Could someone honestly explain to me why they think MVCi bombed this hard?
I'm looking for the most cohesive argument if possible.
It is actually very, very simple.
Let's look back at Marvel vs Capcom 3. Game was hyped up to high heavens, sold well... but it had issues. Most notable lack of online/offline modes, bad netcode and no story mode. You can trace back to stuff like Angry Joe's review of the game, that's what the casual response to the game was but the hardcore players embraced. It has a fresh roster, good soundtrack, great presentation, fun game play and was competitive enough (though obviously not well balanced).
Enter Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3. About 6 months after Vanilla Marvel 3's release, Capcom releases this expansion. The value proposition on UMVC3 is actually pretty good, for $40 you get 12 characters, a bunch of stages, some new modes and features. But the consumers and fans didn't like it initially because it rendered their Vanilla Marvel 3 copy useless and they had to pay $60 + $40 to get the full experience essentially (where as those getting UMVC3 first time were just paying $40). There was a lot of backlash from this and since then Capcom has adopted a new model of not putting disc expansions that render the original useless.
This is the point in Capcom's FG history where it all starts to spiral downhill. Capcom's next fighting game was Street Fighter X Tekken. This is better left for another day to explain why this game was bad and why it underperformed but it did and people's confidence in Capcom started to sway. This was also around the time that Capcom was making stuff like RE6 and DmC that had people disappointed in Capcom in general.
After that comes SFV. Most people were pretty excited for SFV going into it. Seems like they had a new, non expansion model, lots of support, an actual online beta (even though it barely worked, it was a sign of good things), CFN, ability to unlock new characters without paying real money, game looked decent visually... and then that launch happened. SFV had an abysmal launch both because of its server issues and because the game shipped with barely any modes. No Arcade mode, lobby system wasn't working, no story mode that they said would be coming, no AI VS mode. It was a bare bones offline product and the online was not working well in the first week. Then you add the cherry on top which was the rootkit. It was just one thing after another (I forgot to mention the 8 frames of lag that the game had). At this point Capcom was pretty communicative with its audience and we got regular updates... that suddenly stopped.
The lack of communication that started with the post release was a huge red sign. Not only had they shut off communication between them and their playerbase... there were clear signs of miscommunication between the USA and Japanese divisions. This was especially the case when Capcom of USA outlined the DLC schedule for the game and then Capcom of Japan threw them under the bus by basically saying "uhh we didn't approve of that, that's not what our schedule is." It was all super damning stuff and what's worse that all the changes that they said would come to the game didn't come fast enough and people became irate with the game extremely quick. To no surprise the game underperformed by quite a margin.
At this point, the confidence in Capcom's FGs division was at an all time low. Or so we thought. Enter Marvel vs Capcom Infinite. Oh boy.. where do I even begin.
Right off the bat.. BEFORE THE GAME WAS EVEN ANNOUNCED this game had a terrible aura around it. We started hearing of rumors of it being 2v2, no assists and it being MCU focused (ie. no X Men). People had their pitch forks lined up for these changes and as we all saw that's exactly what happened. Not only did all of the things that people were dreading ended up being true... the game was very clearly recycling heavily from Marvel 3. A lot of the fanbase was actually ok with this because they just assumed "oh they are recycling stuff from Marvel 3, we are going to have a huge cast." That's what the Marvel/Capcom reps implied as well, that we will get a huge cast in the game. But that's definitely not what happened as MVCI launched with fewer characters than MVC3... a game where just about every character was made from scratch (even the ones taken from TvC were heavily altered). It had fewer characters than Marvel 3, only 4-5 newcomers and a distinct lack of diversity (hence the OT title of MVCI on GAF).
What they didn't mention was that this game was designed HEAVILY as a GAAS type game with most of its roster being put out as DLC. As the roster started to unveil itself, it became more and more apparent that we don't see any X Men starting out. This was a big deal for the franchise because the franchise STARTED WITH THE X MEN! The first game in the series was X Men Children of the Atom that featured all X Men and Akuma (by the way Akuma isn't in this game either and he has been in every VS game as well).
Soon the roster was leaked and it was extremely disappointing for most. Not only was it mostly recycled from Marvel 3... they forgot to add some of the more popular characters from Marvel 3 like Wesker, Vergil and the X Men. Not only was it recycled... but it was recycled poorly because a lot of the animations, art and presentation that was great in Marvel 3 was not transferred well. Speaking of presentation.... oh boy. The game took a massive nosedive in hype around E3. We got our first glimpse at a really ugly looking Chun Li face alongside ugly Dante, Chris and Spencer. People were shocked to see this as no one in their right mind would have approved of this if they had any respect for these characters. To make matters worse, Capcom released a STORY demo for the game that featured you fighting against mindless drones with probably the worst section in the story mode in terms of cutscenes and combat flow. That demo was just awful all around and not what a game like this is best at showcasing. It was a massive PR failure on their part releasing that demo because it did way more harm than good.
We didn't have just bad looking character models and awful cutscenes... we had a UI that looked like it was made for a phone game. That whole aesthetics of the game were very budget-esque, it made the whole game look cheap and lack in personality. Of course a lot of people thought that NO WAY this would be how the game look like and stuff like the character select screens and the menus were placeholders... nope what we saw around E3 and CEO was essentially what we got in the end. The music in the game was also altered from the last game, no we don't have catchy themes from the Marvel side but rather generic MCU orchestral matches that clashes poorly with the game at hand. A lot of the Capcom remixes are just simply worse than the ones in Marvel 3... the Dante theme remix is the crown jewel of shitty remixes in MVCI.
But let's talk about the game play... or rather the complete lack of talk about the game play pre-release when THAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT THE GAME! The entire PR of the game was just superficially touching upon the game's mechanics and assuring people that it's very pick up and play, casual friendly with lots of auto combos stuff. There were some changes that pissed the hardcores off but the potential of this game was obvious when people who knew how to play started playing. But of course Capcom's PR never highlighted the strength of the game which was the freedom and sandbox nature of the combat. They didn't highlight how the Tag system works like a custom assist so you don't actually need assists in the game anymore which is kinda ground breaking for the series. Instead they talked about how auto combos worked and easy hyper combos... basically all of that is a wash. MVCI is a very complicated, difficult and strenuous fighting game... this is a game clearly made by VS players FOR VS players. Casuals who picked up this game got moped in it day 1... if any casuals picked up this game at all. So all their talk about making this game more casual friendly was just PR lip service and just worked to their disadvantage.
Speaking of PR.... this game had some of the worst PR I had ever witnessed. Despite all the rumors spreading, Capcom never got ahead of the rumor and changed their media schedule. They never really addressed most of the complaints, the only time they did was with Chun and Dante's ugly faces but honestly if the Internet didn't turn it into a massive meme, the game would've shipped with those faces. And then the X men/function meme came which was a PR nightmare for the game. The producers basically said that people don't remember the X Men anymore and players of these games only care about the functions of the X Men (ie. Magneto can tri dash so we just put in characters who can tri dash instead). There has been no communication between the general playerbase and Capcom... it's all very silent. We have no idea what the future of this game is from here even now. We don't really know the game's DLC schedule, they said somewhere between October and December. But we don't even know which character we are getting first! Originally people assumed it was Sigma because that was the first character unveiled but now it's apparently Monster Hunter.
The new character reveals have also been awful. Capcom casually unveiled Jedah at E3 through the character select screen, no trailer whatsoever, no fanfare. It was all very matter of fact when it came to unveiling characters for this game, a far cry from how it was with MVC3 pre-release whenever there was a pair of characters shown, felt like an event each time. There is no hype for this game because Capcom didn't even TRY to generate any hype. The only people who were actually hype for this game were hardcore FG fans who got to play this game at various FG events... so a very select few group of people and those are the people who are praising the game. Meanwhile the regular people at home who look at the game think the game looks visually bland, even ugly at times.
There is probably a ton more that I am missing. They had some Variant comics to go with the character releases but that shit was also awful. We learned about Dormammu and Firebrand being in the game through some comic art being leaked, which is lame as hell. These things in a vacuum aren't a big deal but taken as a whole it just paints a terrible picture for the product. Like people ask why it's a big deal that the menus look bland or that the portraits look off or that the character select screen is lacking in an personality... individually none of these things is that bad but EVERY FACET of the game reeks of this lack of quality and talent put into it.
This game's best parts are its game play and the netcode. They actually got netcode that is playable this time around which is a big deal for the series. They also had a launch that was issue free, which they struggled with in SFxT and SFV. The game is surprisingly functional on all ends even though it looked like they were rushing it out of the gate. And all of this just makes the other disappointing aspects of the game even more frustrating. This is a diamond in the rough type of game, I truly believe that. If this game had better presentation then this could be an excellent game because more characters are coming anyway so the roster can only improve from here. Imagine what the game would look like with 50+ characters in the roster, it would eclipse Marvel 3 which people now hold in high regard.
TLDR;
*Marvel 3 lacked story mode, netcode/online was garbage. People wanted that and Capcom focused way too much on that and not on the other numerous things that Marvel 3 did well like presentation and roster.
*UMVC3 came out too quick after Marvel 3 and rendered original MVC3 copies useless. It started the trend of "gonna wait until super edition before buying" with Capcom fighters.
*SFxT was bad and flopped, people's confidence in Capcom diminished.
*SFV had a terrible launch and had little content at the start. Capcom communication took a nosedive and community became even more annoyed.
*MVCI announced, 2v2, no assists, no X Men, worse art style than Marvel 3 with fewer characters. People got really angry and were ready to hate the game even before much was known about it.
*Presentation is bad with terrible UI and character models that were meme worthy bad. Capcom fixed some of the models but the presentation is still bad and most of the reviewers docking points for the game is due to the presentation first and foremost.
*The PR was some of the worst in gaming history, failing to highlight the strong aspects of the game and focusing to much on the weaker aspect of the game like the story (putting out a story demo that put the game in a much worse light) and the beginner friendly changes.
*Game was marketed as being noob friendly when it is anything but. It is one of the most difficult to get into fighting games out on the market now. This is a good thing for hardcore fans but it makes the PR of this game look very stupid in hindsight.
*MVCI actually has great game play, is legitimately fun, the online is pretty good and functional and the story mode is at least something. With more characters and a better presentation it could easily have been one of the best fighting games of all time but Capcom (and Marvel) squandered this by giving it the budget title treatment and pursuing a more GAAS model.
