this might be the saddest thing i’ve seen in months.
I don’t really see this as a permanently damaged or dire situation at all. The launch sales were always secondary compared to the game’s longevity and growth through updates/streaming.
Contrary to what some of you are saying, streaming and updating IS a pretty good way to sell your product if robust enough.
http://i.imgur.com/VoOWnVv.jpg
These are concurrent player numbers for CS:GO, a game that released with lukewarm reception. There are other charts out there showing how every tournament for that game spiked its population.
One thing’s for certain, though. Capcom has to double down on their “service” approach to this game and I think their lack of experience with this will be the bigger issue going forward. Not being able to update the game to discourage rage-quitting in a timely manner doesn’t instill faith.
I definitely see SFV being F2P or having a drastically reduced price point in the future if it wants to grow in any substantial way.
So strictly speaking as someone who USED to play the hell out of fighting games (we’re talking back in the days of arcades and the SNES), trying to come back to SF has been a nightmare.
SFIV was somewhat understandable because I simply didn’t want to put the time into getting the muscle memory down for 1 frame links.
When I heard SFV was doing away with those I was hopeful, but there is honestly no organic way of learning the game. The mechanics have changed so much over the years that it’s a complete overload, and the lack of an arcade and challenge mode, or even a decent tutorial to explain this stuff to me turns me off completely.
What would take me an hour to do with a proper tutorial, learning the links for characters, understanding the V system, knowing what a crush counter means, knowing what reversals are - etc. - is either something I have to go on the internet to look up, which in turn means going through the FGC lingo definition guide to understand half of the threads explaining these systems, or something that will take me weeks playing in online matches.
Bottom line? It’s a stupid move from Capcom, nobody is going to come back to this game a month or two from now if they purchased it at release. Once you’re turned off from a game, that’s it, you’re turned off from it. Competitive players will come up with a million plausible excuses in their heads reading this, from “Well if you won’t even put the time in, then you wouldn’t have stuck around anyway.” to “It’s all available on the internet.”, but those are totally unacceptable responses to what, at the end of the day, is a beta release of a game at full retail price.
They should have slapped Tournament on the cover, made it expressly clear that it’s meant for online play only, and released a complete version three months from now.
They should have included a tutorial that’s in lines with what Killer Instinct does to get casual players like myself, trying desperately to get back into the fighting game scene, but being totally overwhelmed because of how much more complex they’ve become.
They should have included an arcade mode that at least lets you get over the anxiety/hurdle of learning basic footsies and getting the muscle memory down for getting out supers consistently.
As it stands I won’t be coming back to this game, I’m disappointed I paid for it, and I don’t like how some people are defending Capcom’s decisions by saying it’s someone’s own fault for not doing the research beforehand. That’s a bad trend in gaming going on, and it shows what the newer generation of gamers have been lulled into expecting, instead of just expecting…well…a complete game…there’s a huge difference between buying a game and not liking it, and buying a game only to find out it’s missing 90% of the features I expected it to have when I picked it up.
So lets say I revisit this game 2 or 3 months from now when they’ve implemented arcade mode and challenge mode so I can actually learn the very basic concepts of this fighter organically instead of just being forced to somehow magic my way into the mechanics through online play. I’m just going to be put up against people who have already been playing it for 2 or 3 months, that have their footsies down and can spit out combos that will kill me if they’re repeated 3 or 4 times.
That’s not how you build a userbase, I don’t really care who pushed the game out early, this early release shit needs to stop. It’s not that fighting games aren’t for me, I don’t mind going into a new game and getting beat on for a few days before I start winning matches - it’s a complete and total disregard for being even remotely friendly or inviting to new players who don’t want to spend 4 hours on the internet trying to figure out what should take 30 minutes in the game through a step by step tutorial. Period.
People who defend this release in it’s current inception are the problem with the fighting game community, it’s not helping build your community at all, it’s pushing people away.
I should have clarified… A strong first impression matters for sales.
As I’ve said before, the basic game is great, but Capcpom has done everything possible to make sure that great game is overshadowed by dumb shit.
thought: league of legends started off ok, and then grew into a monster. maybe sf5 just needs a year or two to find its footing.
(League if legends was and is free)
Superficial comparison.
MOBAs are fucking trending. They have been bubbling under the surface for years then they exploded. The Fighting Genre is not trending, and even when it was it never yielded numbers even close to what MOBAs are doing.
Besides, like someone else pointed out - LoL and DotA are free. They are also incredibly beginner friendly because of the team play aspect. Your weaknesses/newbness can get carried by your allies, and it also gives you an opportunity to learn from 9 other people simultaneously. The basics of playing a MOBA are significantly easier to understand than a fighting game.
Bottomline, Street Fighter will* never* be as popular as LOL or DotA are today. If Capcom ever hoped to achieve something remotely close, well they shot themselves in the foot from the get go. The should’ve abandoned the old business model entirely, made the game free to play and multiplayer only. That will excuse their lack of content, and charging you for everything else.
Rainbow Six: Siege has received as much flak as SFV currently is both critically and by fans for it’s barebones release. Virtually non-existent single player mode. 10 short missions and that’s it. It’s online had problems mainly laggy netcode and Uplay. Players complained about how linear many of the classes are. Game still topping the charts despite all those setbacks.
And it, along with euro truck sim, is destroying SFV right now for current player counts. If Capcom made Rainbow Six: Siege instead I’m sure they’d be happy.
Sure but you are comparing Street Fighter to a triple A FPS.
And Euro Truck Simulator 2.
So SFV should have been an FPS.
Call of Duty launched with more features, so maybe…
…one frame links have absolutely nothing to do with playing SFIV at a level that is competent enough to not embarrass yourself against the majority of online (or offline players for that matter). I played SFIV for almost the entirety of its existence and it’s possible that I never successfully completed a one frame link.
Just basic spacing, blocking, and pressing a heavy attack button when your opponent does something stupid is enough of a starting point for you try to understand how to actually play the game. That is something that you should be able to realize with nothing other than common sense.
Not the PS3 and 360 versions. Those versions launched with no single player whatsoever.
Who cares about those last gen plebs! Dis da next gen, homie!
Didn’t Titanfall also launch with 0 single player?
…or a F2P truck simulator MOBA with guns.
Yup. It had a campaign but it was just the game’s multiplayer with story context.