State of the FG scene

While it may be hard to express this with the right words, it's not hard to see that the direction the FG scene is going towards is problematic.

http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?threads/r-i-p-st.62067/page-7#post-6494810
You can agree or disagree, but Mike Watson is a super hardcore player and he loves Street Fighter more than most of the current community.
If he feels that he, as a player, has no place in the FG scene anymore, then something has gone HORRIBLY wrong.

You may see the eSports schtick, spectators, sponsors and money as progress, but in the meantime you are basically shooing off all the players with true passion for fighting games.
We did not start playing fighting games for money or internet fame. The current direction seems to be losing the raw love of the game.

Forcing everyone to go with the flow of what's popular and what gets views, or GTFO, isn't a good solution and will cause feelings of bitterness and even betrayal.

The thing about the genre is that there are many valid games, catering to many different tastes and preferences. You cannot force a scene to change and base itself on just 2 games, questionable ones at that.

If you want the scene to develop without losing its identity, you need to recall what brought all of us together in the the 1st place, and preserve that.

Right now, the scene is going in a direction that cares about new people who will move on to the next big thing in a few years anyway, over the people who love the genre the most, and were by your side from day 1. Now they are thrown off like a used Kleenex, like an old car model you don't need anymore.

What's the purpose of trying to promote the genre if you lose everything on the way?

I'm sure that I'm not the only one who feels that way, that the current scene has no place for people like me anymore.