Widening the customer base is way simpler than developers make it seem. There are five big reasons people leave fighting games:
1) They are FotM gamers; they were going to leave no matter what.
2) The game has gotten boring (how many Ryu mirrors is the average joe willing to play?).
3) The game's balance has become a serious issue.
4) The competition has gotten too good.
5) The netcode is not good enough for online play.
3/5 of these issues can be solved through post-release support, and developers need to understand that free post-release support is the expectation from people who buy fighting games. MOBAs do this just fine, and it's the same crowd of gamers that enjoy these games. 3) and 5) are killing Marvel, and 2) is killing Street Fighter.
Fighting games do not need to be watered down. No one is watering down LoL, DotA, and various FPS games. No one is giving the people who play these games crap like X-Factor, TACs, Ultras, and other gimmicks for the casual base, but people keep playing these games and learning them. They keep playing these games because they have a social component (team play), have great netcode, are continually rebalanced, and never get boring because each match is extremely different. How many fighting games can spout all four of these characteristics? I can't even think of a fighting game that has two of these characteristics.
If fighting games are dying, it's because the developers are not creating games good enough to keep the genre alive. While I love Marvel, I love Marvel like I love the only chinese buffet in town. It's the only way I have to satisfy a craving. The food is not great, but at least I got chinese. Real talk: Marvel has mediocre balance, and the netcode is just rotten. That the game still has a considerable active playerbase shows how much potential a game like this has, but most of the people I know got tired of being stomped by the "top tiers" in laggy games. Vergil is 10x more terrifying in lag.
It's downright embarrassing that major fighting game companies like NRS, Capcom, and SNK can't make netcode that feels better than the days when I played Diablo II on a 56k modem, but small companies like ASW and LabZero are knocking out of the part. These guys need to get their shit together and stop looking for gimmicks that will fix their products. They need to make solid products for a change. Fighting games are not like your factory-made AAA titles. They cannot get by on flashy graphics and QTE interactives to impress the masses. They need to actually be good games, and most companies don't know how to make one of those anymore.
Nothing is free. Where is the money coming for these patches? Planned in the initial budget and planning to make the money spent back via game sales and DLC most likely, hence being a limited number or the cost is calculated into the DLC price/expectations.
FPS has gotten noob tubes, martyrdom, death streaks, heavy handed aim assist.
LoL/DotA are simplified RTSs From what I can see, they look like controlling 1 unit instead of micro and macro managing a dozen units of 1 race, it's also team based so along with less to manage the individual has even less.
Patching just to keep shit changing is awful, ew.
SNK has been teetering on bankruptcy for years now. They are not big or major anymore (maybe in patchislots). ASW is bigger than them at this point.
A fighting game won't be mainstream awesome huge until they:
-Somehow get that "getting better without intentionally practicing" of FPS, TPS and LoL/DotA. Those games "feel" like you just hop into a match, figure out what works and you worry about your KDR and sometimes your team wins. Then over time you pick up on the popular areas people go to, map awareness and etc. but it's usually passive whereas it feels like work when you go into training mode and practice combos, motions on the P2 or P1 side, etc.
-Netcode or internet is good enough to not be a hindrance.
-
[Something I absolutely loathe] Do what a lot of these games do and incorporate a lot of addictive, positive reinforcement stuff like cool guitar riffs and lights when you level up, progress/exp bars, unlock stuff for doing particular goals in match, BONUS WHATEVER DAYS!, minimize any sort of negative penalty like down ranking or taking away
--Think of all the stuff that CoD has to unlock and all the positive reinforcement for doing anything, it's like a euphoric high while you play that when you're not playing, you want to be playing and you kind of put up with a lot of bullshit for it when you're playing
