As long as there's somebody on this planet that thinks they can beat me i'll play.

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I can't speak for everyone, but:

• It isn't dead at all in Florida.

• It isn't dead online. (Not like that's saying much.)

• It isn't dead in this subreddit.

• It's still one of the main events at every major.

Dead? No.

Dying? Yes.

But we're all dying. Right now. Marvel's been dying since day 1. The community is shrinking and will continue to. Without constant investment (generally from the devs), this is bound to happen.

That said, what factors led to this "death" of the game?

Time. People lose interest. New games come out and people shift their focus. Losing people in your local scene is a catch-22: People see the scene shrinking and stop coming out because they don't want to play the same guys over and over, or when they do it's to play other games. People not coming out means smaller scene. Rinse repeat until everyone's stick is dusty.

I don't think all of the tech or lack of patches has hugely contributed to the game being as small as it is today. It's certainly harder to get into than it was before (table stakes are higher: If you can't plink dash let alone do a pile of other things, have fun losing forever), but I don't think a significant amount of people saw things like TAC infinites or even the DHC glitch back in the day and went "Okay, I am done with this brokeass game"

Many of the pros are still playing. The game is just as entertaining to stream monster as it ever was (albeit there's less content - a few years ago I could ALWAYS find a busy marvel stream but now it's almost only on major weekends). There's still tech getting discovered and the online communities (this one in particular) are still thriving. The online play might be shit, but it works for some.

I think the biggest factors that contributed to the game "dying" are the stream monsters screaming MARVEL IS DED GAEM. It turns off the less-informed and the less-interested before they ever give it a chance. They're simply more vocal and prominent. What's more, is that there's nobody creating content or driving interest for non-mvc fg players. People get into the game entirely of their own volition, it's never because they watched MARVELOUS ADVENTURES WITH MIKE ROSS AND COMBOFIEND or they saw a sweet ad from Capcom or heard about the latest update. It's because they caught it at a major and were enamored by the explosions and gameplay - to which, there just isn't enough of these days. Don't get me wrong - the marvel content that's coming out now is great, but it's really only interesting or beneficial to marvel players (things like the r/mvc3 podcast or all the tech videos, for example). It's less about attaching brands and personalities to the content (which brings in outside eyes) and more about the game itself.

marvel is eternal

I'm apparently going to have a controversial opinion here, but the game is certainly dieing to a degree (and admittedly I'm part of the problem.) The game is leveling out in terms of a meta, and with no possibility for patches, updates, or DLC of any kind, it has a limited shelf life despite what anyone wants to say about it. That's just how games are these days.

Is Marvel "dead"? Well, no. It's still a big tournament at majors and pulls in numbers. If it were dead, we wouldn't see it and people wouldn't play it, but I think it's overly optimistic to not admit that it's "dieing", albeit slowly. For one, the NJ scene is essentially extinct and is the reason I've since quit the game. Further, no one is talking about this game in the way they're talking about SF or Mortal Kombat, or Smash 4 (which is growing exponentially). Tournament entries have dwindled in numbers, and even viewership on streams have taken a large hit over the past year. The interest (outside of the people who actively play the game) just isn't there anymore.

But that doesn't mean the game is "dead", because so long as the game is played it won't be. People say it's "dead", but it's more an evaluation of the scene in comparison to how it once was (in which it has certainly died down a large amount.) I loved this game when it was big and accessible (and I swear, my Smash crew is getting tired of me screaming 'Whens Mahvel?!' every time we host a weekly), and I'm sure you guys still love this game, but it is "dieing." But that's okay, because it will never move past that, it will never completely "die" unless you guys let it. So long as people play and show up for majors, it will be a thing. And there will be salt.

"Marvel is dead" is just a meme that has been repeated so often that people actually started believing it. Pages like Eventhubs spread the misinformation even further.

A bit of rambling, but here goes:

Marvel is an EVO staple: it won't die.

The game is going to take a backseat to newer stuff and just hang around. This reminds me of the backseat that Melee took when Brawl came out. The more important members of that community didn't complain about losing attention, they just fought to survive and stay alive. They eventually won. Watch episode 7 of the Smash Doc if you want more info.

If we show a strong work ethic to keep the game alive and therefore do what we need to do, and not play victim about numbers being lower than they were 2 years ago or waste time pointing fingers, the game will stay alive.

People just go right after whatever the new game is for a while and then may leave when the novelty expires, as they aren't committed or passionate about whatever game they play. The dedicated are the ones that stay.

This means the community is smaller, but still of value. So while the quantity has gone down, the quality of the community has remained. I'm glad this community and subred is compact. Having too huge a community or growing too fast can compromise the quality of the community or subreddit. Look at r/smashbros for an example of how being too big and growing too big can damage the quality of the posts and overall community.

First off, if you're in this subreddit, you should know by now, that Marvel is most certainly not a dead game.

Secondly, where do you live? sometimes where your scene is actually dictates the state of the game. As long as your scene is dedicated to helping each other grow and learn, the players will wanna keep coming out to prove their worth.

Third, online play is bad wherever you go. that's just the nature of Marvel online.

It's been quite a while since I heard anything from the players I follow (namely, the guys on my flair).

People rarely ever hear anything from anyone in Japan. The Marvel scene there isn't the most active.

I don't know what you mean about Clockwork, he's extremely active.

People like to say that Marvel is "dead" because they think that if the game dies, then whatever game they like takes its place in popularity, which is laughable in itself.

it's actually quite impressive that marvel isn't dead considering how hard it is to stay alivein 2015 without constant updates and promotions

It depends whether your local community deems it dead or not. I know in my country, it's not dead AFAIK but in my local scene, no one plays it as much anymore.

I think a major contributing factor to the decline in marvel is capcom dropping the title

I fail to see how marvel is dying when tournament after tournament, it is routinely 2nd in numbers for entrants and it usually pulls the most viewers too.

FR this year had umvc3 2nd in entrants while games like xrd\ki, brand new games mind you, can't even gain enough beginning steam to creep past a supposedly "dead" game? a dead game doesn't do better numbers than a brand new that is quite lively. Numerically track marvel per tournament, watch the view count when marvel is on streams and ask yourself, " is this game really dead?" Anyone with sliver of intelligence will simply say no because it is doing infinitely better than 99% newer games.

This whole notion of marvel dying just shows you how much of an impact scrubs\stream monsters have on our community. This group is the most of any community and even when they go against hard numerical facts, they can still swing public perception. It's why I frown upon them posting so much, it really hurts us all at some level.

Also, this whole thing about updates\patches is pretty ridiculous. The NBA\NFL don't go through that many rule changes yet every year, their numbers get bigger and bigger. You don't need updates\patches to keep the games interesting, you just need people who are willing to put in work and change the game around. The NBA over the last 10 years has been a big man league with shaq\duncan taking quite a few of those rings. It is beginning to switch back to small guards dominating again with curry\irving wrecking the league. All done mind you with barely any patching. A sport requires people to practice and try without crying. Esports should try to echo that.

KVO in Japan more or less put the game out to pasture by not streaming anything other than Top 3. That's not a typo, only three players were streamed. Street Fighter has priority. People were pissed, and Twitter is still going nuts with people that are upset about how the game was treated as bother...even though it has the most active crowd. Watching the Top 3 stream, you can hear that crowd. You better believe Ultra didn't get that. Neither did Xrd, not BlazBlue. Loving Marvel means you've gotta bust your ass to get whatever enjoyment comes your way. At least that's how it is in my community.

Well over 100 Marvel players were gathered in Osaka today, and they couldn't even muster up a Top 8 stream. It was embarrassing.

i mean it matters not to me either way. i'm still playing abd am going to continue to play.

As others have said, as long as people play, it's not dead. Certainly, the game is nowhere as near as popular as when it first released (what game is?), but the tournament turnout and viewership speaks for itself.

If you want to give online a shot, I'm more than happy to play with you. I haven't played anyone from the Philippines yet, but if it's anything like the connections I get with Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia (all full green, nigh-offline quality), then we should be good :D (I'm in HK, for the record)

it's not dead, but it sure as hell ain't where it used to be.

Yes.

http://combobreaker.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/CB2015_Schedule_Prelim_v3.png

Just saying, it's a really bad sign if an upcoming huge major is having it's Marvel top 8 on Saturday afternoon and Divekick has more entrants than it. :(

I never held it against the game that you can be bad and perform well with the right team, but as time goes on it starts to seem like you can't succeed unless you are bad.

I think one potentially damaging thing to the 'longevity' of the game (its already been played for quite awhile) is that you can no longer buy it online. There are a couple more hoops to go through to get your own copy if you decided that you really want to give it a whirl which probably effects non-US regions a lot more.

Nth fl is always active,Tallahassee has a few players, Jacksonville has quite a few, central Florida and south Florida both have really solid scenes.

Marvel games keep their hardcore scene, the casual/mid level players typically quit after 2-5 years. The skill gap can be intimidating for new players, during mvc2 we also saw a decline in new players after year 6 forward. It's unfortunate that you have less entrants, the upside here, dedicated players will keep pushing the game forward. The game simply won't die until part 4 comes out. I couldn't be happier with the skill level present in our current scene.

We work together like this forum, everyone improves, game is always fun. I think having the mentality of a team drives a group to the highest level, playing your hardest is expected, open discussion always an option(particularly with strategy and theory application)

Try to improve your local scene, teach your friends how to compete and beat you.

Marvel 3 will eventually be where Marvel 2 was. It'll stay competitive, this subreddit will stay active more than likely, and online won't die til they turn off the xbl servers for 360.(which should be further down the line than what they did with the original xbox)

I think it's inactive in some areas, but still incredibly active in other areas. I know for a fact that it's still alive and well in NorCal/SoCal, Florida, Texas, Midwest, Philly, and DMV. I think Arizona is still alive, too? I'm sure it's still just fine in other areas.

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Game is unbalanced and the devs won't fix it, are you surprised?

No one wants to see Morrigan spam or every match to only have Doom/Vergil/Zero