True. Just today I was reading a MKX XL review on destructoid and they touched on SFV
I’ve been playing Mortal Kombat XL like a fiend over the past week and I want to talk about my impressions of it – what the new characters are like, whether it’s a good value, all that jazz. But, I can’t do any of that before I address the elephant in the room. A lot of the conversation around MKXL is going to revolve around its value, and you can’t talk about that without acknowledging it’s main rival, Street Fighter V, which launched last month as a skeleton of a game. Capcom’s new fighter has no story mode, no trials, broken lobbies – hell, not even a proper arcade mode. It’s where the comments are inevitably going to go, so let’s just address it head-on. When looking at the two games purely in terms of content provided, MKXL is the luxury yacht to SFV’s leaky rowboat.
I know it’s not entirely fair to compare an expansion of a preexisting game to one that just launched, but I can’t help but marvel at the gulf between the two. MKXL comes with a complete cinematic story mode (that actually moves the plot forward in interesting ways if you care about that sort of thing), a huge selection of characters, over a dozen stages, plenty of unlockable costumes, Easter eggs, secrets, and alternate game modes (challenge towers, faction war stuff, test your luck, etc). Not all of it is completely engaging or mind blowing, but it’s there if you want to dig into it. This is what a $60 fighting game should look like, not some bizarre layaway program where you can play part of the game now while the rest of it drip-feeds into place over the next few months.
These things spread like a fire. Word of mouth can only make things worse for capcom now.
realize that people spent $60 on the game, and they are 100% reasonable to expect whatever they want from the release, and free to complain if those expectations are not meant. you have it absolutely in the reverse - in this conversation, the people who are “self-entitled” are not the people who spent money on the game and are complaining now, it’s the people who expect them to be silent. as if they’re entitled to an internet free of critcism for the game they enjoy. the solution to bad press is “fix the problems” not “try and shame the complainers into silence.”
Civ 5 released as basically garbage, then the company invested a lot of effort and a couple expansions into making the game actually good, removing the technical problems, etc. It’s still not perfect, but it has sat in the top 10-20 most played Steam games for the most part ever since. SF5 can recover from this bad launch, but they have to actually fix the problems the game has.
Different strokes for different folks. While some complain about the matchmaking others are in platinum league. While some complain about survival others have completed it in hard with every character.
And so on.
These type of threads always get hit with the “it’s a fighter it shouldn’t need single player content”.
Ok. That’s why this game is the one struggling to sell and MK is not. So obviously if your opinion is similar to that you’re wrong. The FGC is the only community that seems to struggle to understand that they are the minority and if they want their games to keep having sequels money needs to made and your little tournament crowd isn’t making a dent in that regardless of how much Capcom gives you attention.
Releasing a F2P version this early would cause the players that has already bought the game at 60$ to feel like shit. Maybe couple of month later would be more acceptable. I think the 2 issues here are How to retain the players that already got the game and **How to introduce new players and improve sales. ** I don’t think that the 2 millions by March figure is obtainable anymore. This looks like a UMVC3 or TTT2 where the game’s long legs are what is going to save it, hopefully.
Here is what i think Capcom should do.
1- Make sure that the game is functioning well and is an enjoyable experience for everyone. I think a big part of why the launch was a failure is because of the server issues and whatnot. To this day people are still having issues so that should be a top priority. Word of mouth on this particular issue is important. This would include Faster and better matchmaking and a better in-game tutorials for the characters. I think that an in-game messaging system would also go a long way here.
2- Capcom need to make it easy for people to get the " Free " stuff. I feel this is at-least an important part in retaining the already got the game.
3- Make sure that their content delivery is on point and with minimal issues.
4- I am not sure if this is in their power but this game NEEDS to be a PS plus free game for a month after all the content is out. Maybe during EVO month ( July) Sony could have SF5 be their free game of the month. This idea opened doors for Rocket League and i am sure it could do the same for SF5 and hugely benefit the word of mouth. This would introduce a BIG number of casuals who might get hooked and buy some DLC here and there, while Sony would also benefit since this would improve their image in regard to PS plus that is seriously lacking in the games department.
I think that the gameplay is great and the content issue would be resolved over time. While this may hurt them intially, i feel that the long legs of the series would survive the blow. What they need to focus on is make sure the existing players are happy because they need us more than ever now. The word of mouth is horrendous at the moment, that is what is hurting them more than anything.
Its simple. All they need to do is add cooler characters. Characters like akuma for example would bring back a lot of attention aka tekken 7 retribution. The only cool character sf5 really has is Necalli. We need more “power” characters and not more butt naked girls to the roster.
Dont re-release, thats corny and youll get the whiny mouthbreathers on this forum who started FGs with DiveKick blaming Capcom for being money hungry and how dare they try to fool us twice with this shit blah blah blah.
They just need to add the extra modes ASAP and publicize them A LOT…which is basically a sped up option 2 (and, which is basically what they seem to be doing).
Maybe next year, they could do option 1 or something. As long as it’s fair to the folks who bought it legit. Maybe only 2 characters with limited stages and modes are available, and the rest need to be bought with FM, or something.
This is where that article should have ended.
People who bought all the content in XL WHEN IT CAME OUT definitely did NOT just pay “$60”.
the upcoming content has to be exceptional imo… Not only in plot and presentation, but in teaching new players characters strengths, weaknesses and fundamentals without feeling like a dragged out tutorial.
And a marketing push when the content is released to promote how successful releasing the game early was for its tournnament scene and that the solo content was worth the wait
Well I mean the game just came out so obviously a F2P version wouldn’t just magically happen next month.
I agree with some time it’s probably the best option if we do anything other than just wait it out. Just have like Ryu and Ken or Ryu and Nash available with all of the game modes and then they can buy into the other characters just like KI. Something to drum up the active user base for free and get lots of smaller transactions in to really get that make money everyday thing they’re looking for from the game.
The people who get the free version won’t mind grinding for some characters and paying for others since they’re getting in at a much smaller or technically 0 price point. Plus it gives them the ability to choose what they want without having to spend 60 and only really play one or 2 characters. I’m sure there’s a considerable amount of people who bought the 60 dollar disc and only play Ryu or Ken. That’s where KI succeeded with their model they knew the average fighting gamer doesn’t play every character.