oldschool FGC thread - /vr/ (#11860342) [Archived: 334 hours ago]

Anonymous
7/11/2025, 6:59:51 AM No.11860342
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md5: 657b105047f9f5d20a629cad938bb901🔍
Do you guys have arcades or local fighting game meetups in your area? Do you play on original hardware?
There's a comic store that recently opened up in my town that has all kinds of vidya nicknacks and I've considered asking them if they'd be interested in hosting Street Fighter locals, only problem is I don't play the modern stuff and I'd be hard pressed to find people in my small town who wanna play 20 year old fighting games.
Replies: >>11860626 >>11861498 >>11862587 >>11865157 >>11865550 >>11866327
Anonymous
7/11/2025, 10:24:04 AM No.11860626
>>11860342 (OP)
My experience with FGC is that most of them completely online now. And the few people that meet in real life are unreliable and not consistent. They show up for a little bit and then never come back.

Asking an arcade to invest in fighting game hardware and cabinets for the FGC...usually ends with the FGC abandoning the arcade. They only stay if the arcade business offers money prizes for tournaments, or if the arcade has a fighting game not available on consoles. Otherwise modern day FGC players are totally unreliable.

During the 2010s, Dave and Busters tried to appeal to The Fighting Game Community (FGC) and invested tons of money in buying the latest Tekken arcade cabinets for their arcades. D&B promoted the hell out of it and tried to get players to come. There were plans to add more fighting games back in arcades of this was successful. It was a test to see if Fighting games were potentially viable for arcades again.

The FGC never showed up. The Tekken arcade cabinets at Dave and Busters were barely touched by customers, and the cabs sat unused. Sales were awful. Dave and Busters took a huge loss and sold off the brand new Tekken cabinets.

And that's why you don't see Fighting game cabinets in arcades anymore.
Replies: >>11861498 >>11862590
Anonymous
7/11/2025, 2:53:58 PM No.11860993
Advertise it on Facebook, Twitter, everywhere you think people might see it. Stick to modern console ports and emulation because they're easily available. Original hardware is always preferred but like the other anon said, actual arcade cabs and boards are very expensive, ESPECIALLY popular /vr/ fighters.
Anonymous
7/11/2025, 6:54:00 PM No.11861498
>>11860342 (OP)
I live in one of the largest cities in the US. We have multiple arcades with real hardware that play host to various retro FG scenes, and a handful of players personally own candy cabs. Our 3rd Strike scene regularly fields 30+ entrants at the monthly.
We are privileged as fuck. If you live in a small town, good luck, but you're probably going to have to make a scene happen yourself if you want one.
All this said, >>11860626 is mostly just making shit up.
Replies: >>11861570
Anonymous
7/11/2025, 7:17:39 PM No.11861570
>>11861498
>mostly just making shit up.
You can literally read about Dave & Busters pushing Tekken cabinets and trying to revive fighting games. It's all online and archived. Face it. The FGC failed.
Replies: >>11861764 >>11862942 >>11865180
Anonymous
7/11/2025, 8:56:41 PM No.11861764
>>11861570
I dont care about the Dave and Buster's shit because Dave and Buster's is literally never where FG players have ever gone to play, that shit was always gonna fail
I'm talking about the rest of your post where you act like you know anything about the FGC
Replies: >>11861832 >>11862541
Anonymous
7/11/2025, 9:35:52 PM No.11861832
>>11861764
>I dont care about the Dave and Buster's shit
80% of the dude's post was about the Dave & Buster's shit you autistic retard. Are you really chimping out over the comment of it mostly being online now? Because that is in fact the case for most people.
Replies: >>11861837
Anonymous
7/11/2025, 9:37:13 PM No.11861837
>>11861832
>one line saying you're making shit up
>OMG U CHIMPING OUTTT
yeah, one of us is.
online is not and never has been the FGC.
Replies: >>11861841
Anonymous
7/11/2025, 9:38:27 PM No.11861841
>>11861837
>NO YOU
Lmao, the cope is unreal.
Replies: >>11861847
Anonymous
7/11/2025, 9:42:25 PM No.11861847
>>11861841
hey alright.
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 3:49:25 AM No.11862541
>>11861764
>Dave and Buster's is literally never where FG players have ever gone to play
And this is where you fail. Tsk tsk.

Dave and Busters had fighting video games in the 1990s and early 2000s. It was very popular.
Replies: >>11862831 >>11863092
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 4:24:42 AM No.11862587
>>11860342 (OP)
I'd rather not talk about it.
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 4:25:43 AM No.11862590
>>11860626
>tekken
well there's your problem
Replies: >>11863092
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 4:26:32 AM No.11862593
1553679017556
1553679017556
md5: f0e4a76ae65b89bc561a87b2ee3dadca🔍
I think the FGC and people just showing up to casually play fighty games are two different, though overlapping, things.
Replies: >>11862595
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 4:29:02 AM No.11862595
>>11862593
Yeah I feel the 'community' aspect of Fighting Game Community is kinda being neglected in this discussion.
Replies: >>11862629
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 4:44:46 AM No.11862629
>>11862595
Some people never bought someone a burger and fries after winning $50 off of them and it shows. They tend to be the same people who one and done online as well.
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 6:44:22 AM No.11862831
>>11862541
you are making up bullshit to appear like you know what the fuck you're talking about.
Replies: >>11862837
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 6:46:55 AM No.11862837
>>11862831
Are you stupid? Are you really trying to argue that Dave & Busters didn't have fighting game cabinets in the 1990s?

I literally played Street Fighter and Moral Kombat cabinets at my local D&B back in the 1990s.

Get out of here.
Replies: >>11862854
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 6:54:12 AM No.11862854
>>11862837
they had fighting game cabs but the fgc was never going to Dave and busters to fuckin play. you're a fucking moron.
Replies: >>11863053
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 7:59:00 AM No.11862942
>>11861570
Do you have any links? Because all I can find is news about Tekken 7 doing a western location test at a whopping 3 D&Bs and 3 Round 1s. I actually wanna read up about it, sounds interesting.
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 9:11:31 AM No.11863053
>>11862854
>they had fighting game cabs but the fgc was never going to Dave and busters to fuckin play. you're a fucking moron.
You seem to be confused. The FGC isn't some single organization. It's a collection of fighting game fans across the country. They played in whatever closest arcade to them that had their favorite fighting arcade cabinets. In the 90s, that means playing in Dave in Busters, your local 7-Eleven, or even a laundromat arcade.
Replies: >>11863346 >>11864714
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 9:55:06 AM No.11863092
>>11862590
Tekken is a good game!

>>11862541
The FGC has always been fickle and unreliable. You can't depend on them at all. Years ago there used to be a FGC Facebook group near where I lived. They played at a nearby arcade and hosted tournaments about once a month.

The arcade owners imported several fighting game candy cabinets to appeal to them. Including a Street Fighter 4 cabinet. Then suddenly they stopped showing up. I asked the owner why and he said Street Fighter IV and the other fighter games were ported to consoles and PC. So the FGC players all stay home now and play on multi-player. Owner ended up selling all the fighting game candy cabinets at a loss. He replaced them with skee-ball and pinball. Which apparently earns a lot more money.

Lesson learned I guess.
Replies: >>11863348 >>11863484 >>11864897
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 1:44:19 PM No.11863346
>>11863053
you seem to be a moron. Dave and Buster's was for posers. people played at real arcades.
Replies: >>11863401
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 1:45:28 PM No.11863348
>>11863092
Precisely zero of those things ever actually happened. This isn't a board for your faggot fan fiction.
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 2:28:40 PM No.11863401
>>11863346
What exactly is a "real arcade" in your opinion?
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 3:29:49 PM No.11863484
>>11863092
>import vewlixes from japan
>sell them at a LOSS
I will also take "Things that didn't happen" alex
Replies: >>11863497
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 3:39:15 PM No.11863497
>>11863484
You don't seem to understand basic economics.

If you buy a cabinet for $20,000, but you only made $5,000 from customers.

Then selling it would be a LOSS since the cabinet hasn't earned back it's purchase price.

This basic common sense anon. Do we really need to explain this to you?
Replies: >>11863507 >>11863531
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 3:46:05 PM No.11863507
>>11863497
I could ask you the same thing
1) Who the fuck was buying vewlixes at $20k, if you import em in bulk (like any arcade operator would) during that era they could be as low as $1500, possibly even $1000
2) Any genuine vewlix that has been imported to the west will EASILY sell for much more than $1500, there has always been a huge market for these things because not only are they top quality and easy to swap games out with but they're also fairly easy to consolize
Replies: >>11863558 >>11863591
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 3:55:41 PM No.11863524
hot damn if there's one thing I can't stand about this community it's the constant nut-checking. who the fuck cares.
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 4:01:49 PM No.11863531
>>11863497
if I buy something for 20k, make 5k with it, then sell it for 15k i've broken even. I do not need to make its purchase price back prior to the sale to avoid a loss.
you are retarded.
Replies: >>11863552
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 4:12:37 PM No.11863552
>>11863531
>if I buy something for 20k, make 5k with it, then sell it for 15k i've broken even.

No arcade operator wants to "break even". It's a waste of time or energy.
And breaking even is still a loss. Arcade owners have other expenses that they need to pay for besides the cabinet itself. You think Electricity, Insurance, and RENT is free? Heck no.
Replies: >>11863623
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 4:16:28 PM No.11863558
>>11863507
I'm not sure where you are getting your weird prices from, but Namco was selling their Japanese Tekken cabinets for $15,000 each during that era. So somebody lied to you. $1000 is a complete fantasy.
Replies: >>11863582
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 4:35:00 PM No.11863582
>>11863558
I was referring to used cabs and I know this because I have gone to the trouble of importing vewlixes during the height of SF4

Also do you have a source on that price for Tekken 7 cabs because even today Bamco doesn't sell 4-packs of Grigios for that much. Five digit prices for single cabs are usually for deluxe cabinets
Replies: >>11863615
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 4:39:22 PM No.11863591
>>11863507
Are your prices with or without the game installed?

Importing an empty Vewlix is less expensive than importing a Vewlix with a new game installed.
Replies: >>11863807
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 4:52:09 PM No.11863615
>>11863582
Different anon here.

Here in Australia, we had to pay 10,000 for a single Namco Noir cabinet running Tekken 7. And Namco Noirs usually only have one joystick per cabinet. So you gotta buy two Noirs and link them together for multi-player. So it's really 20,000.

I can only imagine it's even more expensive for people living in the USA since they are even further away from Japan.
Replies: >>11863807
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 4:55:55 PM No.11863623
>>11863552
>breaking even is still a loss
you are completely retarded.
Anonymous
7/12/2025, 6:47:11 PM No.11863807
>>11863591
All the ones I've bought came with Type X3 boards and a game, and the most I paid including shipping and import fees for a cab was about $1700. If I had bought them all at once I could've paid a lot less per cab, but I don't have arcade operator money for super big purchases like that

>>11863615
I mean, damn, alright. I'll take your word for it. I still think that's an outrageous price though. Maybe that's why you don't see many Noirs.
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 3:09:29 AM No.11864714
>>11863053
Just for the record, you're arguing with a literal child.
In his mind Dave & Busters has always been mobile game "arcade" machines, but you're 100% correct, they had the newest Tekken machines in the early 2010s as I recall. They had a bunch of Sega Model 2 and 3 arcade games, Cruisin' USA, etc... They weren't a "fake" arcade. They were just a corporate chain arcade.
Replies: >>11864746
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 3:20:02 AM No.11864746
>>11864714
A corporate chain arcade that wasn't where people gathered for fighting games. Part of what made scenes in the arcade days was variety, people would gather around popular cabinets but would always be looking for people to throw a quarter into an SNK multi-cab to play some SamSho or the odd KoF version, SoulCal, The obvious capcom shit, etc. You'd have better luck throwing bodegas at a bodega in a favella than you would trying to get a serious competitive scene at places like D&B unless there was literally nothing else around. Maybe in places like Ohio or some shit, but thats like saying the token arcade at your local movie theater was where scenes were born. Places with admission costs and/or inflated cost per play were like poison for a lot of people.
Replies: >>11864819
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 3:52:11 AM No.11864819
>>11864746
>A corporate chain arcade that wasn't where people gathered for fighting games.

Yes they did. If it was a convenient arcade for everyone, then that's where they met. Especially in the 90s and early 2000s when fighting game cabs were still everywhere. D&B had pretty good variety since they were so huge.

>Places with admission costs and/or inflated cost per play were like poison for a lot of people.

Dave and Busters doesn't have an admission cost. You can walk in directly without paying.

>but would always be looking for people to throw a quarter into an SNK multi-cab to play some SamSho or the odd KoF version, SoulCal, The obvious capcom shit, etc.

You really are young. For most of its history, Dave and Busters used to use coins. The cards with digital money we use today are only a somewhat recent thing.
Replies: >>11864831
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 4:00:53 AM No.11864831
>>11864819
Maybe I'm especially spoiled for having access to a lot of arcades to choose from, but D&B was considered trash tier for selection, cost, and competition. You found more people at your local skating rink in the MK2 and super turbo days alone. What fighting game cabs did they even have during those years? During later years?
>Dave and Busters doesn't have an admission cost. You can walk in directly without paying.
Learn to read shill. I said and/or because I was combining it with similar shit "venues" like the arcades in movie theatres where you couldn't get access to them until you bought a ticket. They weren't places like chinatown fair or even your average shitty boardwalk arcade.
>For most of its history, Dave and Busters used to use coins. The cards with digital money we use today are only a somewhat recent thing.
No shit retard, that has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. I was talking about how their selection was fucking ass, and half the appeal of most arcade scenes was having a variety of games to choose from. People weren't fucking 09ers who only play one character in one game ever.
Replies: >>11864858 >>11864896
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 4:12:27 AM No.11864858
>>11864831
>No shit retard, that has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. I was talking about how their selection was fucking ass, and half the appeal of most arcade scenes was having a variety of games to choose from.

What are you even talking about. When fighting games were popular in the 90s, Dave and Busters filled their arcades with a ton of fighting games. They were a corporation chasing profit, and fighting games were the most profitable video game at the time.
Replies: >>11864874
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 4:18:59 AM No.11864874
>>11864858
The one in Philly had dick for selection, but whatever you say anon. Even with what basic current MK/SF2 it had, they usually had inflated costs per play. I didn't exactly check every year, but that was mostly because people went there for literally everything else, especially after they remodeled and changed focus entirely.
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 4:36:53 AM No.11864896
>>11864831
Corporate arcades were the best back in the day. I lived near Las Vegas and arcades were everywhere. And Every Casino had an arcade. I remember they were open 24/7. One place had rows and rows of Capcom, SNK, Midway, and Namco fighting games. Like 20 to 30 different Street Fighter cabinets just in one section alone, and it still wasn't enough cabinets. People had to wait in line. There was a lot of Deluxe cabinets too. The big ones with a pedestal and detached huge screen. You could visit the arcade at like 3AM in the middle of the night, and it would still packed with fighting game players all still playing. It was an amazing time. Peak arcade era. I have never experienced anything like it since then.
Replies: >>11864914
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 4:37:01 AM No.11864897
>>11863092
>Tekken is a good game!
A good game with a far weaker arcade presence in the USA than Street Fighter.
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 4:44:09 AM No.11864914
>>11864896
You're talking about fucking Vegas. You realize thats not even close to representative of the company's presence and quality in the rest of the country?
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 7:42:21 AM No.11865157
>>11860342 (OP)
What setup do you guys use for playing these games in MAME (if you do)?
Replies: >>11865174
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 7:54:11 AM No.11865174
>>11865157
I would recommend installing fightcade instead (uses Final Burn Neo). I believe MAME has input delay to make it unviable for fighters, or at least that is what I found.
Replies: >>11866197
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 7:57:11 AM No.11865180
>>11861570
>The FGC failed.
It failed because fighters are not casual or beginner friendly at all. You'll get stomped and neither you, or the person you're playing against is having fun, because of the skill gap.

>inb4 skill issue
games are meant to be fun, you shouldn't need to be a sweat to enjoy them :/
Replies: >>11865417 >>11865908
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 10:42:34 AM No.11865417
>>11865180
>It failed because fighters are not casual or beginner friendly at all. You'll get stomped and neither you, or the person you're playing against is having fun, because of the skill gap.

Yep. It's a self defeating cycle.

>Fighting game is brand new.
>Everyone enjoys the fun.
>6 months to 1 year later...Hardcore players master it.
>Casuals get left behind in skill, lose too much, and stop playing
>Only hardcore players stay and hog all the cabinets.
>Game can't attract casual players and keep popularity going because hardcore players dominate too much.
>Game gets less popular.
>Rinse and Repeat until casuals don't bother playing any fighting games anymore.


There are actually old clips online where they interview people in the about whether they like fighting games or not. Many women said no. Not because they hated fighting games at first, but because it's too hard and Veteran players are too skilled. One women said she tried to learn but got killed in less than a minute after inserting a quarter. Then a group of guys behind the cabinet laughed at her, she got embarrassed, and she never tried fighting games again. She went to play other genres like driving, and other "fun" games where the skill level isn't so high.
Replies: >>11865938
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 12:42:13 PM No.11865550
>>11860342 (OP)
I remember in college the student union had a slightly busted 3S machine and I got addicted to the game. On Facebook I found a group of guys in a dorm who hosted fighting game tournaments. I went over there thinking I'd clean up but I got fucking schooled by a kid whose arm was in a sling.
I didn't go back there but I found a few more local guys on SRK and started meeting up with them regularly. Since we didn't have any real arcades in the area we just played whatever ports we had available. 3S on the PS2 was a big one. I was the only guy who played on pad and didn't have a custom stick so I'd get a bit over my head sometimes but I could pull off some bullshit once in a while
Most were the stereotypical black nerd guys who used to make up the scene and they were pretty cool. There was one white guy who was a total pussy hound that used to work at one of the clubs in town and would sneak us in through the kitchen when there was a line. He'd hit on girls and try to throw them towards me. Good times I miss those guys.
Replies: >>11865625
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 1:28:11 PM No.11865625
>>11865550
>Good times I miss those guys.
What happened? Did you lose contact with them? You gotta nurture those friendships anon! Go back and get back into it.
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 4:24:35 PM No.11865908
>>11865180
Being good at things is pretty fun. I guess youre not familiar with the concept
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 4:43:22 PM No.11865938
>>11865417
Then it became a niche where developers highly catered to this audience and produced games with nuanced mechanics that only the veterans could appreciate.

But the issue now is this niche and knowledge pool doesn't exist anymore, at least not in a large enough local form to drive places like Dave and Busters to bother having fighting games.
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 7:26:14 PM No.11866197
>>11865174
Good to know, though what sort of joystick do you guys use? I assume using a keyboard is probably not ideal.
Replies: >>11866202 >>11866313
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 7:27:31 PM No.11866202
>>11866197
I know some ppl use keyboard and seem to do fine. I just use a Dualshock 4.
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 8:27:11 PM No.11866313
>>11866197
keyboard is objectively superior as an input method to stick or pad for most aspects of fighting games, which is why sweats have started using "leverless" controllers in the last 5 years
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 8:40:46 PM No.11866327
>>11860342 (OP)
I had an arcade in a flyover US city with regulars that had a constant line for the popular fighting games (which in my time was MvC2 and Tekken Tag Tournament) on a few nights a week. We competed in a few "sponsored" national tournaments that gave the arcades a prize for a tournament, e.g. we had a local tournament to go to a Tekken Tag regional tournament that would in turn send people to a national tournament. The prize for our local tournament was a copy of TTT for the PS2 (this was when the PS2 had just come out but we'd been playing arcade TTT for a year or more and it was actually getting pretty old as arcade games go and people were dropping off). Nobody ever actually went to any regionals because no one cared enough to drive for an hour or two to get to wherever regionals were hosted.
Replies: >>11866361
Anonymous
7/13/2025, 8:52:14 PM No.11866361
>>11866327
this isn't a board for fiction stories.