being an sc5 player, i can understand the struggle, a lot of TOs wrote of sc5 as a dead game after evo2k12, mad people on most of the bigger fighting game outlets (eventhubs and srk) would talk about how the game is dead and how its a bad game. this is when you guys have to take matters into your own hands and make things happen. im going to be using examples from what the sc community has been doing to stay alive and strong despite a lack of exposure/support from TOs or FGC media outlets because i feel like they are handling the situation very well, while here, it seems like there inst much handling and just discussion. just keep in mind, after a while, player dropoffs happen. we had a huge player dropoff right afer the patch, FR15 had 250+ and less than 2 months later at Civil War 4
had 17 players.
first of all, the worst thing to do is just say that the game is dead. all that does is discourage people to continue playing and potentially new players frm starting. even if mk9 has a low turn out, that doesn't mean the game is dead. what makes a game dead is if literally there is not enough players at a major to make it happen. even if its something like 8-16 players then whatever, you have to work with what you have. a lot of anime games like arcana heart, chaos code and melty blood get numbers like that and they dont seem to have any real issues with it. also, dont think of the number of players, think of the quality of play, whether or not new tech is still being uncovered and if there is at least one person to act as the community figurehead. if the game wont draw numbers locally then thats just how it is. i actually havent heard of an sc5 local in the US in god knows how long, but if there are still players that want to play in tournament then you have to focus on certain events that the community focuses on. sc5 players choose NEC and Final Round as the tournaments that they focus on drawing people in. although we've had many appearances at majors where we haven't gotten over 30 entrants (some even below 20), we still managed to draw 70+ at each of those events. also keep in mind the fact that there aren't as many people in there weed out a lot of potmonsters so you should have plenty of high level matches to make a lot of noise to and get the attention of other people at the event who arent there for mk.
it seems as if a lot of people are too worried about whether or not major TOs will support it. no matter how you look at it, FGC politics exist, and instead of trying to combat it, you have to work with it. the best thing to do is to take matters into your own hands and make it happen. sc5 at NCR wasn't happening so Hates and Alex.J got a suite and ran a tournament i there (which got more number than ttt2 and doa5 which were main games, i think 35). even though we weren't recognized as an official game, we were able to make it happen, have a stream and see plenty of good matches. CEO originally didn't have soul, but i popped off on facebook really drunk like an asshole (probably not the best idea, but it worked) and he considered it and then the community followed up and showed interest. there was actually a campaign (i guess you can call it that) on the 8wayrun homepage that was to get sc5 into CEO. granted we had 30 entrants, but it was better than nothing.
even though i dont really mess with MK, a lot of you that i have met through injustice are real cool guys and i would love to support your game through avylon. it would be really easy for us because at this point, we dont need many lgps to be able to record the entire tournament. hopefully you guys can pull through.
