Cry’s of foul from casual, hardcore and fighting fanatics are being lobbed at Capcom over the announcement of UMVC3. The reaction to the game is so negative you would be forgiven for thinking Capcom announced that for $40 they were going to send linebackers to come to your house and kick you square in the shins.
However, those cries are wrong and misguided and, even worse, Capcom is being “Sosa-ed” as a scapegoat for the modern game industry. An industry cheek-deep in a transitional period as it tries to balance integrity, originality and innovation against the trend of sequels, bloated production costs and Words with Friends playing white girls. If you think UMVC3 is Capcom grabbing at your nuts, here’s 12 reasons you’re wrong and probably ugly.
- "Where’s all the new modes?! The endings are just slideshows!" The series has has been maintained by the hardcore fighting fans primarily while casuals will just enjoy it for a month anyway. We want new fighters instead of modes, cut scenes, story, endings. And, seriously, if that’s your complaint why are you on SRK?
2.** “The new character’s suck!”** The character roster is made to foster NEW fighting styles, as such your whining for returned characters won’t make for a long-selling game as people already know how those characters play. Plus, real fans know that Rocket kicks ass.
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“I’m glad I didn’t buy MvC3” Good. Then you should be glad you waited for CoD3 instead of buying CoD2. The only difference is one has it’s mechanics and gameplay adjusted, brand new additions and a completely revamped setting and playstyles; and the other is CoD3.
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“VENOM! MEGA MAN!” cries will be ignored because you are really just admitting how little you understand either company’s products despite your attempts at fanboy-dom. See, both characters are suffering from internal disputes and are not eligible at this time. Inafune’s departure was not graceful and has stalled the MM franchise, meanwhile the future of Venom is on hold due to the reception to his revamp. And Cyclops? His present version is in thesales toilet.
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“I’m not giving Cap more of my money! I already bought the game!” That’s great but just because you buy SSFII doesn’t mean you get SSFIIT for free.
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“They sold us an unfinished product!” No they didn’t. Look at the majority of games coming out that are 4 hours long. In contrast you got a game with endless replay value due to 36 characters and, in contrast, the 3-year-old SFIV series (because that’s not labeled unfinished despite having the same production cycle) has 39 characters in total. After UMVC3, the series will have at least 48 characters making it around the fourth largest roster in fighting game history.
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“Spectator mode was promised!” Show me where that was “promised”. It never was and even if you assumed it, internal problems and upper management change things all the time. IF they did hold spectator mode back that is only because it would have delayed MVC3’s release because the feature took more time than usual. Capcom has nothing to gain by removing a feature we all consider to be essential to the experience, it knows it’s customers just like it did with SFIV. There is more to this issue that greed.
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“It’s only five months later!” No. By release it will only be two months shy of a year, which, while still early, is only due to poor sales of the first game forcing Capcom to (IMO) speed up production on UMVC3 in order to sell it before most players forget the series and move on. It had to be sold within months of Comic Con and near Christmas to maximize it’s profits because otherwise casuals wouldn’t be interested next Spring as most casual players will only buy one edition of a series i.e. casuals that bought vanilla didn’t buy AE and vice-versa. And, to be fair, this is one of the only times in the next year Cap won’t be competing directly with another of their fighter releases (ver.2012, 3SOE, SFxT, whatever’s announced at Captivate.) and why would they do that?
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“They just want to make money! And milk my wallet!” Of course. Duh. But more importantly than just making money is that they had to make games that deserved you to spend it. Capcom took mainstream characters and made a very hardcore game - no block assist, prolonged OTG mechanic (hard knockdown’s last FOREVER), huge combo chains and a multitude of features like advancing guard that most non-fighting fanatic’s will never master - for the hardcore fighting fan. Could they have just redone MVC2? Sure, but they spent more money and time instead. And best of all, most of MVC2’s player base has moved onto MVC3 gracefully and have grown to love the game for what it is.
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“They’re selling us the same game for another 40 bucks for something we should probably have received in the first place!” This is THE most ridiculous argument of all. MVC3 has been in development since early 2008, however gameplay examples and initial talks with Marvel over licensing stretched back into 2007. UMVC3 will be released in late 2011 a full four years later if not five full years. In contrast, Avatar took three years to make and made over $2 billion dollars. To expect a company of Capcom’s size to dedicate five years or resources so it can sell you one product from that is crazy and greedy because even Avatar is going to recycle resources for the sequel.
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“I knew they were going to do this, that’s why I waited.” Good job. You missed out on the most exciting time of a games lifecycle, are behind in strategy and didn’t participate in the scene. But most egregiously, you are misunderstanding the game industry as it stands. If you didn’t NEED MVC3, then you probably don’t really care about UMVC3. However, every series -EVERY SERIES - sells DLC, puts out updates and sells sequels that use old resources, even if you don’t know it. Kingdom hearts uses the same models and environment’s across all of it’s titles thus far. CoD uses the same two engines for the last six sequels, Madden is almost an exact copy except for key design updates for ease of use and competition. To make 12 characters and animated environments along with conquering untold design challenges? That’s dedication for the fan’s enjoyment that should be rewarded. Which brings us to …
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“They should have left the game alone! No balancing! Let it grow!” Fighting games, nay all competitive games, will, from now until the end of time, have balance updates, some free (Ver.2012, MK balancing) and some paid (SSFIV, UMVC3) to keep the game fresh. Real sports are also guilty of this, with changes to the rules over decades. Baseball wouldn’t exist today if it wasn’t for annual balance changes to the rules stretching back over a hundred years. If we want to keep fighters growing as a business then as a scene we have to embrace and even request companies to update their games. A good competitive game is never fully finished and it’s an attitude fighting game fans are going to have to accept.
And again, this is a blessing. The idea of Ver.2012 for SSFIV is a great name that carries a lot of hope for the future of SFIV particularly because it insinuates years of balances to come. This version isn’t just the newest SFIV game, but the realization of a dream stretching back to SFII’s first tourney’s - a game that grows with the fans annually, fixing and adjusting it’s balance to keep it fresh. If you don’t want the scene to die, you will support it’s growth. You don’t have to buy UMVC3, but you should never expect that you earned it with prior purchases. Balancing can be free, expansions cannot. This is a new game in a series and whether or not you don’t think it fits you is fine … but you’re not owed anything either.