So, they making the art book free now

[PortalDiver]

As the title says, the new devs just made the Digital Art Book free, as long as you own the game. To me, I think this is a desperate attempt to get a new player base after their major fan fallout with going woke and self censoship.

[1.2M | Missingno.]

Y'all really will whine about anything, won't you?

[Takumi-exe]

An empty gesture if the art book is still censord.

[sloppy slaytime]

FT10?

[Drowsy Kat]

They really brought in the heavy from tf2 and your still worried about ur child porn

[Tanoomba]

Sweet! Do I have to run the game to access the compendium?

[1.2M | Missingno.]

Properties -> Browse Local Files

[Dark Matter Pancake]

please be normal for once

[Sstavix]

Well, it seems like a gesture to apologize to the fanbase that stuck with the game pretty much from the start and have been the most vocal about the recent changes.

I don't know how effective it will be. Time will tell. But at least it's a sign that they may be listening and trying to do something to appease all parties, at least.

(I still have my reservations, though. As I mentioned when this whole thing started, it's not the changes I have a problem with, but the mindset behind the changes. I have a feeling that's unchanged, and I'm still not planning on picking up anything from this company again.)

[Alpharius]

Originally posted by Sstavix:

Well, it seems like a gesture to apologize to the fanbase that stuck with the game pretty much from the start and have been the most vocal about the recent changes.

I don't know how effective it will be. Time will tell. But at least it's a sign that they may be listening and trying to do something to appease all parties, at least.

(I still have my reservations, though. As I mentioned when this whole thing started, it's not the changes I have a problem with, but the mindset behind the changes. I have a feeling that's unchanged, and I'm still not planning on picking up anything from this company again.)

It's a good step... but they should just add a toggle

[Tripas]

Originally posted by PortalDiver:

To me, I think this is a desperate attempt to get a new player base after their major fan fallout with going woke and self censoship.

The playerbase has kept itself stable throughout all the months of incessant complaining, and had a peak in October that wasn't seen since August 2022. I know this is a disappointment to a lot of people who desperately need to get some sunlight, but most Skullgirls players don't know or care about all the drama.

So yeah, you've been obsessing over something (again, for MONTHS now) which means less than nothing to the real world. And I'm sure no lessons will be learned.

[Ol' Justy!]

Originally posted by Tripas:

Originally posted by PortalDiver:

To me, I think this is a desperate attempt to get a new player base after their major fan fallout with going woke and self censoship.

The playerbase has kept itself stable throughout all the months of incessant complaining, and had a peak in October that wasn't seen since August 2022. I know this is a disappointment to a lot of people who desperately need to get some sunlight, but most Skullgirls players don't know or care about all the drama.

So yeah, you've been obsessing over something (again, for MONTHS now) which means less than nothing to the real world. And I'm sure no lessons will be learned. :conwayfacepalm:

A spike is not sustainability.

The Skullgirls community, in reference to the PC / Console game is (at best) about a couple hundred people. Not counting people who just draw pornography of the cast or only jumped on to see an update and left, but the core community who have been at this for years. In reality, it's not all that big and it hasn't seen growth outside of the update peaks from people deciding to look in, which is to be expected.

The game is over a decade old and your average person doesn't want to jump into a 10+ year old game where most of the people who still play are killers. Especially not in an environment where big new games like Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, GBVSR, UNI2, MK1 or even newer indie fighters like Pocket Bravery exists, where it's significantly easier to find players who are bad without having to hop into a discord to find them.

The problem is that the game should've had its sunset a long time ago. To revive it to compete with all of these other games doesn't make a ton of business sense. Along with causing a schism with the June update that caused division within the player base, it just makes the future of the game seem questionable.

Let's say that the June update caused no harm to the core player base and they were to release a second season of DLC. From Annie's start of production until now, it's taken nearly 4 years to get 4 characters released, and we're still not finished with the 4th. If it is priced at $35 USD with (high estimate) of 400 sales (which includes the core and casual player sales), not including Valve fees, they would only generate $14,000 to split over another 4 years of development time. That's not sustainable, especially at California prices. At that point, you might as well just focus on the mobile game.

Which, I suspect, will probably be the case.

[468528456]

I feel bad for the people who paid money on this. Their censorship has made it so worthless that they have to give it away for free. Might as well make the soundtrack free while they're at it.

[Lysamus]

They mention in the update that they're giving the art book away due to many players asking how they could get access to it. I don't imagine the vocal opponents to the Summer patch were clamoring to get their hands on that updated DAC.

My guess is those folks weren't considered at all by the devs when they made this decision. Likely they are trying to build hype for their Marie DLC.

I'm happy for the players. Free art is groovy and free content for a game this old and this niche is remarkable.

[Tanoomba]

Not to mention there is a TON of content in that compendium. Besides the development sketches, fan art, posters, arcade stick art, and other miscellaneous goodies, the compendium seems to contain every frame of every character's every animation, every background, every story mode cut scene, even every graphic element unique to the mobile game (which, correct me if I'm wrong, couldn't have been included in the original version of the compendium). It's actually pretty surprising how willing the devs are to share these resources.

[Takumi-exe]

Originally posted by Tanoomba:

Not to mention there is a TON of content in that compendium. Besides the development sketches, fan art, posters, arcade stick art, and other miscellaneous goodies, the compendium seems to contain every frame of every character's every animation, every background, every story mode cut scene, even every graphic element unique to the mobile game (which, correct me if I'm wrong, couldn't have been included in the original version of the compendium). It's actually pretty surprising how willing the devs are to share these resources.

The question however, is how long will this content stay un-altered for. No guarantee that you'll keep it forever.