See, I feel like the fact that that is TRUE for far too many points is the reason why Tekken has such a hard time gaining a larger audience. You could even see it yourself here on TYM, and 16bit even called it in the last Reunion podcast - the game will come out, a ton of people will jump on it right away, then it'll thin out when everyone sees that getting good "is a second job."
My buddies and I discuss this one a lot. I personally feel that Tekken has reached a point where the learning curve is just too frigging steep. On the most basic level, there are so many characters in the game now, and each has their own 100+ moves to learn. Just learning the hit ranges and strings for the whole cast is time consuming enough. Then you need to learn everyone's frame traps, setups, oki games, etc. Learning all of that takes SO much time.
The only reason I'm remotely competitive nowadays is because I have over a decade of experience in my past. If I was trying to pick this up from scratch today, I'd probably have returned it by now - I already have a full time job! I certainly applaud anyone who levels up in TTT2, learns all their matchups, etc, but man is it intense. Definitely takes 1000s of games.
It never surprises me that I've been seeing the same faces at Tekken tournaments for the last 5+ years, particularly as you move up the bracket. I find my answer to a bunch of questions ends up being "just play for a year or three and you'll get it." This is the only game (besides KOF, and no surprise, another insanely steep learning curve and a community kept small) that I find myself saying that, and as great as Tekken is, I feel like it's a strike against their game design philosophy.
