Kitesage

This is a really interesting article because I've yet to see real statistics done on all of this data we have of the game. One interesting thing to note though, is that each iteration of Street Fighter has had different important features in matchup analysis.

Take for example Super Street Fighter 4 (the second iteration in the Street Fighter 4 series). The game had a lot of value in more defensive characters.[1] Looking at the tier list, you can see that the top three characters were thought to be Honda, M.Bison and Guile, three charge characters. Charge characters require you to hold backwards to do most or all of their special attacks, meaning that you inherently play them defensively due to the requirement of needing to hold backwards. But, many players complained about how defensive the game had become, so in Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition, the defensive characters were reduced in power and the offensive characters became much better.

Yun, Seth, C.Viper, Cammy, Fei Long, Akuma and Rufus were all characters that put on a lot of pressure in this version and had very damaging combos. Many players find this more exciting than the much more defensive oriented Super Street Fighter 4, but eventually the offense was toned down in Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition 2012, which struck a nice balance.

[1] http://www.eventhubs.com/guides/2012/mar/29/tier-rankings-su...

I agree with this. Granted this is anecdotal evidence, but I recently graduated from college with a degree in computer science. In high school, I had no classes on computer science. I wouldn't even know where to start nor would I be able to model myself an educational framework to understand computer science as well as college taught me. Now even though high school taught me the framework required to learn a new skill, I just feel that my total unfamiliarity and lack of peers or educators would have made the task especially daunting.