In a recent interview, Street Fighter V producer Yoshinori Ono mentioned hoping the title would bring younger players into the series. The statement pretty much ended there, but it still managed to spark several discussions online. Some have had a sense of respectable back and forth, with various viewpoints and overall grounded opinions being shared. Of course, there were also overly-reactionary responses that assume the quote means the game might be "aimed towards kids."
The video above suggests Ono's quote is troubling because fighting games have more inherent appeal amongst adult audiences. Perhaps that's true on some level, but I'm not convinced it applies across the board. I was five years old when Street Fighter II first hit arcades, and I fell in love with it immediately. The presentation and characters completely sucked me in, and I got my hands on a home port as soon as I could. The franchise has remained one of my favorites ever since. I'm definitely not alone there, a point that the video readily acknowledges.
Perhaps there are less five-year-olds that would care about Street Fighter now, but isn't it a pretty big assumption to claim that's the case overall? The video cites Minecraft and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare as examples of what today's younger audiences are into. Uh, so what? The latter is a M rated game that interests a fairly wide demographic. "Kids aren't into fighters because they like Minecraft" isn't much of an argument either. The potential appeal of that game has already proven to be incredibly broad. After all, I'm in my late twenties and I like it just fine.
I can't imagine there's some strict age limit on being able to enjoy whooping up on Creepers and M. Bison alike.
From Super Smash Bros. to Tekken, the fighting game genre covers a lot of different tones. I don't see why there needs to be a strict definition of what particular age group they're somehow "meant for." Maybe I'd understand fans feeling worried by a quote like this in regards to Mortal Kombat, but it's not as if Street Fighter is some "adult eyes only" affair.
The SF games usually earn T ratings. As fighters, there's an inherent level of violence at hand. It's true that a lot of Street Fighter's combat would be fatal in real life, but it's presented in a stylized, cartoony manner not unlike that of Dragon Ball. The characters don't even bleed during the matches, and the days of the bruised portraits from SFII are long gone. We've already seen a bit of early Street Fighter V gameplay, and nothing appears "dumbed down" as far as the actual fighting goes.
The only other aspect of Street Fighter skewed towards slightly older players is the sexualized nature of some of its characters. There's quite a bit of fan-service to be found in the current SFIV games. Thinking back, it's actually been present in the series for a long time now. If targeting younger audiences means changing to a more "kid-friendly" style, toning all of that down would be an obvious place to start. However, you'll notice above that Chun-Li's new character model is just as busty as ever, and her intro animation uses plenty of unnecessarily low angles. If I had to guess, moments like Cammy's ass-centric victory pose will probably live on.
So, what's left? To dive further into what Ono's quote about SFV's audience actually meant would be pure speculation. There's just not enough to go off of right now, and the release date is over a year away. If you were to twist my arm, I'd guess that the gameplay itself might be refined a bit to offer easier combos akin to those possible in the recent Ultra Street Fighter IV Omega Mode. The video that spurred this long-ass post in the first place actually mentioned that as a potential positive however, leaving me even more puzzled as to what all the fuss is about.
Whatever actually comes of this, I think Street Fighter V already looks incredibly promising, and I look forward to checking it out as soon as possible.
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