In this context, Tekken and other fighting games have competitive and content seasons. Where over a year winners from large international events earn places in a final, and new characters/stages are released
After the final there is normally a very large update to the game which comes with new game mechanics and large balance changes, and the start of a content season pass. With enough time before the first tournament kicks off(street fighter is being weird this year though)
For Tekken that season patch dropped recently but was a massive let down(fuck up) and the community wasn’t happy with it at all.
Yeah, I have a love(like… tolerate)/hate relationship with the battle pass. I don’t mind it, cause it is cheap, pointless and you get your money back, and it is super easy to complete it.
But also, it can fuck off, battle passes suck in their timed implementation, it is pointless, you have to get premium currency to get it which is obviously not purchasable at the exact amount.
Only thing I think was good is that it bought in the emulated game catalogue.
I think that’s missing a lot of the content. If SF6 was free to play, if wouldn’t have the single player portion. And would have had a couple of free characters.
2XKO is going to launch with something like 9 characters(might be missing remembering the number), Maybe they add more before release but it is a tiny roster for a tag game.
There is also massive changes between games, and they don’t disappear, so you can still have those tournaments. If it goes free to play, I feel like they kinda get stuck with the game and systems and no easy way to move onwards, with a bit of a PR nightmare(abandoning the game and all that).
I feel like there is pros and cons to both methods, but don’t really think f2p Street Fighter is a good move. I do think sf7 whenever that is released will be another paid game, and will be more expensive upfront.
I think there is maybe 1 game that I would consider spending 100 for the base game. And that’s because I love the series and it is very much a long term game for me, Street Fighter.
But that would be a very tough sell, it would have to be something really special to part with that much, even though I know I would get 1000s of hours out of it
I have played a lot of FFXIV, but have stopped playing for a couple years now. Spending a fair chunk of time in Street Fighter and Monster Hunter, but I have a feeling that will change over the next year with Assetto Corsa Competizione and AC Evo potentially taking the monster hunter spots.
I have recently got into sum racing, and have been having a bunch of fun in the Honda NSX Evo in Assetto Corsa Competizione. It is an absolute death trap and tries to murder me on every corner, but it is very good fun.
I have also had a lot of fun in the Nissan GTR as well, but not spent too much time in it.
They adjusted the rules this year I believe, they now allow DLCs in GOTY, and also things like new seasons to games. It is dumb, and I personally think it removes what little credibility the game awards had(which wasn’t a lot to me).
Will catch up on all the adverts that are if interest the next day.
I agree with your points on System Shock 2, I would also highlight that you could wait for the enhanced edition that Nightdive are doing of System Shock 2, and you could play their remake of the original in the mean time.
This analogy is so bad, it is not even close to what is happening.
I will try and adapt to cars for you(I dont know why), but this is just really really bad.
Say you have designed a car, you can produce them on a very small scale, but you have come to valve(they make cars now) to mass produce. They do so, for a 30% cut(that reduces the more they sell) for everything they sell from their direct sales at the price you have set. There is no material costs or labour costs, just that cut of the price you have set.
Now valve have a sales page and are selling, and you decide that actually I would like more people to see the car, and so you consider selling it at other dealers. Valve says, sure, you can even have the cars for free from us(no 30% cut) and you can have basically an unlimited supply of free fully built cars to sell else where. We only ask that you sell the car at the same price you have set with us if you are selling a car we made.
You want to go sell it new cheaper? You are more than welcome too, but you cant sell the car we produced.
Such a bad analogy, but that is closer to what is actually happening.
Steam currently allows you to generate keys and sell them for free, only stipulating that they must be sold for the same price as on steam.
Let’s say they are told that stipulation can’t be enforced.
Valve, will probably go with 1 of 2 options.
1 - you can no longer generate keys. So all the great key sites(GMG, Fanatical and so on) no longer exist, because no steam keys.
2 - Valve charge an upfront fee for keys generated. Now smaller pmdevs and publishers can no longer supply keys to sites, because they can’t afford the upfront costs.
What incentive does valve have to continue offering this free service? If it can be exploited for the detriment of steam, they will stop providing it.
So for fighting games, character passes are a good thing(overall).
If you bought SF4 at launch and continued to play the game throughout it’s life, you ended up buying the same game multiple times. This was essentially a few characters and a balance patch(had new mechanics as well). This the fragmented the player base a lot, so if you were playing the base game you couldn’t play with someone on the latest version.
Street Fighter 5 however, switched to character passes and even being able to unlock characters with in-game currency(difficult if you came to the game later but possible). This means everyone got the balance patches and major system updates, so the player base stayed as a single entity.
For a niche genre, this is significantly better than multiple purchases of the same game, and allows for a game to get more updates over a longer time.
However I do wish they kept in more unlockable content like costumes, colours and stages.
Specific to Street Fighter 6 though, they have a battlepass(which is not good, but isn’t terrible either) which the free version gave/gives out a bunch of character rental tokens, so you can play with DLC characters you haven’t purchased.
I feel like neither of you have played it with your description.
For those that havent played -
The game has 4 types of currency, Medals, Requisition Slips, Samples and Super Credits. Medals, Requisition and Samples are only rewarded through playing the game(Either for completeing missions, or found in missions).
Super Credits can be bought with real money, but can also be found in mission.
You unlock Strategems with Requisition Slips and upgrade them(Ship Upgrades) with the Samples.
You then have “War Bonds” which are where you unlock the rest of the gear(Weapons, Armour, Boosts and more). This is where you use Medals. The War bonds are most equivilant to a Battlepass, but they are not timed and do not disappear so even if you come to the game a year later you will be able to buy and unlock everything on the very first one. The game shipped with the basic war bond that everyone had, and the first premium war bond, this is 1000 Super Credits to unlock, then you use Medals to unlock items with in it.
As for other micro transactions, there is a “Super Store” that has 4 items in it that rotate ever few days(I cant remember the time it is 2 or 3 days), that has surprisingly cheap items especially compared to what other companies are doing. They are not just purely cosmetic though, but they do not really offer anything you can not already unlock through the warbonds. Armour has different classes(Light Medium Heavy), and they have a different bonus(More Stims, More Grenades, throw grenades further) and so you might find a combination that you can not get on a warbond that you want(Light Armour with more range on grenades for example). I don’t know if I would class it as P2W, no bonus is overpowered or game changing, but it is definitely not just cosmetic.