I feel like I've learned more about this game just watching livestreams over the past several months than what can be provided from a professional, written review. I don't mean to cut down the value of traditional professional video game reviews, but when it comes to fighting games they're rarely the experts on the genre and their couple weeks of playing with other game website/magazine rarely truly represent the long-term experience and life of a fighting game.
To defend us in the media for a moment, the times when I've seen the most skill shown by game journalists has been at events specifically for fighting games. I'm not saying that every fighting game review comes out from the right people—I've seen some amazing examples of when that goes terribly wrong—nor am I saying that more casual players don't latch onto certain titles or franchises and review them. (For example, MK/Injustice tend to be popular with more casual players, so you'll see reviews from folks who may, for example, be bigger comic fans than fight game fans [at least for Injustice].)
Having gone to a ton of events in my life, though, I can tell you that I've met a
lot of media people who have zero time, concern, or care for fighting games, so they simply refuse to touch them. (Opposed to most other genres or types of games, where even people who aren't big into a particular title being shown off will care about, say, the latest Call of Duty, or Gears of War, or Uncharted, or whatever it is.) At that point, if the outlet has a fighting game person, they'll be sent to cover the game instead. At events that are specifically focused on a particular fighting game (versus a bigger event where one exists), I've met some
really good players, and the media that I meet at those events tend to be the most dedicated and interested in what they're covering than almost any other type of preview/hands-on event. I remember one pre-launch SFV event, for example, where some of the other media folks even brought their own controllers/sticks (as did I) in order to play properly.
I'd never say I'm any sort of fighting game expert (I've loved them since Street Fighter II, but I'm realistic about my own skill level), nor would I claim that a lot of the other fighting game fans I've met in the media are saying the same thing, but the people covering fighters tend to be the ones I'd actually trust the most at times. The problem simply comes down to making sure you know who those people are, which outlets they're at, and paying attention to their stuff, versus checking out the sites that just sees fighters as this weird niche genre that are a pain to have to cover. (I legitimately had someone earlier in my career ask me to review a fighting game for their outlet who told me "all you really need to do is play the game for an hour or two and you'll be good to review it", which drove me crazy.)
At that point, it really is way easier to just follow the pros and watch their streams or YouTube videos, which then is frustrating for people like me. Outlets tend to not give much concern for fighters, and then it's hard to get people to check out our stuff because of the other folks who have no idea what they're talking about. So, quite often, it feels like you're just putting effort into making content to then simply throw it straight into the trash can. *heh*
