SF6 - The Most Overmonetised Fighting Game?

[Kuriishi]

$104.99 "Ultimate" Edition
$49.99 Yearly "Ultimate" Passes.
Microtransactions in the game despite the premium price tag
And now a "Premium" $5 monthly Battle Pass on top of that?

So, for the "hardcore" Street Fighter sheep fan, expect to pay at least $110 on SF6 alone Ultimate Fighting Pass & Monthly Battle Passes for 1 year (12 months) (and that's before any Microtransaction purchases) on top of your initial purchase from here on out.

Of course, if you bought the "Ultimate" edition, this year only you will just have to pay at least $60 for the Premium monthly Battle Passes. But from year 2 prepare to pay the $110 year on year for the lifecycle of this game.

Edit

So apparently Capcom are now selling $15 skins (TMNT) for avatars. So to get all 4 it would cost you the same as the entire base game ($60). That's not including other customisation/cosmetics from the avatar shop.

It never ends, does it Capcom?

[Higon]

Originally posted by Kuriishi:

I'm not sure where you're getting your figures from.
Even the Street Fighter 6 - Character Pass is $30 which is more than the $20 figure you're quoting.

Are you talking about Premium Pass? Premium Pass is $30. Character Pass is $20. You don't need stinkin' Premium. But some of character passes in the past might have been priced at $30. So you should be correct as well. But it's not that important. $30/year? Deal. (My cost measurement of fighting-games is based on "25 cents per play".)

Originally posted by Kuriishi:

"They intentionally made commercial items unattractive."
Entitled to your opinion on their appeal, of course, but clearly these items are meant to appeal to someone. You don't put a product up for sale for no one to buy.
...
It's a video game, the product in itself is not necessarily needed, like food, water or air etc. That's kinda besides the point though.

Again, Capcom wouldn't sell these things if they didn't think people would buy them.

I can agree on a statement like "their monetization scheme is crappy" but not in a way you described. It's indeed a crappy scheme because it's not been executed well. We all have seen Capcom just sold their flagship game without a Battle Pass on day 1. That was the crappiest move I've seen coming from the large gaming company. Huge missed opportunity if they are serious on making money with it. They implemented "Fighter Pass" 2 weeks later without much fanfare and the contents in it is so underwhelming. My theory is that it's intentional. It's designed to sabotage someone's business plan. In some company, the big budget projects don't get approved without flashy business plans. They planned it that way and trash it as we see now in the game.
Street Fighter 6 is so meticulously tuned up and they paid attention to the tiniest details on every gaming element. But the mtx part is a joke they must have left it that way. Marketing department might have cared. But it's clear from the finished product that many in the company didn't give a sh1t to make mtx appealing.

Originally posted by Kuriishi:

Street Fighter 6 did have a pre-order bonus though, they sold colours as a pre-order bonus. Imo selling colours is dumb in a game. Especially when you compare to Tekken where you can literally just set the colour of any clothing item you want as part of the game.

Colors are already in the shop. They are not limited time offers. It can be purchased with Drive Ticket as well. They already gave away some 1500-ish Drive Tickets as challenge rewards. It's not impossible to get all colors for your main if you are playing for months.

Originally posted by Kuriishi:

As mentioned before, Battle Pass is $5 which is cheap but it's $5 per month- $60 a year. That's the price of a full game.

"It's optional" is moot because everything is optional in a game that doesn't make it less predatory

No it doesn't cost $60 a year. The reward of completing the pass includes 250 fighter-coins. It pays back itself. I completed it already. So I'm sorry Capcom I'm getting next one for free. I'm guessing this pass is made purely for user retention purpose. $5 is too low for live-service team to be sustainable. It's like they are working on this just to extend game's life.
I believe they are going to sell the contents of the pass in the shop at some point. But that remains to be seen.

Originally posted by Kuriishi:

There is clearly a lot of passion in the game but Capcom's marketing crap overshadows that imo. It's too much

Yeah. Their marketing is crappy crappy but that part is made to be crappy that's what I'm guessing. Playing this, I see the result of internal struggles in the company and I don't think Capcom's SF team has fallen darkside yet.

[unclassified]

@Higon

You seem to be lucky with japan as your region when it comes to pricing. In the EU and us a character pass costs 30€uro and the ultimate pass 50€uro. In the UK even more.

I wouldn't complain when the ultimate pass would cost 30,thats the same as the character pass was in sf5 but they increased the price in the majority of regions.

You can check local prices at the website steamdb.

Imagine you would need to pay 20 more for ultimate pass.. Add 10 and you can buy a full price game.

[PawgaliciouS QueeN]

Originally posted by unclassified:

@Higon

You seem to be lucky with japan as your region when it comes to pricing. In the EU and us a character pass costs 30€uro and the ultimate pass 50€uro. In the UK even more.

I wouldn't complain when the ultimate pass would cost 30,thats the same as the character pass was in sf5 but they increased the price in the majority of regions.

You can check local prices at the website steamdb.

Imagine you would need to pay 20 more for ultimate pass.. Add 10 and you can buy a full price game.

Isn't it only 4 characters as well? That's insane.

[Double Jump]

Man, SFV forums where haunted by Tekken weebs and it seems like SF6 is cursed by Mortal Kombat neckbears...

[PawgaliciouS QueeN]

Originally posted by Double Jump:

Man, SFV forums where haunted by Tekken weebs and it seems like SF6 is cursed by Mortal Kombat neckbears...

Neckbears?

[Double Jump]

Originally posted by You mean Metal Sophear?:

Originally posted by Double Jump:

Man, SFV forums where haunted by Tekken weebs and it seems like SF6 is cursed by Mortal Kombat neckbears...

Neckbears?

I edited my typo for you <3

[PawgaliciouS QueeN]

Originally posted by Double Jump:

Originally posted by You mean Metal Sophear?:

Neckbears?

I edited my typo for you <3

Nooooooo, lol I loved that!

[Double Jump]

Originally posted by You mean Metal Sophear?:

Originally posted by Double Jump:

I edited my typo for you <3

Nooooooo, lol I loved that!

Okay then, neckbears it is :)

[PawgaliciouS QueeN]

Originally posted by Double Jump:

Originally posted by You mean Metal Sophear?:

Nooooooo, lol I loved that!

Okay then, neckbears it is :)

YAY.

[Kuriishi]

Originally posted by Higon:

No it doesn't cost $60 a year. The reward of completing the pass includes 250 fighter-coins. It pays back itself. I completed it already. So I'm sorry Capcom I'm getting next one for free. I'm guessing this pass is made purely for user retention purpose. $5 is too low for live-service team to be sustainable. It's like they are working on this just to extend game's life.
I believe they are going to sell the contents of the pass in the shop at some point. But that remains to be seen.

I double-checked and you're right. When I checked earlier the website listed the total at around a 100 total but it's been updated and you do indeed earn 250 at the end of the pass, provided you complete it in the short amount of time it's available.

Do we know if these are persistent? i.e. can you always buy previous passes and if you buy a BP can you grind it once it's no longer active?

If the answer is yes to both of those then it's not as big of a deal but I don't think we should be celebrating FOMO in games, especially not paid ones. It's also questionable to make the previous game songs a part of the paid track.

[fade2black001]

Capcom has been do this crap for years.... You think they would stop now?

[Mith]

Originally posted by fade2black001:

Capcom has been do this crap for years.... You think they would stop now?

Are you talking about monster hunter or similar? I do not own that game so this crap from them is something more or less new to me as I am not sure how Capcom monetize other games. I heard some things, but hard to know what is trolling and what's not.

[SoulReaperAxel]

Originally posted by Lysamus:

Hmmm . . . nope. I'm going to go with DOA 5. Own all its DLC now for a smidge over $1,000 USD.

cringe game

[Yasone]

Originally posted by Kuriishi:

Originally posted by Lysamus:

Hmmm . . . nope. I'm going to go with DOA 5. Own all its DLC now for a smidge over $1,000 USD.

Know what the difference is? That's a F2P game with 5 years worth of cosmetic DLC + characters.

Your figure is inaccurate too the current total is $917.71 for 974 costumes (not including those in the base game bundle) which works out at less than $1 per costume ($0.94)

And anyway, it's not about the total cost, it's about "Overmonetisation" in other words, monetising the game in multiple unnecessary ways:

DoA5LR on Steam just has 1 vector of monetisation: DLC (characters/cosmetics). And it's F2P so there's not even a price barrier to entry.

SF6 has multiple vectors for monetisation: microtransactions, (monthly) battle pass, on top of the (yearly) "Ultimate" Pass (which again, is $50). And this is supposedly a "premium" $60 game

Doa6 isnt a thing then? no company is surviving off of 1 dollar skins on a f2p game anymore
and why are you a walking nerd emoji w that "well actually its $917.71 for 974 costumes with works to.." like bro, your point is invalid in the first place, the next game in that series did the exact thing sf6 did, whats the difference?

[Vault Traveler]

blablabla insults blablabla - OP