Lets talk about the pricing of SF6

[GameJayRemy]

I see posts every once in a while of people who complain about how much the fighting game DLC's cost.

Here's a couple quick questions before I go into my thing.
Do you personally think the DLC's are to expensive?
If yes, how much do you think they should cost?
Do you like or dislike the micro transaction?
What changes would you like to see made to the pricing structure?

If you haven't kept up with the higher ups of capcom, or the video game industry in general when it comes to pricing, the general idea is that companies don't think they charge enough for video games, period. It's not just Street FIghter or Capcom.

A Capcom Executive was quoted saying "The budgets for games have more than tripled while the sales cost has not changed in that same amount of time. I would like to see the base prices increased by $10 at minimum."

my biggest problem is I couldn't find any way to even guesstimate the budget for SF6 and I even looked into SF5. Similiarly, any recent fighting game isn't very public about its budget and it seems like this a trend with Capcom in general.

However, the project cost for Mega Man, Capcoms first video game released for home consoles is between 10-20 million dollars. This only includes the cost of making, not advertising, shipping or any costs associated with travel/storage.

The price to buy Mega Man new would have been $85 (Both figures are based on today's price index, not what it would have been the year Mega Man was released.)

That means Street Fighter 6 has a base price lower than Mega Man at $60
So what would they HAVE charged for Street Fighter 6 if the proportionately increased the selling price to the developing price difference between mega man and street fighter?
No one would buy it. SF6 isn't more expensive than SF5 or SF4

SF4 came out with Ultra which only added four new character, had a balance patch and added a red focus attack. It was $30. They did add weird Ultra alternate power levels for all the characters but that was just to gauge reactions for the RnD of SF5

Then they have the deluxe and ultimate editions which are $85 and $105 respectively.
But without an official budget or even a similar games budget just for guesstimate , I wont attempt to guess how many copies it would take to break even. But comparing it to mega Man, that means the Deluxe edition is similarly priced.

GTA's next game is going to cost $70 for the base edition and will likely be the standard for other games from other companies as well.

Now lets look at the DLCs real quick
They're selling four characters for $30 , so roughly $7.50 a character.
The standard for the longest time has been about $5 for DLC characters, so thats a $2.50 increase per character. $10.00 overall for the entire pack.
You could wait until Season 3 and get the DLC for half off, so how much is it worth to be able to have the characters when every one else does?


The battle pass, if you get all levels, breaks even. If you spent the money for the coins to buy the premium battle pass and get all levels, you will have the same amount of coins before you did before purchasing the season pass. Which is easily the friendless battle pass I've ever come across. Not to mention the games that come with it, that's good value IMO

Where Capcom is really making their money back is outfits.
Character Skins and the players individual pieces of clothing.
It's the easiest to make, the cheapest to make and by far has the highest mark up value of anything related to Street Fighter 6.
They were also plentiful and expensive in SF4. I didn't buy them until they started development for SF5
I don't really care about the player's stuff and personally think its a waste, I'd rather see more skins for the cast but people seem to spend money on it.

The game needs more resources now, it used to just be battle lobbies and ranked matches. Now we have the battle hub , which I've gone back and forth on but overall I think its nice addition.

All in All, the pricing hasn't changed in a drastic way.
The base game costs the same.
If you want the deluxe or elite editions, that's up to you but its not require and if anything is more about a show of support to the company.

The pricing for DLC's may have increased but its really negligible for the base versions.
The deluxe editions are more expensive, they do have more stuff. But you don't HAVE to have the 2 extra stages and the 4 alt costumes for the characters. Not to mention we have the opportunity to use Drive tickets for the stages.

Games are going to cost more. Period.
Think about what you paid for this game compared to the time you've put in.
What other activity could you do for the same amount of time for same price or less?
A day at an arcade, its easy to blow through $40
A two hour movie costs $15 dollars for a ticket.

Capcom seems to have added all the extra player character clothing to make up the difference so they didn't have to raise their prices (yet)

I personally think the way their approaching SF6 is fine. If you don't, how would you change the way they price their IP's ? Would you remove certain items, add certain items?

[Peddie]

Holy essay Batman.
I can't really comment too much since I won base SF6 in a raffle. But the prices are really comparable to other fighting game season passes. Strive is asking €25 for 4 characters, SF6 is asking €30 for 4 characters, only a minimal difference. Both companies also put tremendous effort and time into their characters so it feels justified.

Yes I'm sure they make a decent profit off of it but you always have the option of only buying characters you really want. Or even sticking to the base roster, all of them are viable.

The battle passes I'm not fond of, but hey, by not buying them it's no issue for me. I've a decent look for my avatar so I don't really need every single thing being added to the game.

The costumes for the actual fighters are decently priced I feel, they're probably a pain if you suffer from FOMO and want them all despite not playing all characters, and don't have the patience to stagger out the purchases either.

The most regrettable part is the funbucks system but that too is (equally regrettable) nothing new any more.

[GameJayRemy]

Originally posted by Peddie:

Holy essay Batman.
I can't really comment too much since I won base SF6 in a raffle. But the prices are really comparable to other fighting game season passes. Strive is asking €25 for 4 characters, SF6 is asking €30 for 4 characters, only a minimal difference. Both companies also put tremendous effort and time into their characters so it feels justified.

Yes I'm sure they make a decent profit off of it but you always have the option of only buying characters you really want. Or even sticking to the base roster, all of them are viable.

The battle passes I'm not fond of, but hey, by not buying them it's no issue for me. I've a decent look for my avatar so I don't really need every single thing being added to the game.

The costumes for the actual fighters are decently priced I feel, they're probably a pain if you suffer from FOMO and want them all despite not playing all characters, and don't have the patience to stagger out the purchases either.

The most regrettable part is the funbucks system but that too is (equally regrettable) nothing new any more.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

You won SF6 in a raffle? Very nice!

The best thing in the battle passes for me are the ROM's and sometimes music (now that we can have playlists for characters) Which I thought was a nice touch.

Also I'd like to just make a note of the Fighting Trials. In SF4 after an update like the season 2, you'd go to the trials and get a message "Some of these combos don't work anymore lol sorry." Now they update them, its such a small thing but I appreciate greatly.

Yeah, besides getting the stages without actual money, I dont see much point in the drive tickets. Though I guess you can get some Player Characters clothing items with them.

[Peddie]

The ROMs would be a cute touch without the CRT filter that (as far as I know) can't be turned off, and I'm aware MAME and Fightcade exist, not to mention Capcom Arcade Stadium, so if I wanted to enjoy the ancient part of Capcom's library I have better and more affordable options that also hog less memory than SF6.

As for the Drive tickets, you can also get things like the challenge screen art with those, as a fan of Kangyaku's works I've definitely collected some of those for the characters I play.

[Castyles]

If it was up to me I'd:
1)Remove the way fight coins work. Replace them with a fair currency. Because making you pay for less, twice, or more and rot with leftovers, but not the exact value, is beyond disgusting.

Fair prices would attract more customers. Economics 101.

2)Add the ability to use every locked character on training. Because pay-to-lab is also disgusting.

The idea above has the chance of bringing more possible customers than World Tour's movesets and rental tickets, combined. It's a risk. But worthy.

3)Nuke half of the Hub servers. Because people only tend to log into the first 5, anyway. Wasted money that could be best spent elsewhere, such as:

4)More stages/costumes/soundtracks/artworks/retrogames/game modes. And less avatar stuff.

9/10 casuals leave the game after finishing World Tour, anyway. Plus even if they don't, Extreme Matches and the social aspect such as the clubs fails to hold them in for too long. Same goes for the arcade.

Not to mention that the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Hub is a self-esteem, patience and joy destroyer for such lot.

The main customer = the ones who live on Fighting Ground.

[my butt is erect]

Im not even gonna bother reading the post but the genre and dlc in general are a lost cause. It's all a huge scam that has been growing for like 20 years and it's all because people couldn't stop buying horse armor and candy crush microtransactions. Screw all those who ruined the system by buying into it. Anyone thinking companies don't plan to keep things out of the game that in the 2000s would have just been included, to milk us later on, are in total denial. I honestly don't feel like getting into it. I just wanted to rant. So not looking to respond to anything in this topic fyi.

[Bumblescrump]

I don't really have an issue with the monetization. Unfortunately, art and hobbies are commodities in this world and the game wouldn't exist if it couldn't make some people money. The only thing I think is absolutely BS is not being able to buy fight coins in the denominations you want, but if you could they would just sell things outright as fight coins would just be an extra step. For me, I will spend 30 a year for new characters and not feel bad, as I enjoy the game.

[ShadowSplit]

Do you personally think the DLC's are to expensive? - Yes
If yes, how much do you think they should cost? - 4 Euros for characters, 2 Euros for costumes
Do you like or dislike the micro transaction? - Despise it greatly because: 1) most of them look like crap while being expensive; 2) developers don't even try to make something worth buying
What changes would you like to see made to the pricing structure? - Reducing prices or increasing quality.

Originally posted by GameJayRemy:

IGames are going to cost more. Period.
Think about what you paid for this game compared to the time you've put in.
What other activity could you do for the same amount of time for same price or less?
A day at an arcade, its easy to blow through $40
A two hour movie costs $15 dollars for a ticket.

Capcom seems to have added all the extra player character clothing to make up the difference so they didn't have to raise their prices (yet)

I personally think the way their approaching SF6 is fine. If you don't, how would you change the way they price their IP's ? Would you remove certain items, add certain items?

I paid around 70 Euros for SF6, played around 200 hours. For SFIV I've spent around 80-90 Euros while playing over 10k hours. Can you guess which one I think it's worth playing?

I don't. I believe SF6 is only a decent game, extremely overrated, but it's being sold well so it transfers as being "great".
Customization items is one thing I would never think of buying. I wouldn't even take if it was free, all while Capcom is going really slow with good characters costumes. This first batch of costume 3 is average.

[Doc Holiday]

I hope Remy comes back to SF6

[GameJayRemy]

Originally posted by Castyles:

If it was up to me I'd:
1)Remove the way fight coins work. Replace them with a fair currency. Because making you pay for less, twice, or more and rot with leftovers, but not the exact value, is beyond disgusting.

Fair prices would attract more customers. Economics 101.

2)Add the ability to use every locked character on training. Because pay-to-lab is also disgusting.

The idea above has the chance of bringing more possible customers than World Tour's movesets and rental tickets, combined. It's a risk. But worthy.

3)Nuke half of the Hub servers. Because people only tend to log into the first 5, anyway. Wasted money that could be best spent elsewhere, such as:

4)More stages/costumes/soundtracks/artworks/retrogames/game modes. And less avatar stuff.

9/10 casuals leave the game after finishing World Tour, anyway. Plus even if they don't, Extreme Matches and the social aspect such as the clubs fails to hold them in for too long. Same goes for the arcade.

Not to mention that the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Hub is a self-esteem, patience and joy destroyer for such lot.

The main customer = the ones who live on Fighting Ground.

Fight Coins is a constant one being brought up

1) Agreed. I can either look for stuff to buy so I don't have 50 fight coins sitting there eternally or... just let them sit there eternally. If they do sit there, then it balances out on the next purchase or what ever. But it shouldn't be an issue in the first place.

I think its more than reasonable to either (A) Get rid of fight coins all together. or (B) make the transactions in the game with a toggle that lets us select the exact amount we would like to buy instead of it being through the client.

2) Isn't that the point of Rental tickets? Those are free, not in the premium section of battle pass and normally on the lower end. I have four I've never used just kinda sitting around. or do you feel those don't provide enough time?

And if the argument is for learning the match up, wouldn't finding someone who is similarly ranked or higher to play you with said character a good way to do that?

What I would love to see is something similarly to Skullgirls, where you can control your characters in replays to help you learn to get out of specific set ups.

3) They could probably do away with extras, but as a company wanting to make money I just assume they would if it was wasting money. I would have to look into how many severs are being used for each region and how well one sever handles X amount of

4) I would like to see that as well. I personally like every in the game except for world tour. Maybe I'll give it another try but for me I enjoy the other stuff more.

[GameJayRemy]

Originally posted by poongoolie (rip heavy crew):

Im not even gonna bother reading the post but the genre and dlc in general are a lost cause. It's all a huge scam that has been growing for like 20 years and it's all because people couldn't stop buying horse armor and candy crush microtransactions. Screw all those who ruined the system by buying into it. Anyone thinking companies don't plan to keep things out of the game that in the 2000s would have just been included, to milk us later on, are in total denial. I honestly don't feel like getting into it. I just wanted to rant. So not looking to respond to anything in this topic fyi.

Hope it helped.

Originally posted by ShadowSplit:

I paid around 70 Euros for SF6, played around 200 hours. For SFIV I've spent around 80-90 Euros while playing over 10k hours. Can you guess which one I think it's worth playing?

I don't. I believe SF6 is only a decent game, extremely overrated, but it's being sold well so it transfers as being "great".
Customization items is one thing I would never think of buying. I wouldn't even take if it was free, all while Capcom is going really slow with good characters costumes. This first batch of costume 3 is average.

That kinda leans into my thought though, doesn't it? While the Value of SF6 doesn't personally live up to the Value of SF5 for you, it does hold up when compared to other activities. Not to mention, your comparing essentially year 1 of SF6 to the lifespan of SF5

I feel the opposite however, and my hours are somewhere in the 300-400 range I believe.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike or hate SFV but I do think SF6 is a better game by the standards of time since release. By the end of its life, SFV had improved greatly and while I don't consider SF6 the best street fight to ever be released, I DO feel it was the most solid street fighter game ON release. So for me, it could easily be the best SF as the game finds it direction, that also mean it could get worse however.

While sales help understand the value of inital interest in the game, I think a better representation in this point and time for actual long term interest would the engagement for content creators. People Like J Wong, Brian F , Punk ect

[Shadow The Innkeep]

Originally posted by Castyles:

If it was up to me I'd:
1)Remove the way fight coins work. Replace them with a fair currency.

Honestly, it should straight up real currency transactions. I think people would perceive MTX differently if companies would drop the “premium” currency bs. Yes, that’s how they make their money, but I feel like people would be far more accepting if they saw [insert your currency] price tags and far more willing to spend said money on items. I know I would be

[Wormerine]

Originally posted by GameJayRemy:

Here's a couple quick questions before I go into my thing.
Do you personally think the DLC's are to expensive?
If yes, how much do you think they should cost?
Do you like or dislike the micro transaction?
What changes would you like to see made to the pricing structure?

SF6 for me is right on the edge of being unacceptable. They didn't quite cross it, but they are close.

DLC - I think pricing I would be happy with would be $20 for character pass and $30 for ultimate pass (with outfits3 and stage). As it is it feels a bit too much, and I didn't decide if I will purchase (or rather when) year 2 character pass.

I dislike microtransations (they irreversibly make the game less fun by withholding things behind a paywall). At the same time, I do appreciate that they are hidden behind a neutral looking button in a menu and I don't get bombarded with the shop every time I launch the game. So as it is they don't impact my enjoyment of the game too negatively, but they also don't contribute anything positive to it either.

I don't mind the battlepass, however I dislike that it is time limited - I will be on holiday for most of July. What if there is something in July pass that I would actually want? It is unlikely to happen - I find battlepass content to be disposible, but I dislike the time limit by principal.

Skins - they would either need to be much, much cheaper to purchase, or let us purchase them with drive tickets. I purchased one skin in year 1 anniversary sale, and I immediately regretted it. Just not worth the money.

And what would make all of it better - not using Fighter Coins made up currency. All it does is create an extra step in a purchase, and is designed to overcharge the player for whatever it is they want to buy. It shouldn't be allowed.

[EmmetOtter]

Let me just say that back in the days for me growing up, buying a Colecovision console at around 1983 costed roughly $175. By todays inflation prices that should land around $465. The games were roughly $30 - $40 at the time as well. So you could imagine the price inflation on those games.
Neo Geo, If I remember correctly was released at a price of $600 around 1990. Those game cartridges were a hefty $200+....EFFING BRUTAL!!
Now...early games content were absolutely no where near where they are now at base game levels. You basically played what was on those cartridges....and that was it!

I remember getting SSF2T on the SNES when that was released. Only 16 characters to its roster and nothing else special added to it. Never even thought if a game would ever get expanded. It had no on-line so you only played with your friend sitting next to you. This was the last time I played SF.

I remember hearing about DLC when it was first introduced. On how you can expand your game but at the expense of paying more money. I thought this was absurd. An easy way for a cash grab on your fans. the gaming industry had taken a big, ♥♥♥♥ nose dive. I never bought into it.
I had gotten back into SF at the tail end of SFV's run. Already having a massive roster and costumes. I was blown away. We never had costumes like this in early SF. Then I saw you can get Akira, Rose Luke....to add to the roster and I thought, hmmm, not bad actually when the game was already quite big. I did'nt have to buy them, but I did. It was then that I realized how cool DLC was, given how big the game was at initial release.

When SF6 hit the world, I was amazed at the plethora of content that was included on its initial release and I was like damn, we never even had it this huge in the early eighties....and yet, we will be given options to expand it even more if we wish.

Games purchased back then were only good for a few hours or days til you beat them. Then you might just give it a try again months later. Today...games keep growing and growing and growing.....just up to you if you wish to expand them. Either stick with the base game or simply pay more to expand them with more added hours of play.....which we never had in the eighties or nineties =)

[Doc Holiday]

Originally posted by EmmetOtter:

Let me just say that back in the days for me growing up, buying a Colecovision console at around 1983 costed roughly $175. By todays inflation prices that should land around $465. The games were roughly $30 - $40 at the time as well. So you could imagine the price inflation on those games.
Neo Geo, If I remember correctly was released at a price of $600 around 1990. Those game cartridges were a hefty $200+....EFFING BRUTAL!!
Now...early games content were absolutely no where near where they are now at base game levels. You basically played what was on those cartridges....and that was it!

I remember getting SSF2T on the SNES when that was released. Only 16 characters to its roster and nothing else special added to it. Never even thought if a game would ever get expanded. It had no on-line so you only played with your friend sitting next to you. This was the last time I played SF.

I remember hearing about DLC when it was first introduced. On how you can expand your game but at the expense of paying more money. I thought this was absurd. An easy way for a cash grab on your fans. the gaming industry had taken a big, ♥♥♥♥ nose dive. I never bought into it.
I had gotten back into SF at the tail end of SFV's run. Already having a massive roster and costumes. I was blown away. We never had costumes like this in early SF. Then I saw you can get Akira, Rose Luke....to add to the roster and I thought, hmmm, not bad actually when the game was already quite big. I did'nt have to buy them, but I did. It was then that I realized how cool DLC was, given how big the game was at initial release.

When SF6 hit the world, I was amazed at the plethora of content that was included on its initial release and I was like damn, we never even had it this huge in the early eighties....and yet, we will be given options to expand it even more if we wish.

Games purchased back then were only good for a few hours or days til you beat them. Then you might just give it a try again months later. Today...games keep growing and growing and growing.....just up to you if you wish to expand them. Either stick with the base game or simply pay more to expand them with more added hours of play.....which we never had in the eighties or nineties =)

👏 👏 This.
Capcom can take my money. I love this game.

[Wormerine]

Originally posted by EmmetOtter:

Today...games keep growing and growing and growing.....just up to you if you wish to expand them. Either stick with the base game or simply pay more to expand them with more added hours of play.....which we never had in the eighties or nineties =)

Nah, expansions were already a thing in the nineties. And having to pack enough things into a disc to make it worthwhile was better than selling cosmetics that cost almost twice as much as the base game - and that's Capcom being fairly reasonable by todays standard.