How Capcom could have handled the bonus characters

Classic Fighting Games Street Fighter x Tekken
1

I recently got Street Fighter X Tekken and I really do like it. Since I got it with the Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collectors Set, I have all of the bonus characters and costumes included at no extra cost, but it still feels very weird downloading a 100KB “unlock” file. I love the fact that these characters and costumes are on the disc, personally. It increases compatibility online, it doesn’t hugely separate the player-base like the many versions of other fighting games, and you don’t have to download a gig of character models, animations, sound effects, voice-overs, and arcade mode cut-scenes just to have the “complete game”. However, it still stinks that you have to pay an extra $20 to unlock them when they’re already finished and on the game disc. So how could Capcom have done this in order to minimize the backlash? Simple: make them bonuses to people who bought the game new, almost like an online pass.

Think about it: Capcom/Dimps spent a lot of time and effort making this game and they deserve some kind of compensation for that effort. If you buy the game used, you’re effectively robbing them of their profits and costing them money by using their network. This is why the game has so many microtransactions and “DLC” cough cough. Capcom wants to monetize the copies of the game that don’t earn them anything directly, and I am completely fine with that. However, this also hurts new buyers. If the game included some kind of bonus one-time code to instantly complete the character roster, it would have solved the problem with little fuss.

Now there are some problems with this solution: 1) What about people with no internet connection? 2) What about tournaments? 3) What about bringing your copy of the game to a friend’s house? 4) What about 10-20 years down the road when these unlock codes won’t work anymore?

There are a couple solutions to the above problems that would definitely help. First, the game could have a “tournament mode” switch that disables everything except options and Versus mode, but unlocks all of the characters temporarily (with no saving, of course). Rock Band Unplugged has a similar option that allows you to unlock every song in the game instantly but with no saving. The second option would be to allow the characters to be unlocked manually like older fighting games and Smash Bros., each with different criteria which may or may not take a long time. For example, you could unlock Mega Man/Pac Man by beating them in Arcade Mode if they randomly show up, for example, or some of the other characters by playing Versus mode so many times or for so many hours, completing so many missions/trials, or even buying them with some kind of in-game currency that would take a long time to build up.

Of course, for those who buy it used, they could also just go the easy route and instantly buy access to them all online. Burnout Paradise does this as well. You can manually unlock every car on the disc, but you can also pay for a “timesaver pack” for a few bucks (I think $6-7) to instantly acquire them all. Capcom could have used this approach with SFXT and they could have made more money as a result due to there being less backlash and probably more sales of the game.

So what do you all think? Some of these ideas might have been shared before, and I’m sorry if I didn’t notice that, but I think that this is a pretty good solution myself. The only excuse gamers would have at that point would be a sense of entitlement, I think.

2

What they should’ve originally done was release the DLC characters weeks after SFxT’s originally release.

Also, people will have a tournament standard on whether they want to run stuff a certain way or not. That’s why everyone looks to EVO for rulesets so they precedent their events around it. AKA “No SFxT @ EVO = SFxT is ‘dead’” notions being thrown around.

Plus 10-20 years down the line, we’re probably going to be playing different games. I don’t believe SFxT has the staying power to last long like Super Turbo, the games different for sure but who knows… I don’t even know if AE is going to last another five years haha. To be honest 3D models do NOT age well at all. I believe that’s why they went with the artstyle they did in the SF4 engine/series. It’s a bit on the cartoonier side and it has very exaggerated detail on muscles, eyes, expressions, and such. Look at World of Warcraft still drawing in so many people, it’s cartoony and people are okay with it’s 8-9 year old engine and designs.

Anyway, they could rerelease a standalone copy down the line with updates if they refresh the game enough. But it doesn’t warrant a rerelease right now so it’s gonna be download codes and stuf for now.

Tough luck to those that have no internet. For people that actually attend tournaments, I would hope they at least have a phone to tether or a job, otherwise entering tournaments is a pretty bad life decision if you have no money for stuff like internet and mobile.

3

The thing is, these characters were completed by the time the game was “gold” and made available for release. If they just held them back and released them later, the only difference would be an extra gig on your hard drive.

I’ve read in an interview before, I believe it was Ono himself that said this (or Seth, I forget who), but he said that the entire reason they have these bonus characters made ahead of time like this was so they didn’t need a Super Street Fighter X Tekken. The problem is that they’re already selling what is essentially Super Street Fighter X Tekken but without the full character roster.

True, but as someone who is studying to become a librarian, this kind of problem greatly worries me. I care about archival and public access of information greatly, so if I had this game in some museum, archive, library, or whatever, I’d want to be able to play the entire game without signing up for a PSN/XBL account that might not even be available years down the line. What if someone comes into my game library and asks to play SFXT, only to not be able to experience the entire game due to the characters that you have to pay to unlock (and won’t be able to pay for due to PSN/XBL probably not being available in the same way years down the line, as I said)?

4

No modern fighting game has any lasting appeal. None at all.

5

I’m sure people believed the same thing when they played old school fighters. Yet here we are.

6

You say you got ALL the costumes, now? Even the Alt set? :eek:

7

Whether or not that is true is completely besides the point and off-topic. I’m talking about the ethics of having bonus characters like this and also how to preserve the game for the future.

8

No, just the swap costumes. I was unaware that there were alternate costumes until you pointed it out just now. I might pick those up some day if they’re reasonably priced.

9

There’s a good chance they’ll be out around the time the Vita version hits shelves. I’d estimate like $20 or so for the Complete pack if that’s what you’re into.

10

You got anything that others on PS3 can’t get? Like new costumes or totally new characters?

11

Nope, just the swap costumes and characters. Anyway, now that the matter’s settled, lets stay on topic, folks!

12

If I buy that PS3 Anniversary set, it’s most likely for the OST discs, Ryu statue, and replicated belt. lol Not even the games. The DLC are added bonuses since I have none of it. :o

13

This is smart but in my option i think the first thing they should do is to balance this game. Nerf Hugo,Kazuya,JACK-X. Also change so that supers arent so easy to do make it like it is in every other street fighter game. Also ffs buff Cammy,Asuka,Ibuki,Balrog its just sick how these awesome characters are so bad especially cammy that makes her moves in slowmotion so even the biggest idiot can block all her attacks

14

lol@ buff Cammy

15

That’s actually a really good idea :smiley:
If Capcom said if I bought the game 1st hand I would get all of the dlc chracters for free I would have.
But they didn’t so I bought the game second hand thinking ‘why should capcom get my money if their not going to let me have the whole of their already finished game for months?’. In other words to spite them.

16

I’m very sure that the game will get some kind of balance patches somewhere down the line. They’ve already patched some infinites out at the very least. This suggestion of mine is more of a thing that Capcom could do for future games since they didn’t do it for SFXT. It’s way too late to do this now as the game has been out for months, same with the DLC.

17

Cant feel any hype/excitement playing a game without fun characters

18

To the OP: I don’t think those are necessarily bad ideas. At the end of the day though, I agree with this:

…which I’ve always believed is the real problem. If the characters were available much sooner then a lot of the hoopla probably would have died down. The “wait til the Vita version” compounded the “DLC already on disc” issue, especially when there wasn’t even a clear idea of when the Vita version was going to release.

Granted that’s not universally the issue, everyone has their own reasoning. But there’d likely be less hostility about it, especially if they were more upfront about it.

What exactly would you buff?

As a Cammy player, and having played quite a few really good Cammy players and talked about her ad-nauseum… I really don’t see what/why she needs to be buffed. As far as “fun”, I have a lot of fun playing Cammy as-is, personally… just as much as a bunch of other characters (my level of skill with said characters is questionable at best of course, lol).

19

Indeed, if people didn’t have to wait half a year for the release of the DLC characters that were already developed, there would’ve been less angry mobs.

Too late though. But they’re already out in the wild, so not much reason to really whine about it now.