Addressing the post on /r/fighters regarding 2XKO flopping

If anyone wants to read the post, you can find it here. It got quite a bit of engagement with few people debunking the OP's points. I'm definitely making a "didn't read all that" type of post that will get downvoted for controversy but I was annoyed by the lack of people calling out the OP. I initially wrote this as a comment responding to the OP replying to me but reddit wouldn't let me post it so here it is:

There's a reasonable chance it becomes the fighting game with the largest playerbase, but I don't even think Riot expects it to explode to beyond precedented numbers. Even guys like Sajam and Diaphone, who have had extended conversations with the 2XKO team, have said it probably won't "save the FGC" and be as big as something like Valorant. It doesn't need to have the player base sizes of the most popular multiplayer esports games to be considered a success. It just needs to be financially profitable/sustainable because that was the main issue with their projects they reduced support for.

I'll engage with your points because you'll probably read this:

1. "Casual players hate tag games": I actually do agree that generally (but obviously not always), casual or non-fighting game players find tag games intimidating because they have to learn more than one character and it can be harder to follow what's going on in the screen. But you've overlooked some important causation aspects. You say "every tag game flops", but they're not flopping just by nature that they're tag games but because of what many of them are as a package. Most of them are undermarketed or come from IP's that are unpopular where most people aren't interested in spending money to try a game that not a lot of people are playing/talking about. MVCI didn't flop because it was a tag game. It flopped because they cut a lot of beloved characters from the series and had a very poor visual style that turned people off. DBFZ was a success, despite its initial poor netcode (arguably the most important feature for a modern fighting game), because of the IP. People like Dragonball, that's it really. The FGC tends to hate arena fighters but so many people played Sparking Zero despite its expensive price tag. Why? Because people like Dragonball. 2XKO has the benefit of having an EXTREMELY popular and well known IP in the Runeterra universe while being backed by a company with one of the most well established pedigrees. And while the tag features may turn off many players, the ability to play with a friend on the same team will also get A LOT of casual players interested in playing with their friends. It also allows non-FGC content creators to market the game more easily for Riot by enjoying the game on stream while teaming with other streamers.
2. "Free to play fighting games have been tried before and flopped every time": This argument is kinda similar to your first where you point out a fact but overlook causation. There's almost no reason a game being F2P would inherently cause people to not want to play that game. It could lead to a financial loss which leads to a loss in support, but that's different. Those games didn't fail to cultivate a player base because of their F2P model. They failed similarly to the reasons from the first point I just addressed. You say there's no proof that a F2P fighting game can work economically, but you haven't pointed out how those games planned on sustaining themselves financially despite a F2P model. What we do have proof for is that skins and battlepasses sell. In fact we have an incredible abundance of proof that even egregiously expensive skins sell and make money. Also saying Brawlhalla took that niche and there's no room for another game in it, like huh????? This statement is backed by nothing, that's just yapping for the sake of it. You say other games weren't able to replicate its success, but you're really just looking at Multiversus because that's the one other F2P platform fighter that tried to compete. Multiversus absolutely did not fail because it's F2P. It failed because they killed the game the first time round, made a new version that ended up being WAY greedier while somehow also making the gameplay worse. This is also a game backed by a publisher that tends to drop support for their games after like a year. As a long time platform fighter player who came from Smash and is enjoying Rivals of Aether II, I despised the Multiversus gameplay but that's obviously subjective.
3. "Graphics are not pushing the envelope.": It's not graphics that are important, it's visual style/appeal. GGST does not have intensive graphics, it has a very appealing art style and presentation. And in fact, having a game that isn't trying to push the intensive graphical envelope is better for the game as it makes it more accessible to people with weaker machines. Your opinion on 2XKO's visual appeal is purely subjective. People who lean into Guilty Gear's style might find Tekken or Strreet Fighter characters boring and prefer 2XKO's style. You're just stating your personal preference and presenting it as fact. Comparing Marvel Rivals is silly because it's a completely different genre where graphical expectations for the gaming experience are different. I would probably have different expectations for intensive graphics when I play a singleplayer immersive RPG compared to when I play a game like 2XKO.
4. "Small roster.": A small roster does hurt for sure, but where are you pulling all these assumptions from?? A 20 character base roster is pretty acceptable for modern fighting game standards but I agree that it could feel small for a tag game. We don't even know the roster size but sure, let's go with your assumption that it starts with 16. Guilty Gear Strive started with 15 characters, but it made up for its lack of quantity in care to make each character feel truly unique and appealing. I think the game will meet heavy criticism if it launches with say 12-14 characters, but I don't think this is enough of a reason to cause the game to flop when the game comes from an IP of so many popular characters that people are going to be anticipating throughout the entire lifespan of the game. Just look at any media the 2XKO team pushes out and it's drowned in comments saying "Put this champion in the game".
5. "No single player content.": Lmao you're just making assumptions again. Have you not played Riot's other games? They have lots of alternative game modes that are EXTREMELY popular to the casual playerbases. I haven't played a real League of Legends game in a hot minute, I just play ARAM (they're very casual mode) to unwind with my friends which is very popular. So many people intimidated by comp for Valorant (especially smaller casual streamers with less focus on high level gameplay) spam Swiftplay so they can just chill and have fun with their friends. Now is it possible that the game will launch without a singleplayer experience? Sure it's possible, they have a lot of work cut out for them if they want to release the game this year. But like, you tried to use precedent to back up your other arguments, and then refuse to use precedent to back up this one? That's just nitpicking to make the game look bad lol.
6. "Game is not on Steam.": You're making me lose my mind my dude. First off, people played the game on Steam Deck during the alpha lab and it ran well, you could have looked this up with a quick google search. Not being on steam doesn't matter when you're already as established as Riot Games. That should be obvious. Fortnite is still incredibly successful and it's not on Steam either. If a game is fun enough and is reasonably accessible, people will download the client and play it, it's that simple. If anything, people will be scared to try it because they hear Vanguard, but somehow you didn't even mention that obvious part which many people have debunked anyways.

TL;DR Could the game flop? Sure, but I doubt it. Will the game explode to unprecedented numbers? Possible but I doubt it. But your arguments were so flawed I had to pick it apart because people are gonna read it without doing some basic critical thinking and think you were on to something.