Besides Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat And besides all the other titles, there are countless fighting games that practically shaped the rise of video games. Not all of them still exist or have been able to recapture their former glory through remakes. This includes the... SoulCalibur-series, which died with the departure of its key figures at the time.
The Tekken producer philosophizes about this. Katsuhiro Harada In what is probably the longest tweet of all time, he explains in great detail why some fighting games continue to be so successful while others, despite being just as good, do not. In particular, he addresses the... Tekken- and SoulCalibur-series, in which he personally participated in the early days.
Market changes have buried brands.
One point Harada raises is the changed market conditions, which not all brands from that era survived. A veritable paradigm shift took place, in which marketing, in particular, transformed the world of video games.
"The paradigm shift in the business model of games has changed the marketing of games themselves. In other words, the world of marketing has transformed into one where the question is how to create a situation where people want to buy a game before they play it, and then actually buy it, and how to increase pre-release reviews and initial sales. When you talk about historical video game franchises, you can't ignore the change in marketing and branding due to the paradigm shift in business models, and many people who have been in the industry for a long time will probably agree with my simple explanation."
SoulCalibur could have been better than Tekken
According to Harada, this also explains why some games have disappeared, even though they were probably better than before. Tekken were. While he believes that games with good gameplay mechanics have the potential to survive longer, some have still disappeared. However, this shouldn't be considered the sole reason, especially in a world where marketing is key to success.
Harada sees another reason in the fact that when key people leave a company, the brands behind these people also die, or at least are no longer the same. SoulCalibur He sees exactly such a case and why the franchise may not return.
"Although this is hypothetical, it's not just an industry theory, but also a theory of consequences. Having observed the industry for 30 years, I can say that in the case of fighting games, there have been many instances where a series stagnated or ceased to exist when a key player in the franchise left or disappeared. In the case of SoulCalibur, I can assure you that this is what happened, as I witnessed it firsthand. This wasn't simply a matter of distribution and marketing; organizational changes and decision-makers at Namco Bandai played a significant role."
Had Harada continued working on the Souls project back then, instead of on Tekken, were SoulCalibur today probably the more successful franchise and Tekken disappeared into obscurity.
"Be that as it may, Project Soul definitely had a director and people with 'soul' and a 'clear vision'. The enthusiasm of the game designers on site could have surpassed that of the TEKKEN team, and that was enough to make us impatient."
If she SoulCaliburWhether the series is definitively buried lies solely in the hands of Bandai Namco, who hold the rights to the brand. The last main installment was released in 2018 as SoulCalibur VI.
Well, the problem with Soul Calibur is that the era of weapon-based fighting games is over.
P.S. The Yoshi skin looks amazing, it would be perfect for Tekken 8.
Even though I'm Mishima's main, I only got the Tekken Day 2 skin for Yoshi. Yoshi is the only character the skins look good on.