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[Gunslinger]

http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2016/apr/07/dead-or-alive-5-last-round-core-fighters-hits-6-million-downloads/

Koei Tecmo has announced that Dead or Alive 5: Last Round Core Fighters -- the free-to-play version of Dead or Alive 5: Last Round -- has reached six million downloads.

Back in January, Core Fighters topped five million downloads across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and Xbox One worldwide. Scoring 1 million downloads in the span of roughly three months is no small feat and definitely a milestone the company should be proud of.

In fact, in order to celebrate the download numbers, Koei Tecmo is making 26 of the game's characters free-to-play until 12:00 JST on April 11th. With a roster of 35 playable fighters, fans will be able to try out more than half of the cast free of charge.

Fans can also take advantage of the reduced content prices to further their Core Fighters experience.

As of right now, however, this only applies to players in Japan.

After fighting games not doing well financially aside form MK and Smash I think this is their best option for this genre. SFV failed miserably financially lets not kid around. I think this is the model they should pursue ASAP. GGXrd recently accepted something like this with their "demo" that's out now. I really hope all fighters embrace this model.

Fighting games are best played as a multiplayer IMO but as a niche genre relying solely on MP they can't sell copies like Battlefront or CSGO. which despite being light on content managed to sell millions upon millions of copies. What you guys think? I think most fighters including MK or smash should release a f2p version. Heck who knows maybe a f2p version can bring a second wind for SFV.

I get FGs are very daunting for casual players. It requires very high skill ceiling to do good. I would argue more than any other genre. There is no one to carry you if you are bad like a team game. You are on your own. And only way to win is for you to get better. A f2p version will allow more casuals who are curious about the genre but not sure if they want to pay 60 bucks an access to the world of FGs. If they like what they see/play they can invest time to get better. Afterall if you haven't tried something how can your say you will not like it.

Anyways what you guys think?

credit to: Gamecity, Gematsu, and eventhubs.

Close if mods feel this discussion is too negative or too many SFV threads. But I think this thread is more than just SFV.

 

[raven777]

I agree that DOA5LR core fighter is really well done and more fighting games should embrace something similar.

 

[dommynick]

A real novel idea would be if they made it free to download and just used the arcade revenue model. Pay a dollar every time you want to play online, if you win you get to keep playing, can't control or stop the queue or matchmaking.

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

Namco experimented with F2P Tekken and Soulcalibur games. The latter shut down but did the former turn out well for them?

 

[RS4-]

If they did that with V, I would've been perfectly fine with just buying Ryu, and Gief. Then going from there. I have zero interest in the rest of the characters aside from Urien.

 

[DNAbro]

Isn't the GGXrd demo just for preorders of the game? Going completely against what you are saying.

 

[TetraxShards]

Netherrealm would be foolish to bring out an F2P Mortal Kombat when MKX sold millions. They also have their mobile version for that F2P money, plus Injustice Mobile and WWE Immortals.

Maybe a Street Fighter game like MKX Mobile could do well? It wouldn't be Street Fighter VI of course, but it could bring in the income to sustain more SFV content to be made available for the hardcore fanbase.

 

[NJShadow]

I agree that DOA5LR core fighter is really well done and more fighting games should embrace something similar.

I just started getting back into that and am having an absolute blast. I don't what happened, but all of a sudden there are a ton of characters unlocked after I completed a few matches. Sure, no story mode unless I buy the game (which I may do next week), but the visuals are smooth and gorgeous, and the gameplay is just way more satisfying than Street Fighter at the moment, and I was a huge SFIV fan.

 

[Gunslinger]

A real novel idea would be if they made it free to download and just used the arcade revenue model. Pay a dollar every time you want to play online, if you win you get to keep playing, can't control or stop the queue or matchmaking.

nah i think a model similar to LoL or DoA5LR is good. Have character rotation everyweek. Players have full access to all the ranked modes or vs CPU modes. If you want a character buy it or grind in game currency to buy it.

 

[Demoskinos]

I agree and DOA 5 is fucking killing it still. And they keep killing it on the backend with the endless costume DLC (seriously some characters are up to like 60 costumes at this point) its also a really solid game by itself.

I also really liked the Tekken Revolution game on PS3 that was fun for the time that I played it.

 

[Gunslinger]

Isn't the GGXrd demo just for preorders of the game? Going completely against what you are saying.

is it? I was under the impression its for everyone. I already bought the game so I didn't have the need to check for demo.

 

[Nuu]

I mean after trying out Killer Instinct I can see the advantage of this. In terms of at least being a glorified demo. But I dislike the idea of buying characters individually.

Something like f2p in which you can play online with others but you can only choose a single rotating character, while having the ability to buy the full game if you would like to.

After fighting games not doing well financially aside form MK and Smash

Fighting games are doing great financially. It's just Capcom who IIRC isn't doing well financially in general.

 

[sephi22]

A real novel idea would be if they made it free to download and just used the arcade revenue model. Pay a dollar every time you want to play online, if you win you get to keep playing, can't control or stop the queue or matchmaking.

A dollar? Bro, I'll go bankrupt with the amount of Ls I take in SFV online

 

[Kintaro]

After fighting games not doing well financially aside form MK and Smash...

Outside of SFV probably not meeting Capcom's sales expectations at the end of March, I'm going to have to see some receipts with this statement. Different companies have different expectations so unless you have proof ASW is not happy with Xrd SIGN, Tecmo wasn't happy with DoA5's retail sales, and etc with other fighters, where are you pulling this out of?

As for the topic; Sure. It wouldn't hurt I suppose. Downloads don't equal money though. I'm sure F2P LR does well with the DoA whales but do we know how well? Sales numbers? Actual evidence that F2P is where fighters need to go?

 

[Platy]

When a game is f2p, the amount of downloads does not exactly mean the amount of sucess it has.

The fact that they are making every char free for a certain amount of time can be read as the comapany saying "please test this other characters, see that they are worth buying please !" because LOTS of people play f2p games without spending a single cent.

It is the amount of "whales" (people who spend a shitload of money) that makes a f2p game sucessfull

 

[Gunslinger]

Outside of SFV probably not meeting Capcom's sales expectations at the end of March, I'm going to have to see some receipts with this statement. Different companies have different expectations so unless you have proof ASW is not happy with Xrd SIGN, Tecmo wasn't happy with DoA5's retail sales, and etc with other fighters, where are you pulling this out of?

As for the topic; Sure. It wouldn't hurt I suppose. Downloads don't equal money though. I'm sure F2P LR does well with the DoA whales but do we know how well? Sales numbers? Actual evidence that F2P is where fighters need to go?

I think f2p models are great for non hardcore players to get their feet wet.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

Lets be real here, very few publishers can crank out costume DLC like KT. Their art team is amazing.

Likewise, we know the elephant in the room is that the DOA DLC sells to a certain crowd that may not be as well represented in other fighters.

Not to take away from the achievement but a one size fits all never works.

 

[Qvoth]

nope
what capcom doing is sf5 is the way to go
buy once with patches that can last until it's finally over, not what arc did with xrd

 

[DNAbro]

is it? I was under the impression its for everyone. I already bought the game so I didn't have the need to check for demo.

You are talking about Revelator right? According to this it that demo came out like 2 days ago. http://www.playstationlifestyle.net...tor-demo-out-today-on-ps4-free-dlc-announced/

I'm pretty sure the original Xrd demo expired once the game came out.

 

[Kintaro]

I think f2p models are great for non hardcore players to get their feet wet.

Sure. But good demos could do the same.

 

[Slamtastic]

Nah, they just need $60 worth of guaranteed enjoyable content included that isn't reliant on a gamble of will the netcode be good or will the playerbase be large enough to find people at the player's level online or will the player even desire to get better and put in work for an entertainment product.

 

[dommynick]

A dollar? Bro, I'll go bankrupt with the amount of Ls I take in SFV online

Yeah, it would be great. You'd get that sweet feeling of making your opponent walk to the change machine to rematch you in the arcade in SFV with the rematch feature they have if there was a credit system.

 

[Renekton]

F2P requires lenient learning curve that lights up the reward center at every level of play.

I'm not sure Japanese fighters can do that. The devs may recoil at the idea of auto combos.

 

[border]

Capcom handicapped SFV in just too many ways.

• PS4 Console Exclusive
• F2P progression/currency system
• $60 pricetag
• Launching without any significant singleplayer content
• Technical matchmaking/network/loading problems

They probably could have gotten away with maybe 1-2 of these issues, but all of them together pretty much meant that nobody was interested in buying their initial release.

 

[Cosmo Clock 21]

F2P requires lenient learning curve that lights up the reward center at every level of play.

I'm not sure Japanese fighters can do that. The devs may recoil at the idea of auto combos.

A light learning curve like LoL or DOTA have, right? And adding autocombos unlike Japanese fighting games like P4U or UNIB, huh

 

[raven777]

I think part of the reason why DOA5LR's core fighter works well for KT is the absurd number of DLC costumes and the demand for it. Even someone downloads core fighter and buy only few characters or just use base ninja, there would be many people who will spend money on buying them costumes.

 

[angelic]

The DOA costumes on psn are like soft porn, it sets womens rights back about 40 years. The DLC sale section on the euro psn store is damning, pack after pack of bikinis.

 

[NeoGold123]

Yeah, it would be great. You'd get that sweet feeling of making your opponent walk to the change machine to rematch you in the arcade in SFV with the rematch feature they have if there was a credit system.

Nah man. I get that you're looking at the nostalgia arcade factor, but after Tekken F2P did their pay to play stuff, I'd much rather buy the game outright and lose however many times I feel like rather than play 5 matches every 2 hours.

 

[Vice]

A real novel idea would be if they made it free to download and just used the arcade revenue model. Pay a dollar every time you want to play online, if you win you get to keep playing, can't control or stop the queue or matchmaking.

I think that's the method the recent Tekken attempt at F2P used. You got X amount of free tokens a day/however many minutes and one was drained when you lost. You could pay money for more tokens.

 

[Hellshingu]

GGXRD Revelator is a demo if you pay $60 to preorder game in PSN. So that is out of the question unfortunately. A f2p model could work out well for capcom fgs I'd personally wish they would offer the same $60 retail package on top of the f2p model for those whours don't want to spend too much on the game. Although with the fight money system and how it gives out money you could get by never spending much of anything on the game and I don't think that's something that capcom necessarily wants.

I don't necessarily think that it sold poorly because of it being a full priced title but that it didn't include single player modes for casuals to play by themselves since most fear the online component. The internet got upset and ran with it destroying the game's cred with the casual audience. It'll be interesting to see how things go from here as 2 games have been pretty successfully used the f2p model this gen in DOA5 and KI. It'll be hard having the fight money system in SFV and have a f2p mode in that game as well as some people could potentially get the whole game for free during its lifetime.

 

[Renekton]

SFV will be F2P eventually though.

Maybe 2018/2019 once it fleshes out purchaseable content.

 

[Suzushiiro]

If they did that with V, I would've been perfectly fine with just buying Ryu, and Gief. Then going from there. I have zero interest in the rest of the characters aside from Urien.

Which is the problem- unlike MOBAs where various factors encourage you to have a wider stable of characters to play in fighters you generally have a "main" and usually don't really need access to other characters.

Going back to the arcade model where you pay per play (maybe with a limited number of free matches per week?) is an interesting idea, though.

 

[Kintaro]

The DOA costumes on psn are like soft porn, it sets womens rights back about 40 years. The DLC sale section on the euro psn store is damning, pack after pack of bikinis.

Wow. DoA has much more reach than we thought!

 

[SolicitorPirate]

Lets be real here, very few publishers can crank out costume DLC like KT. Their art team is amazing.

Likewise, we know the elephant in the room is that the DOA DLC sells to a certain crowd that may not be as well represented in other fighters.

Not to take away from the achievement but a one size fits all never works.

I always thought the success of DoA's pervy DLC was what informed Capcom's decision to sex up the designs of the female characters. Besides her hairstyle, Laura looks like a DoA character who accidentally wondered into Street Fighter

 

[Rabid Dwarf 76]

A real novel idea would be if they made it free to download and just used the arcade revenue model. Pay a dollar every time you want to play online, if you win you get to keep playing, can't control or stop the queue or matchmaking.

Yeah, it would be great. You'd get that sweet feeling of making your opponent walk to the change machine to rematch you in the arcade in SFV with the rematch feature they have if there was a credit system.

Nope! Fuck that dude. I'd never play that. It wouldn't simulate the real arcade experience either. I wouldn't be able to see the anger on his face while he paid more money.

 

[NexusGamer]

Killer Instinct has that model as well. Did MS ever say how well it is doing?

 

[DNAbro]

Killer Instinct has that model as well. Did MS ever say how well it is doing?

aren't they on their 3rd season of DLC? I would assume pretty well. Expectations though.

 

[lupinko]

Lol Guilty Gear is offering a versus mode version sans new characters for preorder purchases only. That's not anything like Killer Instinct or Core Fighters.

It is totally not the same, and the main purpose for that is to throw a bone to players who don't reside in Japan so they can prepare for major tournaments. Like SFV's early release, Revelator is influenced by esports.

Also the f2p with pay to play was already tested by Bamco with Tekken Revolution and that didn't do gangbusters.

SFV doing poorly has more to do with the game being barren for singular player non-FGC gamers than it not being a new MK or Smash.

 

[BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO]

Killer Instinct has that model as well. Did MS ever say how well it is doing?

Well enough to continue pumping money into it, was also at the top of the most popular f2p games for a while.

 

[CastorTroy]

KI has been doing this the right way for a while now.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Yeah, as fun as SFV is it would be a much easier pill to swallow for most people as a f2p game.

It's hard to recommend to the average gamer for $60.

 

[Rabid Dwarf 76]

The DOA costumes on psn are like soft porn, it sets womens rights back about 40 years. The DLC sale section on the euro psn store is damning, pack after pack of bikinis.

Ah, bikinis. The true enemy of women everywhere. Truly the sign of oppression.

 

[RocBase]

A real novel idea would be if they made it free to download and just used the arcade revenue model. Pay a dollar every time you want to play online, if you win you get to keep playing, can't control or stop the queue or matchmaking.

Not too hot about this idea honestly. I also don't feel like this would go down too well with the general public either.

Capcom's model they have going for V is completely sound and should in theory work. I feel like a model like this depends a lot on word of mouth, and unfortunately for V the drama it set for itself by not having certain content generated bad word of mouth.

 

[Ferrio]

A real novel idea would be if they made it free to download and just used the arcade revenue model. Pay a dollar every time you want to play online, if you win you get to keep playing, can't control or stop the queue or matchmaking.

This is the worst thing I've ever heard. You're seriously asking for that?

 

[spazchicken]

A real novel idea would be if they made it free to download and just used the arcade revenue model. Pay a dollar every time you want to play online, if you win you get to keep playing, can't control or stop the queue or matchmaking.

A dollar per game? Jesus Christ, man. The average person would never become decent. Something like eight games for a dollar would be easier to swallow and tie training into that somehow. You get 30 minutes in the training lab for every dollar.

Other than that, I like Killer Instinct's model of buying a character and beyond even that, I think the current model is great as well.

 

[ShinMaruku]

DOA5 can do this method well because their art team can put out content that people will regularly pay for. When you have around 1 million probably more now spending money on dlc packs regularly they do make good money. This scheme is why I said DOA makes more money than SF just off the dlc margins and how koei deals with their dlc.

Also the bikinis are not the most profitable dlc, them themed outfits and the collaberations put in more money. Bikinis are just something they use as filler.

 

[Zedox]

KI has done it the right way in my opinion since 2013.

 

[ZoronMaro]

I wouldn't be opposed completely. I hated the way Tekken Revolution drip fed gameplay to me, but at the same time it's the reason I own T6 and TTT2 now, so clearly the model can work.

I haven't played it, but from everything I've seen and read I like how Killer Instinct handles things, more fighting games should go after that model.

A real novel idea would be if they made it free to download and just used the arcade revenue model. Pay a dollar every time you want to play online, if you win you get to keep playing, can't control or stop the queue or matchmaking.

This is kinda like what Tekken Revolution did. You needed tokens to play online, and you got like one per hour as I recall, but you could buy tokens to play more. It was super shitty and annoying, but as I said above it successfully introduced me to the brand and got me to pay money for their less scummy products.

 

[hamchan]

SFV feels like it could make the transition to F2P really easily with how they set up their fight money and zenny system.

 

[Pachinko]

Not every fighter can exploit the free 2 play model, much the same as MMO's trying and many eventually failing to attract an audience going down that road.

If we're talking specifically about SFV (and I feel like we are mostly) , it was an attempt by capcom to get their feet wet with the free 2 play thing. BUT they dropped the ball from the start because while they were honest and upfront about SFV being a service going forward with high aspirations of going big with the pro gaming circuit they failed in one key area - the game was released about 6 months before it was actually ready AND they charged full price for it while also begging people to spend another 33% of that cover price to more easily obtain the content they were giving away for "free".

They wanted the best of both worlds and currently have little to show for it but it's also only been about 2 months and this is a situation that can be fixed if capcom has the patience to let it work.

The free version of DOA5 came out only about a year after it's initial release and the core version of the title did launch at full price but it also had plenty of content included from day 1. The re-branded DOA5 ultimate showed up a year later with some new characters and backgrounds for a 30% discount while the free to play title also launched where anyone could try the game out for free with a much more limited set of options available. They turned a standard fighting game release into a free 2 play title with a shop only after 12 months of sales.

Capcom is trying to do all of that all at once and as we can see by the gimped store , lack of content in game along with delayed features and such , it's an uphill climb.

BUT , to get down to the OPs comment/ question - I do feel something like SFV will benefit long term once it goes to a free 2 play model. I feel the version available on disc right now isn't the version to do it. In much the same way that Super SF4 turned SF4 into it's own fantastic thing , I feel SFV needs a big update to really get into the proper setup. A re-launch next spring at a 40$ price tag that includes the base game, all of 2016's non cosmetic DLC (which means all 6 characters) as well as perhaps Sakura and Akuma thrown in to please the fans AND having the character story mode re-tooled into a proper arcade ladder mode while also turning the combo challenge into a full on proper interactive tutorial instead of simply a ton of videos. Make it into the game people expected this years version to be. At the same time, throw up a free SFV 2017 edition trial/F2P version. Download the client and SFV just has Ryu and perhaps a rotating character that changes every month. This free version includes the full new tutorial , training mode, offline VS play and online ranked/casual matches as well as lobby support(maybe this version comes with only training stage and hong kong too). Offer the big movie style story mode by itself for a few bucks, offer the arcade ladder/survival mode for a few bucks, and offer additional characters, costumes, stages, colors, titles for a few bucks. Or, if you don't want to spend money, you can play the shit out of the 2 free characters for hours a day and you can spend fight money on anything non-cosmetic. Currently the 50 fight money you get for a win isn't much , I feel that should be a starting point but winning frequently should increase the fight money earned to a point. Adding in Killer instinct style challenges for bonus fight money would also work while maybe even throwing in double XP/fight money weekends could also be great.

That's a great endpoint I feel for SFV but , Capcom needs to rebuild what's there right now so that the above can happen. So , next february/ March , I've little doubt we will see a free version pop up and then the userbase will start to increase and who knows - maybe it will catch up to DOA5 one day. At the very least a F2P version will give SFV a more consistent playerbase , more people will have it so more will play it which hopefully means less wait times for all involved online.

But with all that said, I don't think a smaller game like Guilty Gear or Blazblue can get away with this sort of model. Even if it were free I don't think the game is well known enough that too many more people would play it. In order for free 2 play to work you can't just have 100,000 people check it out, you need 500,000 + so that you've got plenty of people buying stuff through the games store.

Likewise, on the other end of the spectrum you've got something like MKX , selling millions of copies last year and then this year bringing out a 30$ upgrade pack that likely sold another million units. In all likelyhood another 30$ pack may show up next year too, so long as Injustice 2 isn't coming out any time soon. Even if it isn't though, for most people MKX was a 100$ product , they spend 60 on the game, 20 on 2015 DLC and 20 more on 2016 dlc. It worked because millions bought it. Going F2P for MKX in a couple years (if no MKXI is planned) might be worth it but for now ? more money can be made via traditional methods.