Should Fighting games be F2P?

There seems to be a lack of interest/discussion surrounding fighting games in this community and in the mainstream. Fighting game communities tend to be very tight, but secluded in their own bubbles. It's difficult to jump into most fighting games long after release because by then, everyone is way better than you and you end up getting bodied in online play. For me, this creates a catch 22 in that I prefer to wait for later editions that include most or all of the DLC because I'm not trying to pay $150+ to experience the full game.

The above videos have created a bit of a stir online, and I can understand why. Max discusses the current state of fighting game monetization, which typically involves you paying $60 for the base game, and having to buy season/character passes piecemeal, dramatically increasing the cost of the final product. I think he makes a great case for fighting games going F2P, which could remove the barrier of entry and actually grow the space (worth noting Killer Instinct was the first to try this about 10 years ago). I personally love the genre and wish more new players would check it out.

So System Wars, what do you think? Do you enjoy fighting games? What do you think of the way they're currently monetized? Should fighting games go F2P?

My stance on monetization stays the same. Once there are gamers willing to spend, there would be developers willing to accommodate.

Not much of a fighting game enthusiast since the transition to last gen.

Someone could join a fight club IRL 🤪

Anyhow I think DoA tried this for a game or two. Maybe more did. It's there.

I used to love fighting games in 90s, on my consoles and arcade I loved the Street Fighter games and Mortal Kombat most, remember many other interesting ones like Killer Instinct, Primal Rage. Never could really get into King of Fighters or Fatal Fury any of the SNK stuff. Lost interest around MK3 and post-SFII, though really liked MVC2. I also got into Virtual Fighter but couldn't ever get into Tekken, but played a lot of Battle Arena Toshiden. Maybe last one was DOA3 on OG Xbox. I worked at a theater for a few years and they had an import cabinet for Tatsunoko vs Capcom and my gosh that's how they should have evolved MVC series. Simplified controls fluid animation easy support calling, and more casual combo hyperfighting. That's it. That's how they need to do it. Don't know how they went from that and biffed the last two MVC games.

Anyhow, I loved MK9 and MKX but man the last one, looked better, more robust finishers, but such a stiff game and I hated the character development/modification and the boss was so OP and the towers sucked. Oh well MKX is still fun. Dabbled in some of the last Soul Calibur too just didn't make too much progress, never got into series though loved Soul Edge on PS1 (if that's what I played).

@lamprey263: I'm actually super jealous that you had the chance to play the Tatsunoko vs. Capcom cabinet. I own it for Wii and its such a great fighter, shame not many people have even heard of it.

@Miyomatic: in hindsight I wish I did get it for my Wii now, I would play it during my lunch break it was just long enough to make it back in time

I watch him on his stream when he was talking about it, and it makes perfect sense. I couldn't care less about fighting games, but i do believe that f2p AND crossplay should be the norm.

Really sad to see the state of fighting games nowadays. Monetisation and DLC have somewhat killed my joy of playing fighting games. I preferred the good old days when things were simple and not pure greed.

My first experience with F2P was Tekken Revolution... it was okay and I don't think it was a success on the PS3.

Tekken 3 will always be my no.1 fighting game of all time. Tekken 5 was probably the last good Tekken game.

I personally don't feel that fighting games like T7 and SF5 are necessarily expensive. With the continuous Season Pass updates, I've been able to enjoy those games for years. It's much more cost effective than paying $60 for a single player game that I only play for two weeks and then never play again.

That said, I understand that Max wants more people to play fighting games, so he mentions the possibility of making them F2P.

Either way, what I want from a fighting game is quality gameplay, continuous updates, and a good community. If F2P helps make them happen, it should be, and if not, it shouldn't be.

Releasing the same day as Mass Effect 2, followed by Marvel 3 coming, and being developed by a studio known for anime licensed games did it no favors.

I'm gonna pushback only because I was one of the people who were hyped for SFV (and coming off of 4, who wasnt?) and splurged on the Collectors edition at launch. Simply put, the game was released in an unfinished state and I was massively disappointed.

The game has come a long way since then and is in a great spot now, but that first year was awful imo.

@Miyomatic: Yeah, you are right. We had to wait until Arcade Edition for SFV to feel like a finished product. That said, I'm very pleased that SFV has reached its current quality as Capcom has been supporting it for more than 5 years without abandaning it unlike MVCI.

Love fighting games, hate the current state of the genre because of DLC. I bought characters for Tekken 7 and fighter Z. But I'm done for right now.

Im done buying fighting games with half the roster missing, it's like buying a game 3 times, not cool.

Might as well make them F2P if this is the model.

Actually I think killer instinct was F2P this way, and you buy characters. Compared to what we have now, yeah I'd support F2P.

(But having a full game roster at launch would be nice, like the good old days)

People tend to forget that those older "complete" games that had "tons" of characters weren't really all that. Street Fighter 2, amazing game (not trying to knock it) released with what, 8 characters if memory serves me. $65/70 game for the SNES. Then we had Street Fighter 2 Champion with refinements and a few more characters, then we had Street Fighter 2 Turbo, then we had Super Street Fighter 2...all full priced. Was that actually better? Cheaper?

Now if you buy the game at launch and don't want the newer characters you still get all the refinements and updates without spending more. If you want everything you get the season passes which are much less then a full game.

The only time I think it can be BS is stuff like Dead or Alive, they literally have THOUSANDS of things to buy, cluster fucks of dlc that overlaps other dlc, it's a nightmare.

Now they've tried F2P a few times. Tekken Revolution was one, it was alright, but you could just buy your way to an overpowered character which should never be the case for a genre that relies on balance. Soul Caliber was another and it was an abomination of a game. I really can't think of anyway this would benefit gamers.

@vfighter: well yeah street fighter is notorious for making different versions of the same game.

MvC2 tho... 56 character roster, no dlc

@nintendoboy16: that was just a bad release window period, I had in past posted about the irony of it because during the fall window of 2008 there were many great games released that underperformed commercially and at time many attributed it to competing with the release window of the Call of Duty games. By 2009 many publishers I imagine not wanting to fail commercially delayed release into first quarter 2010... except like everyone did it, it was one of the most packed quarters I can ever remember. We got Mass Effect 2, Dante's Inferno, MAG, Darksiders, Bayonetta, Rebellion's AVP game, Battlefield Bad Company 2, God of War 3, Metro 2033, No More Heroes 2, Army of Two: 40th Day, Dark Void, Deadly Premonition, Final Fantasy XIII, Heavy Rain, Resonance of Fate, Just Cause 2, Red Steel 2, Yakuza 3 and of course Tatsunoko vs Capcom, and many others I probably can't remember, and all those probably became an afterthought just a couple more months down the road when Red Dead Redemption and Mario Galaxy 2 released in May and became the two most celebrated games for the rest of that year. And yeah like you said such that the Tatsunoko license side of it is probably not going to draw people to it... but damn, the gameplay, that's give me SF and MVC games that play like that and they'd appeal to me far more.

Which again, same shit.

- X-men: Children of the Atom (all assets and engine pull forward from here)

- Marvel Super Heroes

- X-Men vs. Street Fighter (asset pulls from Alpha series starts here)

- Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter

- Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes

MVC2 is a final version, the 6th iteration. Didn't materialize out of nowhere, was built on annual iterations over the course of six years. It's the final "DLC" lol

@ConanTheStoner: I would argue there was a big enough leap between MvC and MvC2 even aside from the roster, but yes you obviously know your shit and I agree with your assessment for the first handful of games.

It's almost like Capcom was way ahead of their time and started conditioning us back in the SF2 days. 😄

@Miyomatic:

Ha, right. But yeah, not even trying to compare it directly to SF2 series or even call it bad practice. I prefer to see FG engines explored, refined, and added upon over a good few years. Get a game that really matures, something the devs couldn't have ever pulled off without having it out in the wild that long. I think a lot of gamers just don't get that aspect of it. And just so happens, a game like MVC2 is another great example of that process.

The business practice of most fighting games is bad enough that I've ignored the whole genre for years. Sucks, since I really love fighting games. Every store page I visit on Steam for a fighting game frustrates, confuses and angers me greatly. And I just don't bother with trying to understand what I get with what price.

Some people try to convince me that it's great you can buy DLC for over 1000 euros for one game. Which is weird."Nah, nah it's awesome and totally worth your kidney. In the past you had to totally buy 8 versions of the same game instead!" Yeah, right. Even if true, it would still be way less than a 1000 euros.

About F2P, I would say no. That'd probably make things even worse.

I don't personally feel as though free to play fighting games work as well as shooters and other genres. It's one thing to lock some skins behind a paywall, but it's another to lock entire rosters. Don't get me wrong either, I'm the first person to say "you have to pay if you want something", however, balance goes entirely out the window and it severely fractures a player base when inevitably they introduce characters that are way better than the initial cast. Now if they go the Rogue Company route and make every character unlockable through gameplay over time it's not nearly as bad, but it still sucks.

I feel like fighting game companies will lead the genre into a crash with their greed. Why bother with any fighting game until the roster gets complete and they add back your old favorites and modes.

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong but the latest Guilty Gear and Kof don’t seem like they had strong sales. No one is about to pay for characters that they bought in last game AGAIN!

F2P will only ensure that they will disconnect the servers when publishers are ready for whales to start over and buy the same characters again…

In a way, that would be like going back to the '90s arcade days, when you could try a game for pennies at a local arcade. Fighting games like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Tekken were able to pull massive audiences to arcades back in the '90s. Love it or hate it, F2P might be a way for fighting games to reach that same level of mainstream exposure that they had in the '90s.

@Miyomatic:

I'm 1000% against free-to-play games in general. I think it promotes one of the most scummy business practices of all time. Look at Halo Infinite. What was once one of the funnest mp fps games of all time turned into a cesspool of crap the moment the developer decided to make it f2p. Suddenly everything that was once free and included from beginning became monetized. It's horrible and sad that this DISGUSTING business practice has become a part of the future of gaming. Now it's safe to say that we're all cows to the industry.

PM2P ( pay me to play ) is more like it. :P