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Fighting game pricing seems flawed to me

It would be perfect if it was a 'buy your main' situation. Where you just buy your main if you'd prefer it, and maybe a couple more characters down the line if you fancy playing around.

While it would be great for the casual audience, I imagine that publishers don't want to lose out on the dev cost of their game. Though I imagine costumes would help? If someone really likes Cammy, they'd probably buy a couple of costumes for her.

A model where you can either buy the full game, with all modes or you can have access to a F2P version that would probably just have ranked with a free rotational character with the option to buy as many characters as you'd personally use.
 
Fighting games should be F2P because they’re competitive by nature. The biggest competitive games in the world are F2P to an extent. If the next SF was F2P, then it’d most definitely help the genre grow
 
"I agree. Fighting game should follow the model of Dota2, now that it's proven to be vastly profitable."

I've said this for ages, particularly for 3D fighting games (VF, Tekken, etc.) that already have significant character customization. Give the game away, monetize cosmetics and non-competitive modes.
 

Ferrio

Banned
Restricting character selection is even worse for casuals than fighting games already are. One of the best things as a casual is just going through all the characters and seeing what they do, and just messing around with friends.
 
KI and DOA5 followed a great model, I really wish other games tried it. Having a F2P entry point that allows people to play all modes and go online (unlike a demo) is bound to expand your player-base.
 

daman824

Member
So don't buy the game. If you're not far off from buying it and never unwrapping it then why spend the money if you can't justify the price. Also these pricing types are already happening.
People already aren't buying the game. We're seeing this right now and it's killed mvc for a long while. Sfv also failed to hit expectations.
 

BadWolf

Member
As already mentioned, DOA5 nailed this.

Online play, practice etc. are part of the free version and there are plenty of free costumes for the characters you get.

They even give out free characters here and there.
 

QisTopTier

XisBannedTier
"I agree. Fighting game should follow the model of Dota2, now that it's proven to be vastly profitable."

I've said this for ages, particularly for 3D fighting games (VF, Tekken, etc.) that already have significant character customization. Give the game away, monetize cosmetics and non-competitive modes.

Well tekken would need to actually have good cosmetics again in order to do this :p

People already aren't buying the game. We're seeing this right now and it's killed mvc for a long while. Sfv also failed to hit expectations.

That's more on capcom half assing the two games in different ways and releasing them undercooked
 
The same way you do in every other fighting game. Or like how you currently can in games like Killer Instinct or DOA5, where this model is already in use and successful.

I don't understand what you mean by this.

A lot of fighting folks, esp Tekken players, go into practice mode with each character and test what can and cannot be used to effectively punish certain moves....
 
I don't understand what you mean by this.

A lot of fighting folks, esp Tekken players, go into practice mode with each character and test what can and cannot be used to effectively punish certain moves....

You can still buy all the characters, just like you buy the base roster of Tekken right now. The only difference is you're not forced to.

Also, I think in KI you can even train against the characters you didn't buy? Not sure.
 
Not really. This model exists and works just fine. Buy only characters you want or buy them all in a cheaper "all-in-one" pack a season at a time.

I had a group of people over in my house recently, classmates of my Korean student flatmate,a mix of young guys and girls, non game players, from Korea, Japan and China.
After some food and drinks, I put on Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite on and handed them two controllers.

Watching them, enjoy the discover of picking characters, slagging other peoples choices, the petite Taiwanese girl playing as Nemesis, reminded of the days at home as a kid playing Mortal Kombat II with my friends and hitting Random Select.

One of the Key characteristics of Fighting games is their diverse and heavily characterized Rosters. Of discovering the Style, both play style and literal aesthetic style, that suits you, and indeed challenging yourself to develop and learn an new style you may not have considered at first.

I don't see any benefit in removing this natural path in the game, and removing revenue, the characters were not developed in isolation, why would the purchase be treated as such.

Fighting games are that: Platforms of expression, and the characters are your pallet. Limiting that would be like limiting your pallet to greyscale.
 

DrArchon

Member
As already mentioned, DOA5 nailed this.

Online play, practice etc. are part of the free version and there are plenty of free costumes for the characters you get.

They even give out free characters here and there.

It's a shame I don't particularly like how DOA5 plays, because it's basically everything I want out of a F2P fighter.

That and it's kinda creepy but eh, they can't all be winners.
 

Spman2099

Member
This model would work for games that aren't selling well...

I could see MvC:I using it in the future. It could be their last shot at getting an audience.
 
I think a model like KI works, but I also like just having a complete product to buy, especially if you are going to play locally at all w/ friends. Part of the fun of playing that way back in the day was picking random characters you hadn't used a lot before. If given the choice, for a game I like, I'd rather just buy a more complete product for $50-60 and get a bunch of characters all at once.
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
I really thought with KI launching how and when it did it would have been a bold statement for other fighters to follow. Free to get into, only need to buy who you want while still having the same old option as before to bulk buy everything.

Sadly nothing else really bit on the adaptive model it showed. Instead it seems the bigger players like Capcom are still trying to chase the Netherrealm goose but with a shoestring budget without budging much price wise, though they sorta dabbled with SF5 fight money (though there's still a huge amount of currency only stuff), and they ditched that completely for Marvel.
 
I might be wrong, but from the looks of it, you're not that invested in this genre.
Then, maybe, it's a case where it's best for you to wait for a big price drop before buying fighting games.
 

DrArchon

Member
But you can only train AGAINST the characters, not as them.

Hmm. Not a fan of this. I'd like to at least try out the characters in training mode myself to see if I like them before buying them.

It's still a far cry from playing as them in VS mode, so it's not like people will be cheating the system or whatever by just getting their fill in training.
 

warp_

Banned
I had a group of people over in my house recently, classmates of my Korean student flatmate,a mix of young guys and girls, non game players, from Korea, Japan and China.
After some food and drinks, I put on Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite on and handed them two controllers.

Watching them, enjoy the discover of picking characters, slagging other peoples choices, the petite Taiwanese girl playing as Nemesis, reminded of the days at home as a kid playing Mortal Kombat II with my friends and hitting Random Select.

One of the Key characteristics of Fighting games is their diverse and heavily characterized Rosters. Of discovering the Style, both play style and literal aesthetic style, that suits you, and indeed challenging yourself to develop and learn an new style you may not have considered at first.

I don't see any benefit in removing this natural path in the game, and removing revenue, the characters were not developed in isolation, why would the purchase be treated as such.

Fighting games are that: Platforms of expression, and the characters are your pallet. Limiting that would be like limiting your pallet to greyscale.
Please read my posts before responding to them
Not really. This model exists and works just fine. Buy only characters you want or buy them all in a cheaper "all-in-one" pack a season at a time.
I literally said there is an option in the current F2P fighting games to buy all the characters (and in the case of DOA you also get story mode and costumes when you buy the all-in-one pack).
 

Anne

Member
I might be wrong, but from the looks of it, you're not that invested in this genre.
Then, maybe, it's a case where it's best for you to wait for a big price drop before buying fighting games.

There are a lot of people invested in fighting games that all basically point to the KI model as what they want.
 

Froxenblade

Neo Member
That's the trick of F2P; you end up paying more than you would if you just bought the full game by getting everything piecemeal over time. I guess some people want that option, but I'd just as soon buy the fighting games I want to play, and not buy/play the ones I'm not as interested in.

I want to see the price tag upfront, and know I'm getting something resembling a product for that money. When I'm actually in-game, the last thing I want to be thinking about is the real life economics of what I'm playing.
 

Tain

Member
I would be so pissed if fighting games transitioned to an exclusively f2p model and the cost of owning all/most of the characters skyrocketed as a result.

Dicking around with off-characters casually with friends is a Good Fucking Time and I don't mind paying for it.
 

DrArchon

Member
I might be wrong, but from the looks of it, you're not that invested in this genre.
Then, maybe, it's a case where it's best for you to wait for a big price drop before buying fighting games.

If that's the case, fucking tons of people aren't invested in fighters, seeing as DOA5 got 10 million downloads and MvCI might struggle to hit 200k sales at launch.
 

ElFly

Member
I don't think the idea is exclusionary

-F2P: two random characters available for online play, everyone available for training mode
-Arcade mode ($30): same as above, + some single player modes
-Full game ($60): all of the above, but you have all the characters for online

+ season passes and regular new characters you can buy piecemeal, but still try on training mode.
+ cosmetic stuff to buy etc etc
 

shockdude

Member
Does KI's practice mode let you record CPU inputs for characters you don't own? Is it a decent workaround for feeling how a character plays?
 
Does KI's practice mode let you record CPU inputs for characters you don't own? Is it a decent workaround for feeling how a character plays?
KI often has a character be free for a week and that character rotates.

They always set the newly released character as the character of the week so people still on the fence can try them.

Though there aren't gonna be any new characters now, it's still a pretty good gesture on their part.
 

zenspider

Member
I agree think this makes a lot of sense for fighters.
The model works really well for the genre. It's roots are in 50¢ "microtransactions" for Pete's sake!


The initial price is definitely keeping me away from MvC:I. There is a demo, but that's not telling me if this game or a character is going to gel with me. I'm happy to spend hundreds of dollars on DLC, cosmetics, sticks and pads, etc. if I'm into it, but the time investment to learn a new character, let alone a new game, is compounded by the entry fee.

It's an easy choice to say no. If I could get into a training room and play some online matches with a handful of characters, I'd probably be dumping money into it for years like I have been with SFV.
 

shockdude

Member
KI often has a character be free for a week and that character rotates.

They always set the newly released character as the character of the week so people still on the fence can try them.

Though there aren't gonna be any new characters now, it's still a pretty good gesture on their part.
Yes, but that doesn't answer my question. People are saying you can practice against characters you don't own in KI, and I'm curious to know the extent of that practice, up to and including recording CPU inputs.
 

DrArchon

Member
In a game with 30+ character, how much would each character cost?

How much do DLC characters cost? Let's just go with $5-$8 for simplicity's sake.

But, if you wanted to buy everyone, there'd obviously be a "Buy Everyone" option that would cost a lot less than buying characters individually, just like in every other F2P game where you buy characters.
 

gelf

Member
I'd be fine with this in fighting games as long as there's still a decent priced way to buy the full set of characters and modes. DOA5 did this very well. You can just buy Last Round to upgrade from the free Core Fighters version and you'll have everything you need barring cosmetics(and you still get a decent number of those in the package as well).
 

Platy

Member
If I were to make a thread like the one in the OP it would be "why do I have to pay 60 bucks for a game that half of it's budget goes to balance and smooth online play if I only play casually and offline ? they could have made the game for 30 bucks without online and a shittier balance"
 
Wouldn't this mean there would be a lack of oddball characters and new characters since ppl would be less likely to buy them? I doubt many are going to buy Fang individually. They'd essentially focus test the shit out of everything wouldn't they?

Also trials exist to help casuals like me learn multiple characters. Just put in an hour or two and you can get down a character probs
 

warp_

Banned
Yes, but that doesn't answer my question. People are saying you can practice against characters you don't own in KI, and I'm curious to know the extent of that practice, up to and including recording CPU inputs.

Unfortunately you need to own the character to set them to Record or Human input. You can set them to any of the normal actions (Stand, Crouch, Block, etc) or to CPU input without owning them.
 
Yes, but that doesn't answer my question. People are saying you can practice against characters you don't own in KI, and I'm curious to know the extent of that practice, up to and including recording CPU inputs.
Indefinite recording, so it's like trying out the character. Though you can only see the frame data in-game for the character that you chose as player 1.
 

luoapp

Member
Wouldn't this mean there would be a lack of oddball characters and new characters since ppl would be less likely to buy them? I doubt many are going to buy Fang individually. They'd essentially focus test the shit out of everything wouldn't they?

Put them on free rotation, problem solved.
 

CookTrain

Member
I don't see why it changes anything. You just get two free characters to begin with instead of one (probably Ryu and Captain America).

I guess it's the variables in play. Finding a single character to try is hard enough, I'd think. Finding two that go together is a good deal steeper.
 
A ton of F2P character based online games already do this, and it works well. I don't get the posters ragging on this idea. Have they literally never seen a major MOBA or game like that before?

TBF even among moba games this isn't a popular model and most people prefer Dota or Overwatch's approach.

I don't think anyone is praising League of Legends model and wants that for other games.
 
That would only make sense if Fighting games were single player games.

But they're local mp games so not having the whole roster would be silly. Because even tho you may only want one or 2 characters your friends might not.
 

shockdude

Member
Unfortunately you need to own the character to set them to Record or Human input. You can set them to any of the normal actions (Stand, Crouch, Block, etc) or to CPU input without owning them.
Indefinite recording, so it's like trying out the character. Though you can only see the frame data in-game for the character that you chose as player 1.
lol.
Can someone confirm this? Is this platform specific?
 

DrArchon

Member
That would only make sense if Fighting games were single player games.

But they're local mp games so not having the whole roster would be silly. Because even tho you may only want one or 2 characters your friends might not.

Not really a concern for me seeing as I maybe play fighting games with friends once a year, if that.

Seriously, I can't be the only person who spends the majority of my time with fighting games playing online, can I?
 
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