have to start ALL OVER AGAIN to build the scene we so desperately needed. And to play devil's advocate, imagine if the game did come out and was WORSE than the current game. That would be the nail in the coffin and then we would really be putting up RIP pics on this site. This gives us time to not necessarily get new players, but to strengthen the foundation of the scene we already have!
Now that I went over the reasons as to why the hiatus is a good thing, now let me go into the reason as to why we DON"T need to rest of the FGC's approval (namely the capcom players, let’s face it they're the loudest voice going against MK) for this game to continue to grow:
Believe it or not, we can support ourselves
I've said this before and I'll say it again, some of the best turnouts I've had in tourneys were the ones that were MK exclusive. Look at the MK exclusive streams like Digital Dojo and Valley Stream Monsters. They're IMO the best MK streams to watch and why, because it's MK and only MK. No stream monsters asking when MVC3 will be on, no one constantly saying the game is ass, and no one bashing the game on commentary while people are playing because everyone is there for the same reason: To play and/or watch MK! I live in Tampa, FL and we may not have the biggest MK scene, but I'd like to think we have a strong scene as far as player skill is concerned. I've been to a lot of MK9 tourneys since the game came out and the ones that had the best turnouts were the ones that had MK only. We had tourneys at this bar called World of Beer on Tuesday nights and we always pulled at least 16 people ON A TUESDAY NIGHT! This past weekend we had a tournament call THE WAR ON I-4 and we had 16+ people participate despite having a good chunk of FL (South FL, Jacksonville, and Tally) not show up for one reason or another. It can be done, and the scene can prosper. So what if a couple of capcom/marvel/whatever fanboys don't like the game. Support it yourself and you'll never have to worry about being the redheaded stepchild of the community. We don't need their seal of approval or their acceptance and the sooner we realize this, the better off we will be in the long run: Tekken has done it, Soul Calibur has done it, the Guilty Gear/Blazblue scene has done it, and there's no reason why we can't do it!
So I want to issue a challenge to everyone. Want to keep your MK scene alive? Throw tourneys on your own for it. Don't want other fanboys to get in the way and shitting on the game you like? Throw an MK exclusive tourney. Don't like how MK is not getting the stream time it deserves? Get your own stream Station and stream it yourself.
The Hiatus, input bug, other FG players not liking this game, etc. will not kill MK. Not by a longshot! However, the only way this game and scene will die is if we let it. We, The MK community, decide what our future is as a scene.
Now get out there and support the game and scene we all love and stop crying already! and for those that still have a it in for the "*insert FG that's not MK* Fanboys" use that as motivation to build/create your scene and make them see that the MK scene is here to stay!
