>>715375496
The problem that fighting game players cannot accept is that fighting games are the worst of both worlds with it comes to casual engagement and retention loops. Just from the jump, getting into a fighting game is hard because, even with all the babybrain casual-friendly mechanics they add, fighting games require an immense amount of time, effort, and discipline to play at anything beyond a scrub level. And losing in a fighting game is magnitudes worse than losing in a moba, hero shooter, battle royale, etc. because it's solely YOU who's taking the L. Somebody just beat your ass and objectively proved that they are superior to you. Shit, even winning in a fighting game isn't as satisfying as carrying a team to victory.

And then there's the time investment required. Let's say you're a completely new fighting game player who just started playing Street Fighter 6 and want to achieve Master rank. Here's a list of things the average person could accomplish if they put the same amount of hours into something else:
>learning a super-basic programming language like Python or Javascript
>going from /beg/ to /int/ level in drawing
>learning the piano or guitar (possibly both)
>reaching N3 level fluency in Japanese
>getting absolutely shredded in the gym

Getting good at this shit requires the same mental, emotional, and time investment as an actual discipline but with none of the real-world return unless you're a sponsored pro player or a content creator. Doesn't even have the same social/friend element that other game genres provide unless you got an active local scene or you're going to tournaments regularly; the latter of which will cost a lot of money unless you, again, are either a sponsored pro who gets your trips paid for or you're a content creator who gets regular invites or at the very least can write your travel costs off as a business expense.

These are the actual reasons why fighting games aren't popular. Everything else is cope.