I agree with the bolded.
The rest… well, I have never played nor even seen DOTA or LOL ever, not familiar at all with them or the business model so maybe you’ll be right. I guess we’ll see.
What kind of model does Mortal Kombat X use for it’s DLC?
MKX model is season passes for characters and you have to pay for skins and everything else. So pretty much you want new content you gotta pay that cash.
They have an in game currency system… Buts it’s not used on new content, only stuff like fatalities, artwork, colors and costume stuff
Thanks Plaid, and yeah I just did some research.
So essentially they are trying to apply a FTP model to a paid 60$ fighting game…
So costumes, and other “cosmetics” (I’m thinking of all the annoying crap in Virtua Fighter 5… oh God please no…).
Sure this works in a FTP game that runs on a toaster IE any computer so has a potential player base of hundreds of millions of PC users and is free to download and try.
Yeah, a game with budget graphics that has 30 million active players, yes selling 2-5$ cosmetic items makes for big business. However in DOTA and LOL, based on what I’ve read http://www.businessinsider.com/league-of-legends-business-model-is-interesting-2014-10 you can’t unlock this stuff for free nor will SFV have 30 million players. Furthermore DOTA and LOL are online only, you’re always in a digital world with tons of other people, it makes sense to want to spend a little bit of money to make a character look cool. SF just isn’t like this at all.
Mortal Kombat’s DLC practices makes a hell of a lot more sense http://www.gamespot.com/articles/mortal-kombat-x-dlc-to-add-new-characters-in-2016/1100-6430289/. Fight money should be used to unlock artwork and costumes, but not the characters, not what people actually care about. If everything can be unlocked for free I don’t see how they’re going to make a dime except off of super lazy people. You’ll say oh but Casuals won’t be good enough to earn the money well casuals either are single player/story players who trade the game after they’ve seen the “story” and unlike forgiving point and click games or team games where you can rely on having good team mates to carry you, SF you live and die by your own skill, and scrubs drop out because it’s “too hard”, and they can’t buy skill that’s why many don’t even touch the multiplayer aspect at all for this reason, so all those cosmetic items are worthless to them.
And if the characters are free but costumes and “cosmetic” stuff isn’t… yeah I don’t see it. Fighting game players don’t care about that stupid shit, and VF5 is so annoying to watch because it looks like the two fighters got sucked into a tornado at a Japanese dollar tree and all the junk got glued onto their bodies. If they do that for SFV it will ruin the games aesthetic. If you’ve never seen VF5 it’s to the point where you can’t even tell who the fighters are they look so goddamned ridiculous and it’s distracting as all hell.
Let me edit this, I’m not trying to be mean but I’m not kidding, people that play those games treat it like it’s their real life, so they will buy items to “express” themselves like hey look at me my character looks cool now you’ll chat with me and be my friend, but SF is not like that, SF is a digital martial art digital sport where all that matters is skill and kicking ass, nobody cares about or wants to see the hat you bought for Blanka.
This model will fall flat on it’s face and be replaced with MK’s more sensible one. That, or a successful out of the gate game will start to lose money into the first year…Boon understands this market, Ono is as clueless as ever.
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Ugh I just hate greedy clueless businessmen who just watch trends and try to apply the latest one to whatever game.
You can’t do that. The markets for these games and the types of business models are so damned radically different. It’s like trying to put salt on an Apple or Ice Cream with Tomatoes.
Ed Boon gets it. He understands the market. There is an enormous amount of money to be made from 3-5-7 million 60$ purchases and then 30$ for 4 new characters in a season. Having fight money to unlock costumes or maybe a stage or something sure, but giving the characters away, huge mistake. Characters are NOT cheap to produce the way costumes are. They’ve really got this backwards. Chasing FTP models… if you want FTP money then make a game that works with FTP, stop trying to force the FTP model on fighters it doesn’t work. It’s been attempted wasn’t there a Soul Calibur or DOA done that way and it was a huge disaster. KI is successful because it sells the characters, if they gave the characters away for free and instead charged for costumes it’d been a disaster or even worse if they allowed it to be unlocked with enough gameplay for free. Boon is the only one who get’s it and Mortal Kombat’s future is secured, Street Fighter, IDK whose running the show but they’ve got some really stupid ideas and this on top of the bad changes to Mika and Cammy and the even worse, over-thinking, ass-backwards approach to balance sorry guys venting a bit, with my business degree I should have approached Capcom because I’d have never let the disasters that nearly sunk them (outsourced Western crap like Lost Planet 3 and DMC) happen if I could control it, etc. etc. whatever.
It’ll work. There’s a lot of evidence that shows it can work. There will be those that are lazy, don’t have the time or just want to donate and buy the characters and buy the characters. I really don’t think Capcom would incentivize you to get the characters for free if they had any feeling they couldn’t get money either way. It’s a lot better than the alternative of making people pay 40 bucks for the next semi sequel which has proven to do nothing but enrage fans on the internet.
The costumes and accessories probably won’t be quite as wild as the VF stuff, but people are gonna pay for them. People like to have their characters look different and I don’t think it’s something that’s solely attached to MOBAs, MMOs and shooter games. Especially since they’re releasing this as cross platform on PC where they can catch more of those people who are already used to that thing.
There’s plenty enough room for them to make money outside of the characters and you will see 2019 with 40 characters. It will happen.
I’m hoping it will. I think Capcom has been around the block long enough to know a thing or two. I think what ultimately pushed their decision was seeing how well costume packs sold with SFIV, and how little Super and Arcade sold compared to Vanilla. (ultra sold well, but that has alot to do with it being a PS4 release and better PC release then the former edition).
The one flaw in their thinking though is that they don’t want to split the playerbase, therefore they will keep everything on one release and just update said release; problem is the average gamer (not even casual) only plays a game for a few months anyway and moves on. So that revenue that is being missed out on without the Super/arcade/ultra releases will have to come from DLC selling, which I hope it does. It seems like a huge gamble to me.
I think it only seems like a gamble because no big mainstream fighting game has tried it yet. Capcom is finally going to be the big guys that say “hey this can be done” and then before you know it other fighting games will be following suit. Anything that can be successful has zero chance of being successful if no one tries it.
People dont like Super/Arcade/Ultra release stuff anymore so there’s no point to even try it. Selling stuff through DLC is much easier to maintain and new stuff can always be put up to sell. Long as they advertise it well enough through PSN/Steam, social media and TV people will come back for new stuff. That’s really the approach they’re trying to go for. They know Mr.Casual will leave to play other games, but if you hear about something new it’ll make SFV feel fresh again and you throw your bit of money in on that new thing. If you’re not gonna wanna spend the time to grind fight money for that character you’ve been looking for, then you spend the Zenny on them and make money for Capcom.
The key is giving people the choice to spend money makes them more comfortable spending money than going “YOU WANT CHARACTERS?? WELL WE LIKE MONEY”. That gives people less options and less incentive to spend when they know anytime they want a new gameplay experience they are forced to spend money. Only requiring money for cosmetics gives more breathing room for people to spend to begin with and there will be a lot of people who will want the flashy stuff for their characters.
It’s the same model as the most successful free to play model online, League of Legends.
You can buy characters using IP earned through play, or RP through cash.
They already have data from SF4 about people’s willingness to buy extra costumes etc. It’s not an untested model at all - it should work fine. Other examples of games with this type of stuff would be Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer, where you pay up front for the game then can buy extra shit or earn it in multi.
I imagine they’ll be going with a season model, as in Diablo or league. You attract people back with ladder resets and occasional big balance changes / overhauls, but you coordinate to give people decision points.
Worst reasoning ever.
I’ve got a decent job. I’d pay 30 euros/dollars for Guile alone 
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It’s the same model as the most successful free to play model online, League of Legends.
You can buy characters using IP earned through play, or RP through cash.
They already have data from SF4 about people’s willingness to buy extra costumes etc. It’s not an untested model at all - it should work fine. Other examples of games with this type of stuff would be Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer, where you pay up front for the game then can buy extra shit or earn it in multi.
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Street Fighter is not League of Legends. LOL is a FTP game with 50 million people. Street Fighter V will do around 5 million, maybe 7 if the reviews are high and through discounts over time, which is great actually.
You can’t just rip the model out of LOL and expect to profit “because it’s the most successful game”. It doesn’t work that way. I’ve detailed above why this idea is horrible. Whoever came up with this idea doesn’t understand Street Fighter or the market for these types of games, and I assure you, take it to the bank, 6 months from now whoever the person is will be lucky if they still have a job.
Capcom will be making money 6 months from now and taking advantage of their ability to always have new content for people to earn or purchase. The only thing that will happen after 6 months is a lot of people going “hmmm…this is working isn’t it?”
You can detail all you want, but Capcom is basically in a position where they can try something new and as long as people go to it and it works, that’s what will keep working. Once it works you will just have to look back at your statement and go “I guess I just didn’t believe” like all of the people who didn’t believe KI would get past a Season.
I could totally go for a SF x KI crossover. That sounds fun.
I’ll pay up front, because having three young kids means I don’t get to play that often and it means my console can be used in tournaments.
I’d rather prefer a MKxKI one since one initially began as a competitor to the other
Spoken like a true…member of Capcom’s board of directors, but not the leader who devised the idea, just someone who champions the idea. A cheerleader who thinks that having a positive attitude will effect the outcome one way or the other without objectively thinking if it’s a good idea to begin with. Well Capcom knows best, right?
If this is the new hot ticket the big way to be successful these days, why isn’t Ed Boon going this route with Mortal Kombat, giving away the next characters for free and instead charging for items/costumes (assuming that is even what Capcom’s scheme is for SFV, I don’t have all the details, do you?).
You want Capcom to be successful so you’re basically telling yourself it will be. Well I want them to be successful as well, that’s why I’m heavily advising against this scheme, but it’s not like Capcom is here listening. We will see who was right and who was wrong in 6 months, cause I highly doubt they will change things with just 2 months to go.
Mortal Kombat can’t go with Capcom’s scheme because the games are usually short-lived. The franchise has always historically had 2-3 years tops before the next game would come out (1992 MK1, 1993 MK2, 1995 MK3, 1997 MK4 for example), and MK9 isn’t an exception to this
MK9 lived for a couple of years, then Injustice replaced it, then MKX replaced it. I wouldn’t be surprised if at best MKX will see a third Kombat Pass in 2017 and then Netherrealm will announce MK11 (or whichever is going to be the game’s title)
KI can’t go this route because the game basically started anew from scratch. Remember - initially the game had, what, 4 characters? And now, 2 years later, it still hasn’t gotten all the classic characters from KI/KI2 era, which will only return in Season 3, which is supposed to be completed in 2016
Street Fighter can go this route because it’s the biggest FGC franchise period. It’s got a huge cult following, it’s the oldest fighting game series in the entire gaming industry going strong well into it’s 30th anniversary in a few years from now. This all pretty much guarantees that it will sell millions of copies and will bring huge income for Capcom, Season Pass is just another way of basically “monetizing” the additional content in form of roster expansion because it’s clear that making updated versions of the game every 2 years is dumb and going the ArcSys way of “pay 60$ = get some more of the same” isn’t gonna rock with the crowd SF usually targets
Tekken can also get away with just releasing new characters (updates for the Arcades, free patches for Console versions) because it’s the second biggest franchise and the most popular 3D fighting game (not that there’s a lot of them these days anyway, since Soul Calibur and Virtua Fighter are pretty much dead and Dead or Alive has too little of an audience)
For the same reason Ed Boon’s games dont have good net code. Hes a fucking boss and he don’t need good code to make money off you. Long as he says “its gon be gud” you buy the game.
Its not even about Capcom, this is a model I think other games should take to as well. KI is one of the first smaller fighting games to try something seasonal like this (and they let you play one character for free) so its about time something big tries as well. I just think im right because it has proven to work and someone as big as Sony and Capcom championing it should make it work. They haven’t explained all the details but the word is you’re only forced to pay money for premium cosmetic stuff. Which people will buy. You already have people here saying they will buy the season pass literally because they want to give Capcom money. If people literally want to give Capcom money I say its already in the bag.
I just see you coming to me 6 months later and going “yeah you right, this is working”. I did predict during Evo that the roster would be 8 SF2s, 4 Alphas and 4 new characters. You stand no chance. LOL
DJ, I want you to be right. I really do. I just don’t see it personally… we don’t have all the details though, so maybe there is something there that makes sense financially.
To the bolded; I disagree. I agree that it’s two big companies making a bold move, but I don’t think that it will work simply by virtue of them being big companies. The model will either be successful, flop, or something in between, regardless of how big or small the company is. LOL wasn’t EA or Activision or Sony to my knowledge it was a small, possibly even indie dev? -edit- yeah, “Riot Games”, never heard of them.
Like I said, I don’t have all the details, and I hope you’re right, I hope it’s very successful, I want there to be a Street Fighter 6, 7…
6 months from now, I will be more than happy to say you were right, if you were. That is unless the game releases and it’s clear that most people will be forced basically to buy the characters somehow. I don’t see costumes driving DLC nor making up for lost $$ on the characters themselves, but like I said before, it’s too late to influence this change, I wasn’t the only one voicing concerns, we’ll see how it pans out for them.
To me I just imagine this board room and a guy with charts and graphs, all based on LOL and DOTA, and clueless suits at Capcom saying “Ahh proven model yes yes sounds good” without realizing just how insanely different Street Fighter/Fighting games in general are from open world, team based, always online, free to play PC games that run on any hardware…
Street Fighter V can and will be a highly successful AAA multi-million seller for Capcom and Sony, but it’s not, IMO, going to be one of these free to play games that generates billions via in game cosmetic item purchases, and I feel that giving away free characters, not only is a huge missed opportunity financially but that it could even lose money and cause the game to basically die out (die out in the sense that, it will no longer be financially feasible to continue supporting it, the FGC will never allow the game to die out in tourneys, unless it’s horrible, which isn’t the case) Also it will create an entitled mindset within the games audience and thus last minute changes to a more sensible model like MKX’s will be met with friction from the fanbase. That said, they will change it before they outright abandon it, outrage/friction be damned. I really forsee disaster here, but I hope, no, I pray that I am wrong.
Time will tell.
I don’t really see any point. If it turned out that I didn’t quite have enough fight money to buy every character as they came out, I could just buy the one or two I couldn’t afford individually.
It’s not like I won’t be able to buy at least some of them with fight money.