SFV Character Popularity — Arcade Edition (Jan 2018–Jan 2020)

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This video visualizes Street Fighter V character popularity (usage rate) based on official data from the game’s release up to December 2017. Although Street Fighter V was released in February 2016, dataset limitations mean that the data used in this video begins in October 2016, covering the later phase of Season 1.

In addition, notable events within the Street Fighter community—such as EVO and Capcom Cup results—as well as major patch updates are included as extra info, as they can influence how the data shifts over time.

Overall, this analysis represents the Arcade Edition era of SFV, spanning from the launch of Arcade Edition through the middle of Season 4.

The data covers all battles across Ranked Match, Casual Match, and Battle Lounge.

▼ Highlights
Even in the Arcade Edition era, Ryu stays near the top for almost the entire period, which really shows how strong his presence is as the main character. Personally, I had the impression that during AE, Ryu wasn’t always seen as “top tier” and was often considered less threatening than some of the strongest characters. But in terms of usage, he’s still overwhelming: #1 in 23 out of 25 months. His peak is 11.519% (2018-01) and his low point is 8.688% (2018-08). Even as the roster grows from 29 to 39 characters, he keeps a very steady “stays-on-top” kind of stability. There are only two exceptions: Sagat tops the month in 2018-08 (9.729%), and Lucia tops the month in 2019-08 (9.113%). Since these spikes likely come from temporary surges around new character releases, it still feels fair to say Ryu remains consistently stable overall.

The “default top three” is basically Ryu / Akuma / Ken, and the very top doesn’t change dramatically from month to month. The combined share of the top three stays in a fairly tight range of about 22.1%–27.3% (roughly 25.5% on average), which suggests popularity is moderately concentrated at the top. That said, around months that seem to line up with new-character releases, the lineup gets briefly disrupted—2018-08 (Sagat), 2018-12 (Kage jumps to #2 at 8.949%), and 2019-08 (Lucia) stand out. Looking at the whole AE period this way, it also gives the impression that Shoto characters take up a big chunk of the top end.

A clear pattern is “strong debut momentum, then settling down.” For example:
Sagat: 9.729% (2018-08) → 1.902% (2020-01)
Lucia: 9.113% (2019-08) → 2.060% (2020-01)
E. Honda: 5.607% (2019-08) → 1.434% (2020-01)
Meanwhile, Gill drops much less after his debut: 4.532% (2019-12) → 4.386% (2020-01), so his initial drop is relatively small.

At the bottom end, F.A.N.G is completely fixed. He is last place in all 25 months, staying in a very low range of 0.668%–1.103%. Dhalsim also tends to stay low, at 0.939%–1.268%, so the bottom side is surprisingly stable overall. Beyond that, regular low-tier residents of the AE era include Menat, Falke, and Blanka—which makes me wonder if more technical, higher-execution characters were more likely to end up near the bottom.

As an example of the “release hype is strong” type, Sakura starts high at 6.337% in 2018-01, then settles down to 2.211% by 2020-01 (a change of -4.126 points from 2018-01 to 2020-01). Ryu / Ken / Akuma also trend downward compared to the very beginning, but their relative positions as regular top contenders don’t really collapse.

▼ Included
Overall Character Popularity (%)
Data Range: Jan 2018 – Jan 2020

▼ About this channel
This channel visualizes statistical data from Street Fighter 6 and other fighting games, including character popularity, win rate diagrams, and matchup insights.

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