Team Ninja does not take Dead or Alive seriously; we shouldn’t either.
During Evo Japan 2019, Team Ninja partnered with Evolution Championship Series (Evo) to run a demo of Dead or Alive 6 (DOA6). During the demonstration, Team Ninja proceeded to push unsavory antics that eventually had Evo cut the stream and came out with multiple apologies for the actions that transpired.
For the longest time, DOA has had a rep for its fanservice. Tonobu Itagaki, the creator, lavishly talked about the fanservice, why he made the women beautiful. As this reputation kept on going, games evolved, more events transpired to produce better fighting games, esports and the Fighting Game Tournaments have diversified in money, players, and competitiveness. It is at this time one would think they would get serious about development.
Indeed that’s what Team Ninja alleged wanted to do. They wanted to be taken seriously with DOA 6. Multiple interviewers with director and producer Yohei Shimbori last year tried to emphasize their commitment to making the game more serious for the audience such as the following interview with PlayStation Universe:
The visuals of Dead or Alive 6 looks much more serious when compared to the sexier visual style of previous games – why was this new approach taken?
There are a lot of different things involved in this approach. With DOAX3 we probably took it a little too far with the way things were shown in that game, and with the VR version we got a lot of flak for that. With DOA6 it’s unlike X3. We want to be able to show it as a proper fighting game.
Instead, they slowly walked that back until Evo Japan where they had women demonstrating jiggle physics, in real life. For Shimbori, who seems to want DOA to be taken seriously as a fighting game franchise, he offered this remark to Twinfinite:
“YS: The reason why they can get away it is one one of the big mysteries of the world. SoulCalibur can do it and doesn’t get a beating over it, but even when Dead or Alive doesn’t do it, it still gets criticized.
If anyone can tell me why this happens, and how to fix it, please introduce them to me [laughs].”
There is a lot of bad faith arguments with this statement and even broader discussions as to why Soul Calibur and Mortal Kombat gets taken seriously as fighting games when DOA doesn’t. Let’s entertain them this one time.
Bandai Namco takes its fighting game seriously. Soul Calibur at its core is a weapon-based fighter with armor. Soul Calibur has breakable armor that hurts the player but also strips them nearly naked. There is intent that you’re fighting, you break the armor which increases the damage, whether it’s by sheer combat or executing a Lethal Hit. At the same time, you clearly can see Azwel, Sophitia, Ivy, Zazamel, and the rest clearly in less than appropriate fighting clothing by breaking the armor all while getting jiggle physics. Soul Calibur and importantly Namco Bandai takes fighting seriously, competition seriously, and does everything it can to justify the fanservicey aspect of the game with gameplay mechanics.
Netherrealms Studios takes its fighting games seriously. In a genre where you’re supposed to beat up your opponent, MK takes it to its logical conclusion: graphic violence intended to kill. MK has you beating up your opponents using weapons, using hand combat, trying to kill them. The most brutal aspects of Mortal Kombat, are techniques and mechanisms that you do not need to execute to play the game successfully. You do not need to perform a Fatality or Brutality to beat someone in the game. Finally, they care enough to be honest in what they want: a fight to the death violent fighting game. Neathrrealms doesn’t try to pretend that they want to produce a less violent MK that can be catered towards all only to pull a fast one in public. Instead, they worked with Warner Bros (their parent company) and DC to create the Injustice series and now have a more palatable fighting game.
To say we’re in a renaissance of fighting games is an understatement. So many franchises are all competing to not only be great games but to cater towards Fighting Game Community premier and side event viable games like Fighting EX Layer or the now dogged Marvel VS Capcom Infinite. Virtua Fighter 6 is be hinted harder than who’s coming down the chimney on Christmas thanks to Judgement and Yakuza. You can be sure new games being developed trying to get to the top as well.
Team Ninja is either blissfully unaware of these developments or more simply they don’t care or opt not to get people to force them to care. They want the same set of people they’ve wanted for years and have clearly shown they’re not taking legit criticism of how to present things to a broader audience. Maybe they’re not confident about the transition to a more mature fighter because of flashbacks to DOA 5. Either way, the stunt pulled at EvoJapan 2019 clearly shows a lack of care about wanting to show “maturity” to an audience that wants to know the mechanics of fighting games so they can tell if it’s worth investing time into learning it. Evo had every right to protect its brand and professionalism and pull the plug on the stream.
It’s sad that history repeats itself as the same frustrations that Mike Fahey mentioned in his post about DOA 5 now applies to DOA 6. Maybe its time we all just cut our losses on ever hoping that Team Ninja will graduate from this aspect of their history.
Team Ninja doesn’t care about being taken seriously, neither should we.