Fighting Series Staying Power

We see new fighting games coming out every year. Many of which don't really have any staying power as companies don't, typically, put a lot of effort into setting up tournaments or developing longer term plans for their franchise. It's very difficult to make a good fighting game because not only do you need to come up with interesting mechanics you also need to find a community that will support it. This isn't to say that it's an impossible task but to dethrone Street Fighter, Tekken, Super Smash Brothers, Guilty Gear (and others) is a heck of a challenge as those have definitely carved out a piece of that pie and have a tight grip on it.

Under Night In-Birth, for example, is an amazing fighting game with not enough of a community, for someone looking to compete, to spend too much time in learning its mechanics. 

If you buy a fighting game, with the intention to hone/test your skills then you want to buy a game that you know will be supported, by the company and community, for years to come which means that you'll likely want to buy into the existing franchises that have stood out the test of time.

What's most surprising to me is some fighting games, from relatively unknown companies, sometimes hit the mark and does take people away from the bring franchise. If we look at Skull girl 2nd encore, Rivals of Aether... those games have manage to build a community and have some success in pro tournaments. It's incredible feat considering that some bigger companies, like SNK, seems to have failed to put a proper circuit in place.

I hope the future will see more of these shifts as competition is always a good thing.