Capcom Should Create A Mahjong Live Service Game

Or alternatively, there should be a mahjong game with a fighting game level of care and support for the community who loves mahjong.-

(this article was originally posted here on March 4,2024. I am trying to see how easy it is to import my previous writing to bluesky at this point.)

I haven't written about mahjong in a while. I've mostly been trying to build the bluesky mahjong community with the feed I maintain to see all the mahjong posts on the website (check this article for more info on that)

I really enjoy my time online there! There are plenty of vtubers advertising their streams, posting their yakuman, grumbling about bad luck, asking nanikiru problems, dreaming over akagi and washizu's complex relationship, you know, the stuff you'd expect to do in a mahjong social media community! I am still on Twitter, though given the nature of that site, definitely less and less. I came across a tweet from FuguTabetai, a street fighter community member in japan who tweets about that scene in english.

Itabashi Zangief took part in a Mahjong tournament last night, and streamed it. I watched a bit, it was fun. He won! I don't know much about the people involved, it was a casual tournament, I'm kind of low key interested in a Daigo / Bon-chan Mahjong thing. https://t.co/HuDQn72vxk

— FuguTabetai (@DocFugu) March 1, 2024

Congratulations to Itabashi Zangief. that's kind of cool. I kinda wanna see that! I have seen how Itazan plays Street Fighter, so it's interesting to think about how that same player plays mahjong. I spent most of my 20's and 30's playing and promoting fighting games, but as I approach 40, I felt like I wanted to focus on mahjong. I haven't even bought Street Fighter 6, despite all of my friends in that community having a great time with it. I've been thinking fleetingly about this ever since SF6 released, but seeing that itazan won a mahjong event just inspired me to write.

I think it would be really awesome to see Capcom develop a riichi mahjong client in the RE Engine with a focus on esports and capcom's IP. (or at the very least, just add riichi to Street Fighter 6. I promise I'll buy SF6 if you do this!). I think it would be neat, but I also want to try and make the pitch for it's viability, based on my personal opinions. It's one thing to beg, it's another to pitch! This one might be a long one , but I hope by the end you have at least gained an appreciation for how players and organizers of mahjong AND fighting games have reason to collaborate and learn from one another. I'll start by highlighting the potential audience for a Capcom mahjong game, and then I'll talk about why I think specifically Capcom is positioned to make what would be my favorite version of this idea. Anyone could do this and I would support it.

Nintendo could probably make the most mainstream version of this idea on God's green earth. They could harness the literal origin of their company and it's elder statesman status in the mahjong industry. It already has an established brand name with a decade long pedigree. They could just make Yakuman {insert name of sucessor to switch here}, mass produce their tiles to the world and then even your wildest mahjong dreams could come true. I guess in reality this article should be "Nintendo Should Create A Mahjong Live Service Game" but streaming from consoles can be a chore. I'm a fighting game guy, so i'm thinking about those sort of creators.

Mahjong And Street Fighter Have A Similar Offline Culture

here's a quiet jansou...

and a quiet arcade. While these spaces are different, aren't they serving a similar purpose?

Mahjong and Street Fighter (and all fighting games essentially) have a pedigree that moves through the arcades. Even now, games like Mahjong Fight Club, Mahjong Fight Girl (wow, konami can sustain -TWO- live service mahjong games in an arcade setting! ) Sega MJ are still running in arcades, as well as decades of salacious mahjong games for the arcades. But even though there's arcades with tons of these amazing mahjong cabinets,there's also a practical "mahjong arcade": the jansou! Playing at the jansou must be a pretty nice experience, similar to playing a fighting game at an arcade: a place where many different personalities compete against each other, as well as a place to socialize in person (if i really misrepresented the atmosphere of the jansou, you can just chalk that up to naivete. I need mahjong to blow up here so we can have american jansou….lol) Here's some similarities that I feel both games have!

I want to focus on that last bullet point, and why I think the FGC may be a ripe audience for mahjong.

It is easy to focus on what NAGA thinks you should do in the comfort of your own home. It's simple to have all of you frame data notes right next to your monitor. But when the lights of the stage are bearing down on you and your opponents can stare you square in the face, there is a different type skill being tested.

Performance is different than play , as any professional fighting gamer OR mahjong pro can tell you. The drama of live play has excited the spectating audiences of mahjong AND fighting games for a long time. Here's a comparison of the crowds for some of the more recent major competitions!

I've alluded to a link between the FGC and mahjong in Japan, but these links exist in America too! Riichi mahjong is becoming a regular part of many large fan space style gatherings in America, from anime conventions, fur meets, and most critically for this article, FGC tournaments. Unfortunately, I can't really afford to travel much, so I haven't experienced it first hand. I do know that at most big fighting game events, people bring tiles and Junk Mats, and there's usually somewhere to play mahjong. At the largest events, community members like BlindRob will bring their autotable in!

Mahjong will be happening late into the night at @FrostyFaustings.

Come roll by the Harry Carry ballroom if you want in.

Also karaoke is happening right next us, also all night. pic.twitter.com/5ri9SjiWi8

— BlindRob (@BIindRob) January 27, 2024

Blindrob also runs a FGC Mahjong discord, where people talk about mahjong, fighting games, and organizing mahjong play at these events.

here's the link to that discord

This starting to sound more like I'm advocating for Capcom to sponsor offline events, so let me start talking about where a new high quality game can be lucrative for mahjong players AND Capcom!

(I want to make sure that anyone reading this article knows about the people working very diligently to run tournaments throughout the US. The largest mahjong club in the states, Riichi Nomi NYC, has a calendar of events. Check them out at this link!)

The Online Audience of Mahjong And Street Fighter

Now, I just don't have all the time in the world that I used to. I don't have the ability to put the viewing hours in at my age that I used to. Maybe I'm off when I compare the environments here, and there is something to be said for fighting games that often look waayyyyyyyy more interesting visually than the currently available mahjong apps on offer. But I've also looked at a lot of the viewership numbers for mahjong and fighting game events, and see audiences forming around very similar content.

Street Fighter 6 has put up impressive stream numbers. I really couldn't believe it when I saw events like the TGS Crazy Raccoon Cup with a million views on Youtube. Crazy! In addition to the official tournaments and leagues hosted by Capcom themselves, there is a lot of Street Fighter out there to watch. If there are a lot of hours to watch, that means there's a lot of eyeballs for sponsors with products to sell. It's the same for mahjong. You may be surprised if you are coming to this article from the Street Fighter side, you might be surprised by what I'm about to show you.

These are the viewership stats of the unofficial Divine league 2023, compared with the views of Capcom Cup X. The Divine League has more views! Now, you may be looking at the dates and going "come on, this was only 6 days after the grand finals, while the other event was streamed 5 months ago." That's fine.

But you must also keep in mind, if you are reading this blog, which of these events have you actually heard of? Capcom Cup, or the Shiniki league? The entire world is the audience for Capcom Cup X, while Shiniki has an infinitely smaller potential audience. Mahjong puts up these numbers without worldwide viewership... what would happen if there was a mahjong app that drove international viewership?

These viewership numbers are always people watching a mobile phone game. Mahjong Soul is built to play on your phone. I have nothing against these mahjong apps, as I play them frequently, but essentially in the end, it has the graphical fidelity of a phone game, a simple one at that. It feels to me like these numbers reflect a viewing audience that may want to see something more flashy than a mobile phone game. That's why I think something that's high fidelity, with really amazing effects, could do well. Create a mahjong app that's worthy of these numbers!

So ok, now I've tried to show that there is an audience of fighting game players that may want to try to play mahjong, and there's an audience of stream viewers that might want to see high quality matches, with a high fidelity game that looks like it might be from the current generation. But why Capcom specifically?

Capcom's Avatar Creator Tech Is World Class

I've been trying to evangelize mahjong for a long time. It's kind of all I do these days instead of playing fighting games! But I will say over and over again that I've come up with a similar complaint when trying to get people in to play:

"I want to play mahjong, but I'm really uncomfortable with the anime girl boobage in all the mainstream clients"

Firstly, I'm not trying to change anything about whatever waifu or husbando you like in whatever mahjong game you play . I accept that there's an audience for that content. After all, the "sexy mahjong video game" is one of the most consistent traditions in the industry! Instead of trying to draw my favorite waifu from the gacha, I am more firmly in the "player avatar" camp of mahjong monetization. I want a character not to ogle or idolize, but to represent how I want to communicate with other players.

But especially when you start talking about the younger girls, and some of the outfits they put them, it makes a ton of people really not want to engage with these apps. So when it's a choice between these apps that make these people uncomfortable, or no frills, that often leads them to just give up. And if you're like me, someone who sees their avatar as more self insert than favorite character, there's a real lack of diversity in all these apps. Diversity in body type, age, ethnicity, how one presents on a gender spectrum, a lot of that is hard to cover when you're making a bunch of specifically designed characters that you expect people to pay money to even have a CHANCE to get. I had a great time when I was playing Sega MJ trying to make an avatar that represented myself.

I know that the character creator of sf6 is pretty amazing. I heard about how people could make hulkish monstrocities, but also that they could approximate themselves pretty well. I've surfed around and have seen a really diverse smattering of both types of avatar. Capcom's world class avatar creator could be the ticket for people being comfortable enough to learn how to play mahjong. Instead of turning up your nose at a salaciously dressed school child, you could be making your beefy lunkhead with a heart of gold right off the jump. Honestly for me, I think SF6 is at the sweet spot for engaging thar sort of appetite, with as many people as possible able to fully taste thirst for their favorites. Capcom doesn't even have to take my word for it.

Doman Mahjong in Final Fantasy XIV is the way many Western fans already enjoy the game. The community even runs tournament events! I see many players from around the globe on bluesky posting their WoLs in a mahjong context. Capcom knows that player representation can be the difference between someone playing a game and putting it down, or getting into the community and making them a lifetime fan. Street Fighter, Monster Hunter, Exoprimal, Dragon's Dogma, part of the reason these games do so well is because Capcom's avatar creation has become so advanced, it's easy to see yourself or any avatar you can dream of as the main character of a major video game. I think a mahjong game with this level of character creation would open up a whole new audience that's never heard of mahjong to at least be curious. And, thanks to another aspect of Capcom, they're positioned to turn curiosity into attention.

Capcom's Approch Toward Player Priorities In Street Fighter 6 Is World Class

Mahjong Needs a World Tour Mode

Fighting games have always been pretty tough to build a total package for. Some people play just to kill time, some play to win a million dollars! Some people want to match wits against other competitors online, some people want to just enjoy the game mechanics against the CPU at home. Some people just wanna do hurricane kicks in the lobby. I felt that SF6's game design absolutely dividing their game into 3 parts was brilliant! I think they identified their 3 core customer groups, and made an SF6 for each of them, then just glued them together. Bravo!

What I'm saying is that mahjong desperately needs a World Tour Mode. I am not necessarily talking about the design of the world tour, which I can't really speak on since I don't have SF6. What I 'm talking about is that in their competitive fighting game, Capcom designed a single player game where a player who is using it feels like they're playing the Actual Game they paid 60 dollars for, and not the mode for pitiful beginners that don' t have the courage to play the Actual Game which traditional arcade modes have come to resemble. There is no mahjong video game available right now that truly fulfills this anymore.

One of the largest hurdles of getting people into ranked mahjong or street fighter is that new players will either feel upset that they don't know how to play (and that's the fault of the game), or that they will feel that they're ruining others' experience with their ineptitude. Both feelings are negative, and lead to people exiting the platform. A single player campaign with a story and actual gameplay that gently introduces how not only Street Fighter works, but how fighting games work. Finding the best way to gently introduce someone who may be completely new to fighting games is something the SF team clearly put a lot of thought into, and I think they succeeded. Something similar for Mahjong could lead to a new boom worldwide of mahjong players.

And when you're curious about what competition looks like and want to check it out…

Mahjong Needs A Battle Hub

Capcom's Battle Hub is another amazing idea! Not only do you get to show everyone your awesome created avatars in depth, but you kind of play in a space in between casual and competitive. What's really great about Battle Hub, however, is that it conveys the idea of ​​the arcade as sacred ground. By enjoying Battle Hub, players understand that arcades are cool. you can watch your friends play and cheer for them, you can talk trash or talk tech (or both), or you can just go outside and do spin kicks.

Mahjong also has a sacred ground, and like arcades, it's becoming harder to keep the lights on. I know there's a lot of difficult gray areas around jansou revolving on rate/free mahjong, and I can't comment on that at all of course. I cannot comment from a perspective of experience. I can only comment from the naive otaku perspective, idealizing and seeing the absolute best version in my head, that may not exist in real life.

I can't really afford to ever go in my current situation, but just the metaphor of jansou like in mahjong manga, but in a video game space seems like it would be dreamy! Who knows it may make the idea of ​​a jansou debut more sound like a fun thing to do. With how mahjong is slowly growing its captive audience , a video game like this could do super well! If this seems like naive mewlings, that's because they are. Sorry if they sound incredibly lame!

In Conclusion

Mahjong live service gaming is essentially all Fighting Ground, which to me reads more like "mahjong live service games are currently only tapping into 1/3 of their potential audience". Maybe I just have a mahjong obsession that's weird and unusual. I'm sure my wife thinks so! Am I the only mahjong fan that wishes this video game existed? Especially in the us so we could easily answer the question of "how do you learn to play mahjong" with "just play this game" Don't we all from time to time think about how cool this thing we would all pay for would be?

Between the English facing gacha clients,
Final Fantasy XIV,
Every Yakuza Game since 0,
Akagi,
Saki,
Pon no Michi (editors note: this ended up being a bust),
the upcoming Tohai anime (editors note: i can't believe i have not seen an episode of this yet),

there are enough enthusiastic fans of all of these things that if someone made a next generation mahjong video game that taught people how to play, we'd recommend it to everyone! A killer app could create a new eager playerbase that it would make a whole new group of mahjong fans and those fans could generate enough interest in mahjong for even the tiniest of investment opportunities for the game to grow. Every industry must start somewhere.

There are really special people investing their real money and energy into trying to grow mahjong, for example:
people who organize online events like ARML,
clubs around the world trying to find meeting spaces, invest in growth, and spread interest in the game,
those who invest in tournaments like those that are on the WRC,
even superfans like me who buy mahjong tiles and tables and take them to community events and spaces just to say

"hey buddy, y'all gotta learn how to play mahjong, it's the best game!"

A successful big video game would really make mahjong a little more fun for all of those people right?

TL:DR I just think a really nice video game, with the ethos and aspirations of street fighter 6 but about mahjong would make money, and it could make the future of the game a lot more interesting.

Thanks if you read all the way i'm an idealist and this was my idea