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As gaming continues to grow and is bigger than it ever has been with changing demographics and a much wider audience, different sporting franchises have been finding increasing success with no signs of slowing down. One genre that has typically struggled in this regard however has been with different combat games, particularly when it comes to wrestling, and with more options for wrestling and fighting themed games emerging online for different styles of gaming, why do the big mainstream options struggle where other franchises have succeeded?
A look at those that have succeeded have shown why they’ve been more successful, particularly through the UFC titles and the partnership with EA to deliver them finding the same successes as the other sports franchises but to a smaller degree, although the games do suffer from something that is a problem with all similar titles being riddled with bugs and game breaking issues but have managed to gather a strong following for a game that still holds plenty of excitement and offers a good virtualised combat experience.
(Image from forbes.com)
The other side of the coin has the long list of wrestling games, notably from the WWE, in which many have been received very poorly particularly in recent years. Part of this had come from a change in developers which led to some of the issues seen with poor performance and the lack of features that make up modern games, but these issues had existed long before with previous development teams too. It seems that with some of the complexity, or the lack of budget, or the demanding schedule to push out a new yearly game had been too difficult to manage and leading to less than stellar performances. It isn’t looking likely that this issue will resolve itself, particularly with the issues currently going on in the wrestling organisation, and it could mean a few more years for poor performing games that can’t measure up to the expectations of newer titles that are still to hit the market on the next gen consoles.
With such a big audience that seems to be growing year on year as combat sports and the fight game as a whole continues to grow and boom with new fans, it could be a focus in the future with hopes to deliver a good franchised game as well as expand into growing markets like esports too, but if the issues persist then the time may have past for a big success to be found in this space and something may instead come and take its place – something that would be devastating for the many fans hoping to find the next big wrestling and fighting title to capture their attentions.
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