Is this game worth investing time in?

Classic Fighting Games SSF2T: HD Remix
21

The goal of my hypothetical anniversary title is to sell the game and also appeal to the competitive community. My concept requires some upfront investment but it’s almost guaranteed to generate fan interest as long as the character selection is appealing. The casual gamer isn’t familiar with the fact that ST features the longest standing competitive multiplayer engine of all time and isn’t likely to give that tidbit much consideration when making purchasing decisions.

Also, SF4 has a limited cast compared to what I’m suggesting and SSF4AE already features every SF4 character. Very few would realistically purchase another game with the exact same character models pasted in with different mechanics. Plus, Capcom has just started to overcome its reputation of reusing assets across different fighters and is still in hot water over other perceived “lazy” decisions lately. If you want to design a feasible concept, you need to start thinking more along business and marketing lines instead of from a purely fan viewpoint.

What I do agree is that GGPO should be considered as the netplay system from the very beginning. I was a bit underwhelmed by 3SO’s netcode but how much of that was the result of the developers (who didn’t quite nail down offline mechanics either) and how much could be attributed to GGPO is unclear. Based on the PC client’s success and reputation for excellence (that Capcom actually touted as a major feature) though, I’m definitely willing to give GGPO another chance in a console game.

22

giving advice urself, ur concept neither creates fan interest, n would be a very risky investment.

not very few at all, how do u explain ppl basically buy the same game over n over (sf4, ssf4, ae)?

I would be one of many buying a mix of SF4/SF2, I bought HDR knowing it was a watered down version of ST

I did buy the same SF2 as well (WW, HF, SSF2, SNES versions)

23

You ought to provide support for your disagreements. I’m analyzing what casual fans fans ask and comment about when they talk about fighting games. Go to GameFAQs, IGN, and Capcom-Unity. Do these casual fans ask for system mechanics, new music, additional stages, and online modes? Sure, but they pale to the significantly larger number of people simply asking for more characters. What’s left to reveal for SFXT right now? The characters. What’s everyone waiting for in Soul Calibur V? The characters. What are people trying to guess for TXSF? The characters. Which UMVC3 poll was the most popular? Capcom-Unity’s character poll. Even the primary criticism of UMVC3 was that 10 new characters wasn’t enough for a $40 upgrade; the vast majority didn’t seem to care about the balance tweaks and new online modes provided.

So it’s clear characters are very important. Value is also a big concern with today’s overwhelmingly pessimistic outlook on the economy. And it’s for that reason I don’t think an anniversary title should be full retail—despite my personal feelings against download-only titles—and why I feel so strongly that it should emphasize the characters. The Freddy Krueger DLC in MK recently is an example of a character tie-in that’s been a commercial success, presumably because the character is an interesting fit. Many casual players appear to quantify value by # of characters per dollar. And if you fit 4-5 characters to a pack, it’s easy to see how that would be appealing. Basically, my bet is that a solid, anniversary-relevant system (in the form of the ST engine, which has proven to be excellent) combined with a bunch of interesting characters (in the form of a large initial roster and plenty of character DLC) will make money and reinvigorate the SF2 scene.

Now, the fighting system obviously matters too, and Capcom has stated that HDR was a success in attracting sales for a period of time. By extension, we would all agree that the ST engine shouldn’t cause potential buyers to blink. SF2 is after all the series that everyone nostalgically remembers from 1990s arcades and consoles. However, while minor upgrades were accepted in the past, a different engine with the same graphics likely isn’t enough to hold sales in today’s market. As mentioned earlier, UMVC3 had plenty of new additions. Even so, UMVC3 didn’t even break the top 40 game sales for the UK in the month it was released (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-21-uk-top-40-cod-mw3-denies-assassins-creed-article) despite being critically praised. When you take into account the fact that the original MVC3 debuted at #2 on the same list (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-21-uk-top-40-black-ops-denies-mvc3), it’s clear that customer expectations are much higher nowadays and that players are increasingly intolerant of anything they perceive as a minor upgrade. Whether or not the competitive audience will support the game has little bearing on game sales; the opportunity costs at hand outweigh us at the moment.

Now, it makes sense why Capcom would continue to upgrade its games. Capcom designs iterative products to make as much money off the same assets as possible. Everything is already in place for SF4 and, compared to creating a new game, there are much fewer resources necessary. It’s good business sense to serve an existing market and many in the competitive community did clamor for an upgrade to the original SF4. However, even Capcom staff acknowledged that the company now needs to consider its releases carefully before the genre becomes oversaturated. More minor upgrades at this point would intensify the casual player view of Capcom as a company who doesn’t care about its fans and is trying milk fans out of their money. I don’t agree with this view but what I believe doesn’t matter. Sales may still be acceptable but they’re starting to reinforce the crowd mentality.

Assuming I’m not missing a critical detail with logistics, if Capcom wants to excite fans with the most unexpected crossovers ever while making money at the same time to the point where players are looking forward to buy the next DLC pack, then my concept should be a solid next step in approaching fighters. It’s hard to think of any other type of game that has a high chance of success for Capcom; a basic port—even a near-perfect port of ST—would be a disappointment for most and no game at all would be a wasted opportunity. If Capcom was willing to invest in Capcom Fighting Jam, a game that had almost no obvious strategic upside, it’s difficult to consider why it wouldn’t take the calculated risk in an expected anniversary game now.

I can’t believe how quickly a decade has passed but Street Fighter’s 25th anniversary is almost upon us. Back in 2003, Hyper Street Fighter II was the amalgam of every SF2 game combined into one. 2013 is a perfect occasion for Capcom to take that anniversary approach one step further, appealing to both traditional mechanics and modern expectations, and attract the next generation of fans who will remember this game best not for its solid SF2 mechanics but rather as the medium that offered so many fun characters to play as.

24

I don’t think you can copyright game mechanics. Why not pull a Zynga and roll your own?

Strat Fighters, Too. Starring Roy, Kin, Chumbly and Camry.

25

I just don’t see an ST online doing much for the the community at this point. I don’t think it would sell, either. The casual fan has already bought SF2 HF and HD Remix, why would they want, what they would see as, a watered down version of a game they already own? I know all of us old schoolers would buy it and play it but we would just be were we are now, the same small number of us playing against ourselves. I agree with Ganelon, the only chance for us to see SF2 gameplay make a comeback with a large community and tourney support is with a brand new game. The anti-HDR people can hate on HDR all they want, but they have to admit that when the game came it was a success, we had a huge community playing the game. I hadn’t had so much fun and so much competition playing SF since the arcade days. And not all of the influx of new players just scrubbed out a bit and left, we got quite a few players who put the work in and became really good SF2 players because of HDR. Unfortunetly SF4 came out and a lot of the new found community went with it.

We won’t get anything like that again without putting something new out there. I don’t know if it has to be as radical as Ganelon’s idea but we can’t just slightly tweak ST (or just release vanilla ST). It definitely has to have new characters, new backgrounds, etc. As long as it keeps the core basis of SF2 mechanics I would be happy. I also don’t think Capcom would release 2D game like that full retail, so it would have to be downloadable (which would work in our favor, lower cost of entry means more people would give it a try). I don’t think it will happen however(Capcom seems to have no interest in it, have you see SF x T? UGH).

26

I don’t understand why people want an online release of ST. Not only is there GGPO but you can play ST online THROUGH HDR!!! There’s a classic mode just for that!

27

Of course it’s worth playing. It’s still incredibly fun and there are people who still play it. Plus it’s way better than 4.

28

Classic mode is not 100% like ST. ST heads only accept pure ST.

29

What are the differences between HDR and ST?

30

Everyone in HDR has new add on moves and enough changes to call it a different game.

31

The problem with adding more characters is that it’ll be virtually impossible to balance and due to the zany nature of a lot of non sf characters your going to run into even dumber match ups.

It may sell but it won’t solve the problem for us older st heads and that is getting a decent port of ST that the masses will buy. The truth is that the zombie parade will never buy anything with real substance and quality beyond great visuals. They will buy video games based off of a popular franchise or movie or an older game that is an updated sequel aka has better graphics.

The assumption that the engine would have to be updated with more features is another thing, it may sell more units but tbh after playing all the capcom sf fighters and then finally settling on st years ago I realized that fighting game subsystems and supers don’t add anything of value to the combat. What they basically do is create a more defensive and slow paced game. They could still make supers that are used as fatalities so that they would have no bearing on actual game balance and you wouldn’t have to see the 10 year olds wet dream ejaculation 1 billion times a year until it gets stale and annoying.

I suppose your idea could work in the end Ganelon, but it’s far more likely that it will turn into mugen, with Omega Tom Hanks destroying everybody. Even if they somehow balanced it out and it was playable, do you really want to play ST Guile versus GG Testament who would have air comboes and all kinds of nonsense? If they watered down characters from other franchises too much that would piss off a lot of people. Capcom would have to if the game were to make any sense.

TLDR version: Point is, would that game really be ST anymore?

32

I think we’re better off just trying to find more people that are enthusiasts to play Super Turbo with than getting some ridiculous 50 character game that’s gimmicky and unbalanced.

33

There are slight timing changes, easier input leniency, altered input commands that make certain moves easier to execute, changes to the priority of certain moves, COMPLETE changes to the way that Honda’s lp headbutt works, Blanka balls, T.Hawk dives, etc etc etc. The list goes on and on.

34

Ah I see. When I play HDR I usually play it on the “classic arcade” Super Turbo mode. I think SF Anniversay collection was cooler because you could pick whatever version of the character you wanted WW/CE/Turbo/Super/ST.

35

True, but many of the older characters in AE were over-powered. Also that PS2 version had a load of problems with it as well. The closest thing to a perfect port of ST has only been on Dreamcast afaik.

36

blockhead ! I love your avatar , man. LOL

37

Why would you play HDR if you use the classic rules?

Also, CCC2 Super Turbo was pretty good, right?

38

Because it’s the only port of SF2 I have at the moment. I haven’t played it seriously in a while.

Thanks.

39

HDR is worth it, just because it’s the most current version of SFII, which is an all time classic, great game.

As for investing time, it’s fun, and there is some online opposition, but it’s dying/dead on the tournament scene, then again 3S is getting a resurrection through online edition peaking peoples interest in it again, so something may happen.

I suppose if you become really passionate about it you could organise a tournament for it, there are definitely a lot of people lingering the woodworks dying for a chance to come out and relive the SFII glory days.

40

I’m counting on Capcom Japan designers to live up to their reputation as balance wizards. We’ve seen some imbalance in the SF4 and MVC3 series, but nothing horribly broken IIRC, even unpatched. If MVC2 was able to survive 56 characters in an incredibly loose system without patches, then it seems reasonable that more characters could be added in a stricter system. Essentially, I’m counting on legendary JP balance and a simple system with relatively limited animations for each character to prevent the game from devolving into MUGEN. I don’t anticipate Capcom making balance patches or adding new systems so their omission should save time and resources and allow the team to focus on new characters. There are many benefits with having a downloadable anniversary title and the excuse to produce a more old-school game with lower expected production values is one that both the company and SF2 players can enjoy. Plus, it’s been tradition that on every 5th anniversary of SF, there’s something to celebrate SF2 (SF Collection, HSF2, HDR) On that note, MUGEN is a a great example of how much casual fighting game fans are obsessed with character diversity over just about every other aspect.

But you’re right, JED07; the game I’m envisioning won’t be ST. It would ideally have an ST engine and character base that’s close to perfect, albeit redrawn, but I wouldn’t expect anyone to play the game that way. If we want ST to climb, then taking a cue from the success of HSF2 and HDR when they were first released, we would need at least another port to reinvigorate the scene. Since we have HDR already for PS3 and 360, it’s reasonable to expect that another ST port won’t arrive until the next generation of consoles. That’s assuming the port will be any good even though every recent US-developed port has been considered competitively unsatisfactory. And even then, the effects on tourney turnout have been quite temporary. HDR had great numbers, but the additions dissipated quickly after the first year. I still wonder what could have happened had the game not been delayed but that’s a moot point now. As mad possum elaborated, I don’t think ST will grow much. I’ve checked tourney results for over a decade and turnout has been roughly the same throughout minus the brief bursts mentioned. That’s exactly what I expected when I started but my idea here isn’t to just have another port but rather to thrust SF2 back to the forefront of the competitive scene for a few years.

I’m relying on the MVC2 effect of getting players interested by virtue of plentiful characters and an inexpensive price, even with mediocre graphics. Nobody seems to care in MVC that Captain America is perennially weak. As long as popular characters are represented, that seems to be good enough. Capcom spent 2 weeks harping about how cool Deadpool was in MVC3 and folks ate that up even though everybody recognized that he wasn’t going to be very good. If Capcom can stick a few shocking cameos in there, I’m sure we all agree that gamers will be drawn to that like zombies to fresh meat. Who would want to play a game with 40 characters when you have 100 from your favorite Capcom series and elsewhere? Just looking at SFXT with Cole, the cats, Mega Man, and Pac-Man, one can see how Capcom is already understanding the notion of cameo characters. New characters will be released constantly so tier charts won’t mean much and players will be constantly trying to make a name for their own characters or trying to find what they believe to be the best character.

For us competitive SF2 players, we would have a new avenue that isn’t quite the same as what we’re used to but one that’s brimming with competition. If you want to play as Guile, you can stick with him. If you find someone else more interesting, go right ahead. The main purpose here is a compromise that everyone will enjoy. We’ve all heard just about every OG player explicitly say that he doesn’t enjoy SF4 and only plays it for competition. Meanwhile we want to dramatically ramp up turnout. I think my idea is a middle point that will leave everyone pleased. This game won’t be confused with a ST remake but it’ll attract OG support by virtue of its ST engine. Basically, I’m trying for a realistic approach here where Capcom can makes money, SF2 players can have a style of play we’ll actually enjoy, and new players will participate. I acknowledge that this concept may be a little too much to expect from Capcom since they may feel such a game will cannibalize sales of its current-gen titles, but I believe if this idea were to be pursued, Capcom would easily match MVC2’s PSN/XBLA game sales with additional hundreds of thousands of DLC sales.

On a tangent, Yoshinori Ono mentioned yesterday that he enjoys customization. I suppose Capcom could always make a simple polygonal SF2 update with endless customization as well, but I don’t believe that customization as a main feature would earn much fan interest. HDR is too available now for another SF2 to do mostly the same thing. Customization items also don’t seem to have been hugely successful in terms of sales. Soulcalibur IV and Virtua Fighter 5’s custom item DLC ended fairly quickly with little interest. I see customization more as one of many features of the next retail SF game to follow what competing series have been doing for years.

And for those wondering about HDR differences, all of them are covered in this topic (HDR-HDR and HDR classic-ST): Comparison of HDR Versions (PS3, 360, DC, CPS2)