The "free-to-play" fighting game model.

[Redblaze27]

Skullheart came back just as I began downloading Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, so I figured i'd post a topic about it.

Recently, the free-to-play model is being touted as the next big thing for the fighting game genre to embrace and i've seen a few different developer approaches to the concept. I've played some of Tekken Revolution the day it came out, researched and checked the DLC catalog for Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate and have been following the news on the new Killer Instinct and each of them are doing their own thing.

Tekken Revolution is free-to-play fighting game that requires you to be online and runs off a token system to prevent you from playing the game a lot in a short period unless you pay from what I gathered. The coins do come back without paying a fee if you wait a certain period of time. Essentially the game is a Tekken game with a currently small roster and some odd RPG elements. I suppose the RPG elements were added to give Tekken Tag Tournament 2 players a reason to try it out, but I do not think this game will retain a lasting community like the major entries in the series.

Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate: Core Fighters opted the approach to provide a free-to-play version of DOA5's second iteration. The game gives you Kasumi, Ayane & Ryu Hayabusa completely free and you have unlimited access to all game modes except for story, which must be purchased separately like the other playable characters. Each character is offered at $3.99 each or either could be purchased in a full character set or you can upgrade to the full retail version with a few button presses in case you decide you just want everything. The rest of the cast may be made temporarily free for everyone to play for a limited time to allow the community to try them out before purchasing.

Killer Instinct is doing a very similar thing to Dead or Alive, but the key difference seems to be the focus on releasing batches of content in phases, which would make for the game to be an ever growing platform if it keeps getting sufficient customer support. "Season 1" of Killer Instinct will feature eight characters at $4.99 each, all bundled together for $19.99 or in a "Ultra Edition" for $39.99 with some additional items. The free character in this game is going to change every few months so the player can in theory demo each character in the game before purchasing.

Speaking just from a free-to-play model approach, I think Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate: Core Fighters is hands-down my favorite. It gives the player tons of options to craft the gameplay experience they want. You could argue Killer Instinct could be superior in the long run if it gets continuous support, but Dead or Alive just seems to be a better content value per dollar. I hope if free-to-play fighting games take off, they opt to take the approach of Core Fighters.

 

[Tiltyu]

eww f2p

although core fighters' approach seems good (since it's essentially a demo with more features)

 

[Redblaze27]

eww f2p

although core fighters' approach seems good (since it's essentially a demo with more features)

It literally is. I purchased the full game digitally on PSN and they gave me both Core Fighters and the "Full Game Upgrade" DLC packet to download.

As long as the developer has a finished product in mind that they offer alongside the pick and choose options, I do not see it being an issue. A developer completely missing the point would probably just turn their game into "micro-transaction hell".

 

[Arcana]

I think it will be a problem if it is a full disc based game that these f2p games so that we are forced to pay for "on disc" stuff, if done right i would not mind this

 

[Redblaze27]

I think it will be a problem if it is a full disc based game that these f2p games so that we are forced to pay for "on disc" stuff, if done right i would not mind this

In the case of Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, it is available as a retail game disc and the digital full game upgrade option is the same price.
If you meant like the "on-disc DLC" approach, depends to me what it is. it'd be really dumb if people explored the game files to find a bunch of completed and yet unreleased playable characters.

 

[Arcana]

In the case of Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate, it is available as a retail game disc and the digital full game upgrade option is the same price.
If you meant like the "on-disc DLC" approach, depends to me what it is. it'd be really dumb if people explored the game files to find a bunch of completed and yet unreleased playable characters.

So you mean you download it free online, pay for individual characters, or buy full disc and get all the characters included?

 

[Number 13]

F2p for fighters is fine if they are done right. I like the prospect of having the option to pay for characters I only use (I.E my mains) and not pay for the ones I never plan on using. The result would be me saving money by trimming the useless content that doesn't interest me. Of course if I cared about having all the content available to me [So you can use it to run tourneys or have casual sessions] I'll just get the full package all at once for the standard retail price. With that said, Dead or Alive 5: Core Fighters is making a favorable approach.

Either pay $4 individually for the few characters you care about (Assuming the 4-6 characters available free are not your mains) or get the everything for $35. The F2p players can interact with the retail players as well so this can result to an increased player-base potential too.

 

[Redblaze27]

So you mean you download it free online, pay for individual characters, or buy full disc and get all the characters included?

That and also buy a DLC package that contains all the content available on the full game disc at the same cost as an option.

 

[KaboomKid]

When it comes to Fighters, I have a hard time seeing what these F2P models provide new players that a Demo version doesn't already cover. Being able to buy specific characters seems like a neat approach, but if the person's never played the game before, or followed it through some community driven site, then they're not going to have an idea of what they're buying anyway.

Here's an idea, let's just bring back arcades. We can try out the full versions for a quarter, and have fun with our friends. If we like a game, then we can buy it from the store and play it at home! If we don't like the game, then we can just go grab a burger afterwards.

Hmmm, now all we need are F2P Burgers...

 

[Epic_of_Enkidu]

Eeeeh, F2P and Fighters are starting to sound like a bad mix, mainly because of such a limited cast. Stages, I don't mind, but characters is an issue to me. How can I pick my best fighter if I only get 1 or 2 and have to pay money for the rest. I mean, if there were eight characters and 12 more for a buck each, I wouldn't be complaining, but 1 or 2? No.

I really hate how Killer Instinct has only 1 character. That just sounds absurd to me.

 

[ashxu]

Eeeeh, F2P and Fighters are starting to sound like a bad mix, mainly because of such a limited cast. Stages, I don't mind, but characters is an issue to me. How can I pick my best fighter if I only get 1 or 2 and have to pay money for the rest. I mean, if there were eight characters and 12 more for a buck each, I wouldn't be complaining, but 1 or 2? No.

I really hate how Killer Instinct has only 1 character. That just sounds absurd to me.

They're not forcing you to pay for the game with increments you know, you can just buy the whole game as normal. The F2P route is for people who are still on the fence with the game and want to try it out before committing.

If there's an option to buy the game as normal (one time down payment for everything) offered then I don't see many negatives for a F2P model. Put a few characters on a weekly/monthly rotation like League of Legends and let you buy extra stuff for a small fee (Or just buy the whole damn thing)

FGs could use new players and this is a good way to get more people in the game.

 

[Horseman]

It's about 1000x better than the capcom model of "Make a game, sell it for 60 bucks, take 4 characters out and sell them for 10 bucks, then make them pay 60 bucks again so they can have the super ultra maximum edition. Repeat indefinitely."
And assuming it isn't done terribly (split playerbase, subscription model on individual items, worst of all pay to win features) it's better than any model we have currently.
I would prefer that they didn't charge for characters, though, to avoid that first "splitting the playerbase" bit. (They can make money through cosmetic stuff.)

 

[Grimmhart]

I'd probably just spew out money for DOA5U anyway, but paying for each character also seems pretty cool.

 

[SanoBaron]

Eh, I am so-so on the subject. tekken revolution had more than one character and you can unlock more as you go. but there was also the premium stuff you could do, if I'm not mistaken.

And TBH, I never mind how Capcom makes multiple versions of their games. its how they've always done it, and they make the new editions extremely affordable rather than paying for a full priced game.

 

[Horseman]

Eh, I am so-so on the subject. tekken revolution had more than one character and you can unlock more as you go. but there was also the premium stuff you could do, if I'm not mistaken.

And TBH, I never mind how Capcom makes multiple versions of their games. its how they've always done it, and they make the new editions extremely affordable rather than paying for a full priced game.

They did it in the 90's because they had no other method. Fighting games need patches, and you can't distribute it to people playing on a cartridge.
Now they do it to make you buy the game again. It's pretty much 100% about abusing the customer, there's no other way to look at it. They give you an ultimatum, since it's not like the original edition of the game is going to keep its player base for long. Plus they get free press to advertise the new hyper ultra turbo edition to all the casual players that never got the first one.

 

[The Techtician]

I want to agree with KaboomKid, the F2P model doesn't add anything that a demo could. The model gives a lower barrier to entry but tends to get in the way of the core player.

I could see a fighter do F2P like this: You download the game for free with all the characters unlocked to use in training mode, with a few to use in arcade mode. To use any of them online or the other characters offline, you'd pay either individually or bundle them.

But again this is basically a demo. Actually better than a demo because fighter demos usually don't give you training mode.

 

[SanoBaron]

They did it in the 90's because they had no other method. Fighting games need patches, and you can't distribute it to people playing on a cartridge.
Now they do it to make you buy the game again. It's pretty much 100% about abusing the customer, there's no other way to look at it. They give you an ultimatum, since it's not like the original edition of the game is going to keep its player base for long. Plus they get free press to advertise the new hyper ultra turbo edition to all the casual players that never got the first one.

But if they are going to repackage it, I wouldnt mind something I would have paid for (like characters and whatnot) to be added. its not so much as paying for a new game as you're getting new characters and patches for a more affordable price (which is what Squigly will be after 3 months, a character and a patch for the game)

and I don't understand how they get free advertisements for casual players? they had to pay for marketing just like anybody else, and if it brings in a new crowd of people, I welcome it. Fighting games shouldn't be about some elitist crowd that only welcomes experts.

 

[Horseman]

If they could manage a decent-sized playerbase, they really wouldn't need to sell characters like that. It's going to be a serious turn-off to a new player if they come in and find out that the free to play was a bait and switch, and that they need to pay money for characters if they want to -do- anything. And those new players will leave, making the entire situation counter-intuitive to what it's supposed to do.
The way I see it, ideally, it would work like this:

• You get to use any character in training mode.
• You start out with 1 token to buy the character you liked the best from training mode.
• You gain in-game currency for beating arcade or players in online versus.
• Palettes, costumes and new characters are bought with either in-game currency or real currency.
• You are limited to 3-5 character slots at the start, but can use real currency to unlock more.
• Some costumes and palettes need real currency to purchase.

Assuming the more specific stuff is done well, and the game is good and well-balanced for new players, I feel like the above model could go over well.

 

[The Techtician]

Another problem with F2P fighting games is a good fighter with a good developer knows they will need to patch the game. There will never be a fighter released that is perfect. Thus, getting no money and people using your servers and crying out for a patch? These things don't fit well.

This implies that the publisher would have to be willing to take the initial financial hit. This I doubt any publisher would do.

 

[Epic_of_Enkidu]

They're not forcing you to pay for the game with increments you know, you can just buy the whole game as normal. The F2P route is for people who are still on the fence with the game and want to try it out before committing.

If there's an option to buy the game as normal (one time down payment for everything) offered then I don't see many negatives for a F2P model. Put a few characters on a weekly/monthly rotation like League of Legends and let you buy extra stuff for a small fee (Or just buy the whole damn thing)

FGs could use new players and this is a good way to get more people in the game.

Oh, I didn't know you could buy the game normally. That completely removes the absurdity of it, then. A lot of what I heard was based of what was said at the E3 Mircrosoft Conference and I was too focused on Titanfall and Destiny to remember everything else. So I apologize for being dramatically uninformed.

 

[Mr. X]

DoA5U model is the best yet

You have the retail disc, the downloadable full game, or the F2P version (suped up demo) and you pay for exactly what you want.

I personally would go for the whole disc, I like exploring the roster.
But if there was a character loyalist who is like "I don't care about the rest of the cast, I just want a my boo Helena", they don't have to pay full price just to use her!

Having both options means I don't have to get milked buying the entire roster individually and he doesn't have to milked paying full price just to play as his 1 character he'll use until the next DoA.

 

[Horseman]

But if they are going to repackage it, I wouldnt mind something I would have paid for (like characters and whatnot) to be added. its not so much as paying for a new game as you're getting new characters and patches for a more affordable price (which is what Squigly will be after 3 months, a character and a patch for the game)

and I don't understand how they get free advertisements for casual players? they had to pay for marketing just like anybody else, and if it brings in a new crowd of people, I welcome it. Fighting games shouldn't be about some elitist crowd that only welcomes experts.

The question being, why are they repackaging it? Because it literally forces you to buy the new stuff if you want to continue to play their game. You could not buy the new version, but that's where the entire playerbase is, so I hope you were just planning on playing arcade mode over and over. DLC doesn't do that.
Also, it's not exactly "affordable." Taking Marvel vrs. Capcom 3 as an example, ultimate added 12 characters and the game was $40. In addition to that, you still have to buy Jill and Shuma-Gorath for $5. $45 to get the "complete" experience after you've already bought the game, and that's excluding cosmetic/etc. dlc...

But really they should be following the path of other developers and making the "game of the year" edition (as inaccurate as that name is 99% of the time) instead of forcing all their current players to buy their equivalent instead of just buying dlc. Super street fighter 4 should be a big bundle of all their street fighter 4 dlc's, so that people that bought the original game don't have to buy the game again (and it is buying the game again. You bought the base game, now they are selling the base game with new characters, and they won't let you buy just the new characters, you have to buy the base game and the new characters.)

As for that advertising bit, you misunderstood me completely. I'm not even an expert player myself. For what I actually meant... yet again, look at umvc3. It's the perfect example of "any press is good press." Basically, everyone said "the ultimate version? Less than a year before the original launched? Evil corporate conspiracy!" But all the people who never bought umvc3 saw "I get to buy the game at a discount and with 12 new characters included! Lucky me!" And all the major gaming news outlets talk about how they're going to release this new version of the game, which is significantly different than reporting on how this other game is getting dlc. Because they see the dlc and say "I don't own that." but they see the new game and they say... you know, that thing I had them say about umvc3 above.
And this would all be fine and dandy if it wasn't at the original customers expense, those people who dared to buy the game on release.

Another problem with F2P fighting games is a good fighter with a good developer knows they will need to patch the game. There will never be a fighter released that is perfect. Thus, getting no money and people using your servers and crying out for a patch? These things don't fit well.

This implies that the publisher would have to be willing to take the initial financial hit. This I doubt any publisher would do.

Literally any competitive free to play game runs into this problem.
Gee willikers, though, It's just impossible to pull off. Might as well quit now.

 

[SanoBaron]

in UMVC3's defense, Jill and Shuma werent a part of the UMVC roster, they were part of the vanilla roster. and Just because the new game is out doesnt mean the version you bought is going to just be abandonned. People still play Vanilla SF4 and Super SF4. and the characters are built to be compensated for the patches that the new editions come out on. I dont know exactly how it works but I am not going any futher than what I assume is the reason they dont add the new characters to older versions of the game.

and another recent example is SSF4 AE, which was 15 dollars to upgrade, while retail versions went for 30, plus had original SSF4, so its 15 bucks each for the games. which is the same price as Ultra online tyo use as an expansion. And Ultra on Disc features all of the costumes from previous versions, which runs at about 40 bucks which will be free.

I'm not saying Capcom has been perfect, SFxT is a prime example, but they have been doing well with the SF4 franchise.

 

[Horseman]

in UMVC3's defense, Jill and Shuma werent a part of the UMVC roster, they were part of the vanilla roster. and Just because the new game is out doesnt mean the version you bought is going to just be abandonned. People still play Vanilla SF4 and Super SF4. and the characters are built to be compensated for the patches that the new editions come out on. I dont know exactly how it works but I am not going any futher than what I assume is the reason they dont add the new characters to older versions of the game.

and another recent example is SSF4 AE, which was 15 dollars to upgrade, while retail versions went for 30, plus had original SSF4, so its 15 bucks each for the games. which is the same price as Ultra online tyo use as an expansion. And Ultra on Disc features all of the costumes from previous versions, which runs at about 40 bucks which will be free.

I'm not saying Capcom has been perfect, SFxT is a prime example, but they have been doing well with the SF4 franchise.

But, I'm just saying, isn't it better for everyone involved if they do the whole game of the year edition thing that everyone else does instead?
It would be literally the same thing, except they run on the same servers rather than splitting the player base and the original customers can essentially buy the "ultimate" edition as a couple DLC characters coming out every month or so. The only people who lose are stupid stockholders who think that the best way to make money is to extort your customers.

 

[SanoBaron]

But, I'm just saying, isn't it better for everyone involved if they do the whole game of the year edition thing that everyone else does instead?
It would be literally the same thing, except they run on the same servers rather than splitting the player base and the original customers can essentially buy the "ultimate" edition as a couple DLC characters coming out every month or so. The only people who lose are stupid stockholders who think that the best way to make money is to extort your customers.

well, if you think about it, "ultra" is essentially a psuedo game of the year edition. (I am referring to the retail version though) you still get the game, plus its previous versions, and you get all the DLC that has come out (which is the same price as the game otherwise). Again, not saying its the best, but it could be worse.

I am adamant on saying Capcom has not hit the worst placeholder in terms of being a publisher. that spot is tied with EA and Majesco.

 

[The Techtician]

well, if you think about it, "ultra" is essentially a psuedo game of the year edition. (I am referring to the retail version though) you still get the game, plus its previous versions, and you get all the DLC that has come out (which is the same price as the game otherwise). Again, not saying its the best, but it could be worse.

I am adamant on saying Capcom has not hit the worst placeholder in terms of being a publisher. that spot is tied with EA and Majesco.

The biggest problem with Capcom is they seem to not want to patch their fighting games, but they'd rather release a new retail version. They fix the small stuff, usually the things THEY think are important rather than what is shown to be broken.

With MvC3 it got like 2-3 minor patches and then announced Ultimate. That similar to buying a new appliance with a broken parts. You tell the company and they send you replacement parts for some of the broken pieces. Then, they tell you to buy their newest appliance.

 

[Horseman]

well, if you think about it, "ultra" is essentially a psuedo game of the year edition. (I am referring to the retail version though) you still get the game, plus its previous versions, and you get all the DLC that has come out (which is the same price as the game otherwise). Again, not saying its the best, but it could be worse.

I am adamant on saying Capcom has not hit the worst placeholder in terms of being a publisher. that spot is tied with EA and Majesco.

Capcom is still pretty bad, but yes, there are still some terrible companies to hate. Personally, I hate activision for cloning their games once they get popular so that the series gets stale and dies out. And EA for obvious reasons (although they're going into one of their benevolent stages at the moment, it's getting hard to hate them.) And Zynga for stealing peoples ideas and making twice as much money with them. King.com for literally psychologically controlling their customers to buy more stuff.
Although I don't have a beef with majesco, isn't that the company that was brave enough to fund psychonauts and lost all of their money because of it? If they're doing anything evil now, blame Tim Schafer.
Anyway, back to the original point. Yes, in a relative sense, they're only at the "pretty evil" stage rather than the "incorporation of satan" stage, but that doesn't mean you should excuse their price models, the way they've treated the megaman series recently, etc.

 

[The Techtician]

Biggest point is if you don't like a companies business behavior STOP BUYING THEIR GAMES! Lots of people complained about Ultimate and bought it.

THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR COMPLAINING IF THEY ALREADY HAVE YOUR MONEY!!!

 

[Horseman]

Biggest point is if you don't like a companies business behavior STOP BUYING THEIR GAMES! Lots of people complained about Ultimate and bought it.

THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR COMPLAINING IF THEY ALREADY HAVE YOUR MONEY!!!

The whole "voting with your wallet" thing has pretty debatable significance when the major gaming companies are eager to blame 100 things before they blame themselves.
If a game didn't sell perfectly well, it's obviously either the pirates or the used games. Or the developers, lets fire all of them and hire new ones.

 

[SanoBaron]

Although I don't have a beef with majesco, isn't that the company that was brave enough to fund psychonauts and lost all of their money because of it? If they're doing anything evil now, blame Tim Schafer.

Majesco isnt "brave" majesco likes taking all sorts of liscences, giving a certain amount of money to them, and not giving the game anything else, including marketing. They didn't lose any money to Psychonauts, they just didn't care to support it. And they seem to not give a damn about Double Dragon Neon, even though there was supposed to be an online mode to it, Majesco doesn't like giving more money than they allow, regardless of success.

 

[The Techtician]

The whole "voting with your wallet" thing has pretty debatable significance when the major gaming companies are eager to blame 100 things before they blame themselves.
If a game didn't sell perfectly well, it's obviously either the pirates or the used games. Or the developers, lets fire all of them and hire new ones.

Significant or not, it's about sticking to your principles. I have purposefully not bought Capcom games because of their crappy practices. Of course my lone $60 will not change their minds but you will be doing the right thing according to your principles.

And of course they would never admit they are wrong, why give yourself negative press. However, their recognition shouldn't control your decision to not give them money for their bad practices.

 

[Redblaze27]

The way I see it, ideally, it would work like this:

• You get to use any character in training mode.
• You start out with 1 token to buy the character you liked the best from training mode.
• You gain in-game currency for beating arcade or players in online versus.
• Palettes, costumes and new characters are bought with either in-game currency or real currency.
• You are limited to 3-5 character slots at the start, but can use real currency to unlock more.
• Some costumes and palettes need real currency to purchase.

DOA5U:CF lets you simply just unlock costumes as you would normally, assuming you have access to the character.

I think ideally, a free-to-play fighter would give you full access to all the content but have like advertisement banners displayed on the loading screens and main menu, but you would have the option to "buy-out" of the ads at what would be the cost of the game at retail.

 

[SanoBaron]

DOA5U:CF lets you simply just unlock costumes as you would normally, assuming you have access to the character.

I think ideally, a free-to-play fighter would give you full access to all the content but have like advertisement banners displayed on the loading screens and main menu, but you would have the option to "buy-out" of the ads at the what would be the cost of the game at retail.

I like this idea. I for one have never been bothered by ads in free content.

 

[Redblaze27]

I like this idea. I for one have never been bothered by ads in free content.

Its more or less what Angry Birds does on smartphones. I hear the developer makes more off ad-revenue than actual game purchases. I'm honestly shocked we haven't seen the big time developers try this to some extent on less casual gaming experiences.

Why I could see it working on higher budget games than Angry Birds is because the guys getting those ads are essentially paying the developer x-amount of money indefinitely as opposed to the guy who just throws them a one time payment of $60 or something. So if the game is that good to keep the players coming back for more, they can just rake in that ad money.

 

[Horseman]

DOA5U:CF lets you simply just unlock costumes as you would normally, assuming you have access to the character.

I think ideally, a free-to-play fighter would give you full access to all the content but have like advertisement banners displayed on the loading screens and main menu, but you would have the option to "buy-out" of the ads at what would be the cost of the game at retail.

This works on a small scale, like free ios apps, because they don't need a server or patches or free content updates from a staff of developers that need to be payed as well.
When you get up to a serious fighting game, the amount of advertisements needed to support its costs and begin to make profit would cover your screen.

 

[Professor Icepick]

I'm actually really interested in seeing how Microsoft ends up doing the KI thing. I mean, the idea of fighting games in "seasons" actually kind of appeals to me. Granted, I'd love to see something more like a cross between that and Injustice's DLC in future fighting games.

Still, an F2P model could potentially work. At worst, it's just a better demo. Just give us an option to buy the entire game at a reasonable price.