You know, I'd be disappointed in Youtube comments if it weren't...Youtube comments.
Alrighty! Last giant wall of text reiterating everything I said before because someone probably wants something they can easily copy and paste.
Creating a brand new fighting game character from scratch costs a lot of money.
This is the biggest thing that people seem to overlook. I'm gonna bring up that fact again that L0 made brand new characters from the IGG campaign at a loss. I'm also tired of bringing up this tweet Haunts made back when people were skeptical of the IGG funding required for Squigly.
Let's not forget that this isn't just introducing a character for any other game; Developing a character in a fighting game is pretty much developing a brand new aspect to the existing game. Being able to recycle an entire character when it comes to art is going to cut costs substantially if it doesn't need drastic modifications.
Just because someone modded a complex model in doesn't mean it's easy to make those assets in the first place.
"X artist created an awesome looking model/skin for USF4! Your argument for prices is invalid!" is the dumbest argument you can make. Every modded in model I have seen for USF4 does not include customized animation rigging, which is one of the most important aspects of setting up 3D models for actual use in a game. No, bring able to set anchor points for cloth/hair physics is not even comparable.
To put simply, modders simply do not have to do as much work to get a working model ready, as the rest of it simply piggybacks on work already done by Capcom in the first place. Even manipulating the existing skeleton of the model because they're still using work already done by Capcom. Rigging a model completely from scratch isn't as easy as manipulating an existing skeleton.
It's a bad argument and is practically insulting to people who have to rig said models from scratch for a profession.
The face of a model is one of the most complicated parts of a model to rig and is why they didn't make a new head.
For comparison, a hand will need 18 joints when rigging a 3D model for animation. A face needs far more. Capcom recycling Cammy's head for this cuts them a lot of costs as the actual skeleton for rigging is already there if needed, and saves a lot of money compared to creating an actual head from scratch and syncing it onto Cammy's body. You don't have to imagine the silliness of having a head not properly synched to body animations.
And I'm saying this without knowing whether she'll actually have her mask off ingame during her Rival cutscene in story mode, in which case they would have paid their art team just to not just slap a mask on Cammy, but also retexture it for scarring. Surprise! Even retexturing a head costs money because art team.
And guess what? Even with all that, they would still save money compared to making a new head from scratch.
Capcom is focusing its efforts on next gen and that's where most of the money is going.
I'll be honest here; If not for the fact that 4th generation consoles being here, we might have gotten something that isn't Decapre.
They've projected that they have to work anywhere between eight to ten times as much to develop games for the PS4 and XBO and had to make a brand new engine from scratch not to just make it easier on their team, but to streamline processes that would take far longer (and thus eat more money) if they stuck with MT Framework.
If you wanted to know where their money is going, you now know where it is; It's being spent on developing a brand new engine that is flexible enough to handle any next-gen game they want to make in the future and a new development structure, just so they can start working on next gen instead because *gasp* they're actually working on next gen!
It doesn't stop there though. Even when the new Panta Rhei engine technically complete once Deep Down hits its development deadline, there will be work under the hood that nobody in public is going to see, and because I haven't said it enough, that costs money too.
This doesn't even go into things like n-squared balancing problems, how just relying on internal testing for balancing is bad but they have to pay for that anyway, and how shipping out builds for location tests costs money.
I bring up that last bit because someone is inevitably gonna bring up Mike Z bringing new builds to Salty just about every week, but he isn't contractually obliged to keep the development under wraps and does all of it at his own expense.
This doesn't excuse Capcom for things like leaving the Megaman license in limbo, or the SFxT on-disc DLC "problem", but at least try to understand that when when it comes to game development at companies even trying to put out AAA titles or provide a substantial update to them, it gets ridiculously expensive, and Capcom at this point has to choose between focusing on developing their infrastructure for next gen, or stalling that and redirect funding towards one of their flagship titles.
They practically lucked out by having a character in-universe that's practically a clone from an art perspective, because that means more money for Capcom working on next gen. In the long term, this can mean an actual Street Fighter 5 coming out that much more quickly.
That doesn't mean Decapre's free to develop though. Even clones are gonna cost money to develop. Blech.
Alrighty! Last giant wall of text reiterating everything I said before because someone probably wants something they can easily copy and paste.
Creating a brand new fighting game character from scratch costs a lot of money.
This is the biggest thing that people seem to overlook. I'm gonna bring up that fact again that L0 made brand new characters from the IGG campaign at a loss. I'm also tired of bringing up this tweet Haunts made back when people were skeptical of the IGG funding required for Squigly.
Let's not forget that this isn't just introducing a character for any other game; Developing a character in a fighting game is pretty much developing a brand new aspect to the existing game. Being able to recycle an entire character when it comes to art is going to cut costs substantially if it doesn't need drastic modifications.
Just because someone modded a complex model in doesn't mean it's easy to make those assets in the first place.
"X artist created an awesome looking model/skin for USF4! Your argument for prices is invalid!" is the dumbest argument you can make. Every modded in model I have seen for USF4 does not include customized animation rigging, which is one of the most important aspects of setting up 3D models for actual use in a game. No, bring able to set anchor points for cloth/hair physics is not even comparable.
To put simply, modders simply do not have to do as much work to get a working model ready, as the rest of it simply piggybacks on work already done by Capcom in the first place. Even manipulating the existing skeleton of the model because they're still using work already done by Capcom. Rigging a model completely from scratch isn't as easy as manipulating an existing skeleton.
It's a bad argument and is practically insulting to people who have to rig said models from scratch for a profession.
The face of a model is one of the most complicated parts of a model to rig and is why they didn't make a new head.
For comparison, a hand will need 18 joints when rigging a 3D model for animation. A face needs far more. Capcom recycling Cammy's head for this cuts them a lot of costs as the actual skeleton for rigging is already there if needed, and saves a lot of money compared to creating an actual head from scratch and syncing it onto Cammy's body. You don't have to imagine the silliness of having a head not properly synched to body animations.
And I'm saying this without knowing whether she'll actually have her mask off ingame during her Rival cutscene in story mode, in which case they would have paid their art team just to not just slap a mask on Cammy, but also retexture it for scarring. Surprise! Even retexturing a head costs money because art team.
And guess what? Even with all that, they would still save money compared to making a new head from scratch.
Capcom is focusing its efforts on next gen and that's where most of the money is going.
I'll be honest here; If not for the fact that 4th generation consoles being here, we might have gotten something that isn't Decapre.
They've projected that they have to work anywhere between eight to ten times as much to develop games for the PS4 and XBO and had to make a brand new engine from scratch not to just make it easier on their team, but to streamline processes that would take far longer (and thus eat more money) if they stuck with MT Framework.
If you wanted to know where their money is going, you now know where it is; It's being spent on developing a brand new engine that is flexible enough to handle any next-gen game they want to make in the future and a new development structure, just so they can start working on next gen instead because *gasp* they're actually working on next gen!
It doesn't stop there though. Even when the new Panta Rhei engine technically complete once Deep Down hits its development deadline, there will be work under the hood that nobody in public is going to see, and because I haven't said it enough, that costs money too.
This doesn't even go into things like n-squared balancing problems, how just relying on internal testing for balancing is bad but they have to pay for that anyway, and how shipping out builds for location tests costs money.
I bring up that last bit because someone is inevitably gonna bring up Mike Z bringing new builds to Salty just about every week, but he isn't contractually obliged to keep the development under wraps and does all of it at his own expense.
This doesn't excuse Capcom for things like leaving the Megaman license in limbo, or the SFxT on-disc DLC "problem", but at least try to understand that when when it comes to game development at companies even trying to put out AAA titles or provide a substantial update to them, it gets ridiculously expensive, and Capcom at this point has to choose between focusing on developing their infrastructure for next gen, or stalling that and redirect funding towards one of their flagship titles.
They practically lucked out by having a character in-universe that's practically a clone from an art perspective, because that means more money for Capcom working on next gen. In the long term, this can mean an actual Street Fighter 5 coming out that much more quickly.
That doesn't mean Decapre's free to develop though. Even clones are gonna cost money to develop. Blech.
