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Fighting Games Weekly | July 15-21 | Post-EVO Pillow Talk

Guys, what do you think about these two posts by Kintaro in the other thread:

The perception is different. Especially at retail. Line up the SF4 releases side by side. Street Fighter IV. Super Street Fighter IV. Super street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Ultra Street Fighter IV. So the consumer, all of these have something in common. They see different versions of Street Fighter IV. Then they wonder WTF is the difference and why are there so many.

Line up Madden. Madden 10, Madden 11, Madden 12, Madden 13, Madden 25 (fucking weird here but whatever). Similar right? No, to the consumer, the progression in numbers make sense. It's a new year with new improvements, new rosters, new rules, new features. So on. It's much easier to assume the difference based on common sense (whether it is true or not).

If the same person saw Super Madden 12 and Ultra Madden 12, they would wonder WTF is going on.

Fighting games are terrible about perception because they don't immediately get the message of improvement and progression across. "Super" "Ultra" and "Arcade Edition" don't mean shit. It's not immediately measurable.

Not really because the BlazBlue games aren't "BlazBlue II" They are BlazBlue, BlazBlue: Continum Shift, BlazBlue: Continum Shift EXTEND, BlazBlue: Continum Shift II, BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasima.

Forgive my spelling.

Still, the differences in these are not immediate as seeing "BlazBlue II" and so forth.

Capcom should have embraced a simple DLC model for SF4. Adopt the map pack marketing as well. Hear me out. Support the game with patches, characters and what not. Charge for it, okay fine. No big.

However, at retail, don't flood the market with Ultra and Super and shit, just copy what Activision does. See that copy of Call of Duty: Black Ops II? See what it says on the cover? "Map Pack Included! $15 of content for no additional cost!" That shit sells like hot cakes. You do this as well as ADVERTISE your newest Character/Balance Pack? Much better without giving the perception that your milking people.

Right now, the difference between Ultimate Marvel 3 and normal Marvel 3 used is one dollar at GameStop. Most people just pick up normal Marvel 3. When I ask them why, they said they didn't see the difference.

Fighters get it wrong.

Only when you are done. Truly done with the game do you release "Street Fighter IV: Complete Collection" "$4500 bucks of additional content!" So on, so forth.

I think he brings up some pretty good points in regards to the typical naming conventions in fighting games and how they are marketed.
 
I agree with him except that instead of packs it should be Season Pass/individual content week after week to best maintain interest in the game among the mass (not hardcore fan) audiences.
 
If I'm at the store, set to buy a version of SF4, I could just look up which version has the most shit in it. I have a phone and it is smart.

Project M is alright. They gave Squirtle a Koopa color and a Ninja turtle color
 
Guys, what do you think about these two posts by Kintaro in the other thread:

I think he brings up some pretty good points in regards to the typical naming conventions in fighting games and how they are marketed.

Well, he's kinda right. Their arcade lineages may have an affect on the two examples he used though.
 
Guys, what do you think about these two posts by Kintaro in the other thread:





I think he brings up some pretty good points in regards to the typical naming conventions in fighting games and how they are marketed.

I totally agree. The naming convention is pretty dumb past a second revision. You walk into a store and see blazblues next to each other, which one do you get? which is first? which is up to date? You have no clear way to tell. It has unquestionably turned off some potential buyers who just didn't know which game to get. Hell, Microsoft has "Blazblue" listed in their games on demand for 360, and I still don't know what version it is. I assume it's Calamity Trigger, but it doesn't say that, and I could be completely wrong. it's just "Blazblue."
 
I think he brings up some pretty good points in regards to the typical naming conventions in fighting games and how they are marketed.

Have to say I agree. This is where I see games like Tekken Tag Tournament 2 or even Street Fighter x Tekken struggled. To the untrained eye they just sound like cheap spin off titles and given how much you have to invest in a fighting game, you could see people casually skipping them for "numbered" entries.
 
If I'm at the store, set to buy a version of SF4, I could just look up which version has the most shit in it. I have a phone and it is smart.

Expecting your customer to go through external research in order to determine why he should buy your product is the opposite of good business. Sure, yo would do that, but a lot of potential customers wouldn't. you lose a lot of potential impulse purchase power that way, and impulse purchases make up a pretty good percentage of video game sales.
 
People aren't though. And many are pretty lazy.

I told a friend I play Call of Duty with that I was playing Street Fighter 4. He doesn't play Street Fighter so that was simpler than specifying that I was playing AE or whatever. Later he messaged me and was like "I picked up Street Fighter 4, let's play!" I had to tell him I don't have vanilla SF4 anymore.
 
Have to say I agree. This is where I see games like Tekken Tag Tournament 2 or even Street Fighter x Tekken struggled. To the untrained eye they just sound like cheap spin off titles and given how much you have to invest in a fighting game, you could see people casually skipping them for "numbered" entries.

Considering TTT1's fanfare it gets when people bring up best fighting games, I don't think that was its problem.

SFxT struggled due to that stupid on disk DLC issue (and by stupid I mean people whining about it.) and it being a boring game by word of mouth.
 
So, about the new Strider just being announced...

r5HxLJ3.jpg


A Capcom All-Star... hmm hmmmmm...
 
The original Strider and Strider 2 developers are the main designers of Strider. Double Helix is doing the grunt work. #SDCC

Awesome
 
Considering TTT1's fanfare it gets when people bring up best fighting games, I don't think that was its problem.

SFxT struggled due to that stupid on disk DLC issue (and by stupid I mean people whining about it.) and it being a boring game by word of mouth.

I think those issues are more relevant to the core fighting game crowd, where you could name it anything and it wouldn't be an issue.

What matters is the people who just walk in and see "a new tekken/street fighter" game and buy it. Remember also that games are massively front loaded in terms of these sales. Sfxt didn't really hit those issues until after launch, with the hate train taking around 2-3 weeks to really get going.
 
I think those issues are more relevant to the core fighting game crowd, where you could name it anything and it wouldn't be an issue.

What matters is the people who just walk in and see "a new tekken/street fighter" game and buy it. Remember also that games are massively front loaded in terms of these sales. Sfxt didn't really hit those issues until after launch, with the hate train taking around 2-3 weeks to really get going.

Regardless if it was 2-3 weeks from launch the word of mouth practically halted the game possible success.

I don't think people put too much stock into names as much as you think.
 
Somebody at Capcom must have the position title "Senior Director of Trolling Neogaf"

Unrelated, but has anybody tried to make a connection between the Finals day booing of the XBox 1 and Sony's sponsorship of Evo? It'd take a leap in logic and a set of blinders in order to draw that line, which is why I'm surprised Triforce or Kotaku hasn't done it yet.
 
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