The insult to the injury is having to buy all these with funny currency. That you cannot buy the exact amount needed.

imagine being a game (persona 3 reload) and some idiot buys you at 100 bucks for some skins and optional stuff (me) but even though that person paid 100 dollars he still have to pay another 35 bucks to get a dlc that is not included in the deluxe edition. I fucking hate that atlus makes such good games

Fun fact! since you need to have the dlc files to play online, you will always have them! If you're willing to sail the seas, those files could mysteriously be playable when not meant to ;D I'm of course not supporting anything like that, but if you take the game seriously and need to lab, but can't afford to pay money for someone you'll never use? well, sometimes files get corrupted, edited, or patched! shit happens right?! We're in a day and age where what message we provide with our dollar, means more than ever. Not the worst thing in the world to be concious of that.

And if all the scummy monetisation wasn't enough, fighting games are beginning to forego regional pricing more and more, so if you live outside of NA/Europe be ready to pay anywhere from 2x-10x as much as you normally should for the game and its dlcs, it makes you genuinely question how much you even want to play these game in the first place, like why would I ever buy sf6 if I can get all of ggxx, xrd, p4a and pocket bravery for a lower total price in my region

The best battlepass in gaming would be Deep Rock Galactic in my eyes. It's completely free and all the content in it gets shuffled into main missions as rewards later on, so there's never a fear of FOMO.

It’s crazy that SF5, one of the most hated games of the last gen, had the ability to unlock every character for free through playing the game. And SF6, one of the most beloved games of the current gen, is an unmitigated disaster of monetization.

rotating shops suck and thats just fax

"for the love of god do not put a rotating shop in any of these games, I'm begging you" - so erm, Mortal Kombat already did that... Also, I'm of the Opinion that if you are charging 60-70 USD for your game, Especially when indie dev team with shoe-string budgets are capable of making beautiful and engaging games, You have no right trying to Charge players extra with "fancy microtransaction currency" on top of the 60-70 USD. Especially when these AAA studio's are too freaking lazy to COMPRESS THEIR FILES!! My 2 TB storage shouldn't be taken up by 4 FUCKING GAMES!!

On calling 'project L' '2XKO', I was reading it as double knockout, which still doesn't sound that good, but its better than the alternatives imo.

With every form of monetization being crappier than the last, I'm genuinely afraid of what's gonna happen next

To add to the arcade part, fighting games had a particular advantage as arcade cabinets, as when people versed eachother, only the winner got to keep playing on their invested quarter(s). This made it very easy to sell a fighting game cabinet to arcades, as they are basically guaranteed profits, as long as the game was fun to play.

Capcom explaining why I should pay $70 for the game, $25 for dlc EVERY YEAR, $10 for a battle pass every year and $12 for character skins

Looking back, I find it funny how every new update for Street Fighter 2 decided to release a WHOLE NEW MACHINE with the updated game.

Ultrakill music in my GekkoSquirrel? S A T I S F A C T O R Y

Bro the Shiori joke caught me totally off guard lmao, didn't realize you were one of us

I have one major rule/hope for future fg monetisation if games go into a more league of legends style of monetisation. As a bare minimum I should be allowed to training mode with characters I dont have unlocked, and buying all the characters at launch should not cost me more than the price of a full priced game. Tekken 8 was absolutely a big reason for this with all the discourse around its most recent update, and while I think adding in a shit ton of mtx a couple months after launch to get good initial reviews and lure in people who are vulnerable to this shit and try to avoid it is really scummy, its not the kinda thing that'l kill tekken no matter what some guy trying to gamers rise up doompost on reddit will tell you. The bigger concern is that apparently the update fucked up a bunch of core gameplay mechanics and a lot of important combos just, dont work anymore???

there’s already a rotating shop in MK

Capcom has been getting better in some areas with SF6. The SpyXFamily Avatar Costumes were actually only 500 Drive Tickets each and Ed's Stage was available for 5,000 Drive Tickets. However, this is where my positives for Capcom run out. Just because the SpyXFamily outfits and Ed stage are steps in the correct direction, this peace was preceded by a ruthless massacre with the TMNT outfits and the still bloody sword that is the Outfit 3's. Still no price change, Drive Ticket option, or even a bundle, and there's no reason for me to even begin to have faith that a fix of any kind will come with Akuma and the Season 1 Outfit 3's.

Characters being added as DLC is a big one on how they make money. And also why I don't buy them unless they're on a huge special.

“..because I want to learn how to get out of a Jack-O setup?!” Oh that’s the thing. You don’t.

11:59 HAHA! Y-YEAH WHO WOULD WANT THAT, RIGHT?! N-Not me... I would never want to play as Shiori Novella in Tekken 8... Never in a million years...

Monetising fomo is so scummy.

I have an unpopular opiniin, but I wish GGST season 3 was a separate game update, that way you could choose which version to play with your friends. Also it would have got a new story mode lol I would have liked that. And the old menu was more pleasant and immersive.

Killer Instinct, which released 2013 (!) has its' last update a while ago with new arenas, colors etc for free!

I still haven't forgiven Capcom for UMvC3 releasing less than a year after MvC3 😔

Let me put it like this, I want to play a fighting game okay there you go 60 dollars, oh you know what? I would like to play online there you go a 15 dollar subscription, you know what? I would like to play as this other character, oh really? Well pay again. I shouldn’t be paying more to play some of the new content for a game that I already pay for.

I was absolutely flabbergasted when it was discovered that you can't watch any replays with Eddie Gordo in Tekken 8 if you don't have the DLC- That's on-par with the scummy frame data DLC from the last game, if you ask me

The title update thing was there since pretty much the beginning... Well, the effective beginning anyway... Y'know, as a kid, I was confused as to why in my version of Street Fighter II you could play as the boss characters, but in my cousin's version you couldn't... Turns out I had Turbo Hyper Fighting, and he had The World Warrior... That was on Super Nintendo...

"games have been trying to find ways to make their money back" game companies already figured that out since the Nintendo era, if that wasn't the case, then sht would be cease to exist decades ago, modern games have been trying to farm every single nickle out of players existence the last decade, which is similar but not the same, the main difference is GREEDINESS, like T8 season pass...

13:20 I got a bad feeling they take away both the League monetization and no special inputs.

You skipped over unlocking the Arcade games to play on your own in the SF Battlepass. I know you don't care much about it, but it's worth pointing out.

"Don't even get me started on the XX series." Dog, until about 3 years ago, I didn't even know that XX had a billion title updates. I feel a little betrayed, but they brought Bridge to strive, so meh.

In brazil we need to pay one-third of our minimum wage (we receive 1600 bucks per month, our salary is not per hour like US for example) to buy a game(strive is more than 200 bucks in consoles and 170 bucks in steam, but in todays days there are games around 300 or 350 bucks), and then we need to pay more to buy characters that we even know if we're gonna like it. Imagine other countries that have a worst economy! It's just extremely expensive for us, that have an expensive cost of living, in todays days you'll need to live with another person to pay all the bills and necessary costs to bring home the bacon (I'm not native english speaker, sorry if I said anything wrong. And I don't know if people usually say "bring home the bacon" tho)

I'll just mention that Lethal League has a code which - disables online functionality, but unlocks everything in the game for offline matches.

When you said that you've never been inside of an actual arcade, I shared so many damn tears. That made me so sad because I vividly remember just going into arcades when I first joined in military and when I was in high school. Places like Aladdin Castle, Putt Putt Golf & Game's. Boomers and Nickel City in California, and my favorite place on the Va Beach strip when I finished bootcsmp, Flipper McCoy's, and so many others. I remember the first time I saw Virtua Fighter 3 in an Arcade and I was like, graphics cannot get better than this. I remember watching this Asian Girl using Liu Kang in MK3 totally destroy people at the Arcade in Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach back in the day. She went through so many people that I eventually just took my quarter off of the machine. Oh yeah, that was a thing when you wanted to play next in the arcade on a fighting game. You would put your quarter behind everybody else's quarters and sometimes the whole row of quarter's would be lined up and it's amazing how we always remember exactly where our quarter was. I'm sorry sir. I'm so sorry for you. But then again, I am in the 50+ age category. The second reason that I want to visit Japan so badly before I die and it's on my bucket list, is to go to all of the arcades that are still around and are famous there. I remember back in the day at the Hampton Mall when the first time I saw the original Killer Instinct in the arcade. I was like, this is a fighting game and it has Nintendo on the cabinet. Combo Breaker was loud as hell. The first time I played KI, not knowing anything about how the fighting system work, I just knew it had six buttons like Street Fighter, I got my ass tore up. And then I learned about KI's unique fighting engine in combo system. I was hooked and have been hooked ever since. It's the primary reason that I bought in Xbox-Series-X. Just to play all of the KI games at home. I miss the Arcade days.

Still think its scummy that 99% of fighting games that have dlc characters as their dlc dont even let you use them in training mode or lab. Like fine dont let us use them in arcade or online without paying, but at least let me fucking try the character to see if I want to buy them. And/or actually be able to lab them out so i can better practice matchups against characters I literally dotn own. Thank god for recent games having you be able to take over replays. This almost bypasses this issue

I don’t like Granblue battle pass. it’s a whole lot of nothing. $7 for one character skin and nothing items. I think people buy it because either they do like this specific character in the battle pass or they just want digital money. Yeah there is no fight money we spend money for digital money

Not finishing that JGR sound effect chain is cruel.

Is that Arcueid Reina?

This just sets itself nicely to a Max Dood collab 👀

Call me old fashioned but I think microtransactions of any kind in a game that isn't free to play are completely unacceptable and we shouldn't let companies get away with them.

Real question: What changed between uni and uni 2 cause from an outsider perspective I don’t see why they didn’t just add the dlc or balance changes as a update instead of a $50 game, did they change the battle system greatly or something else cause otherwise it just sounds like a ripoff to me

I have a local arcade near me. It seems reasonably popular though honestly it’s parents bringing their small children. I mean like the 80s 90s early 2000s arcade that uses quarters and not that digital credit card BS. I’m not sure if anyone cares about the fighting games Marvel versus Capcom, streetfighter EX2 Mortal Kombat 2 and Tekken 2. From what I see people care more about the light gun shooters and beat them ups

Actually the Spy X Family skins ware free. And the advertised avatar loos like shit because no effort was put in making it. You can make a decent looking avatar and put a costume on them. Not that that excuses the actually overpriced ninja turtle avatar skins.

title updates made a lot more sense in the cartridge days.

Bruh, rotating shop is already in Mortal Kombat 1 and in SF 6 (but here it’s just for custom character cosmetics)

5:12 the VISUAL XD

ULTRAKILL music detected, subscription added, Baiken purchased.

*_ALL CHARACTERS, INCLUDING DLC, SHOULD BE PLAYABLE IN TRAINING MODE REGARDLESS OF IF I BOUGHT THE DLC OR NOT!_* THIS is the movement I need started!!

And really, a lot of these dumb monetization practices are on the executive team- no one in the creative team would have any say in this. Something like colouring your eyes white is definitely something they gave up during a meeting to make profit off of. I’m all for supporting fighting game longevity (because I NEED similar skill players pls) but they definitely need to step it up, especially when games like multi versus and 2XKO come out

I love your videos feels good for someone to actually tell the truth.

Yo gekko it's a novellite?? One-of-us one-of-us

I never forgave Capcom for releasing SF4 Arcade Edition which REQUIRED INTERNET, back then internet wasn't as good as it is now

Don’t be silly gecko, the shirt will never go on sale (I have been waiting for 7 months)

Didn't Killer Instinct 2013 try a rotating character freemium model as one of its monetization methods? I can't remember, anybody I knew that played it bought it outright. But it really does seem like something that RIOT would do, considering how LoL works. Regarding DLC characters not available in training mode, I'd like to see what the numbers would be like between people 'having' to buy the character for labing vs people that would potentially buy a new character because they messed around in training mode and decided they liked the character. But that isn't going to change sadly.

What's the OST in the arcade section of the video? I SWEAR I heard it somewhere but I don't know where

I really hope project L does well

you got cooked by that special style jin

We need more monetization... a lot more. GIVE ME SKINS GIVE ME STAGES GIVE ME A REASON TO GIVE YOU MONEY WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?! (SNK devs, if you read this, THIS IS SPECIALLY FOR YOU)

Actually the title updates thing was a carry over from the arcades, mostly Capcom doing that like the 5 different versions of sf2 and Kof getting it's yearly installments that was actually a thing before 2000. It continuing into an erra with digital distribution was definitely being extra cash grabby though for sure.

You used Under Night 2 as a title update but I disagree because the story is a continuation of the one from Sys:Celes Xrd Rev to Rev2 is a title update, but sign to Rev isn't But MVC3 to UMVC3 is a title update because the "plot" (endings) don't change completely, but actual get shorter

I am just mad that I have bought akuma 4 times already sf4, sf5, Tekken 7 and sf6

Entire opening is like 50s LeMan and 70s F1 team entries

And its only going to get worse. People dont understand the intricacies of the corporate world so they dont understand why these games have increasingly more and more egregious monetization but its going to get much worse, not only in pricing, but you can also expect in game ads in a very near future. No, I'm not joking.

I was just now telling my girlfriend that I remember a time when you bought a fighting game to play and all you had to do to unlock extra characters and other items in the game was to just play the damn game. No internet no DLC and none of that crap. Back when a game had to be ready to be shipped because there was no such thing as day one patches.

I'll be honest, as far as live service models go, I don't mind it as much in fighting games. Trust me, I get why it's hated. I hated microtransactions back in like MW2 original, where it was only $15 for some multiplayer maps. But comparatively at least, fighting games tend to be pretty fast paced and if they added challenges to play certain characters, it could be a decent way to get players to experiment, while also giving rewards. Just y'know, companies aren't going to implement nice things like that, they're going to extort more money out of people that already paid for the game. Right now these passes kinda remind me of what Fortnite has with it's "Festival" mode, which is just Rock Band. They have a separate pass for it. As a rhythm gamer, of course I'm going to play each song with all 4 instruments, perfect my scores on the hardest difficulty, and by the time I'm satisfied, I'm already done with the pass. It doesn't change how I play the mode, it's just passive rewards.

here to cry about them's fighting herds dlc

I need a new blaz blue physically.

Don't buy the stupid stuff and the devs will stop trying to sell the stupid stuff

yipee!!! Geko!!!

4:43 Title updates were a thing as long as real fighting games (so SF2 onwards) have been in existence. SF2 was infamous for putting out a ton of versions, all of which were either new machines/upgrade kits to buy for the arcade owner, or new full-priced games for home console gamers. Just with SF2 alone there was: 1991 Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Original) 1992 Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (Made the 4 Kings playable, made mirror matches possible iirc) 1992 Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting (sped up the game significantly, new moves) 1993 Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (overhaul, added Cammy, Fei Long, Dee Jay, T.Hawk, but didn't get the higher speed that Hyper Fighting had) 1994 Super Street Fighter II Turbo (Akuma, supers, old character versions, higher gamespeed) 2003 Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition (let you pick any version of a character from older versions) 2008 Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (visual overhaul, rebalance) 2017 Ultra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers (Evil Ryu and Violent Ken) And that's not even getting into the wacky, bootleg versions. One good thing about title updates though is that if you got into a game later, you'd just get everything for the price of that one game. If you were to buy Tekken 7 now, you'd basically have to pay just as much as someone who got it day 1 did, barring any sales. Honestly though, compared to the days of playing in an arcade games are still a lot cheaper for the player over the long haul. To play you had to put in your money, at $0.50 if you went to the arcade for 1000 days that's $500 right there even if you never lost a single time and had to put in more quarters (and also never played any other games, or ran into a win limit). A single day's worth of gaming could use up a lot of dollars in not a lot of time, repeat that every day for hundreds of days and it adds up fast. If I paid 50 cents for every time I've lost a match in KOF 13 and then played another, I'd have spent thousands of dollars, and that's even with a 90%+ win rate. Is it any wonder then that SF2 literally raked in billions of dollars during its time on top? On a grander scale, game monetization becoming what it is now is more like game companies trying to reestablish the kind of profitability that used to exist in the arcades, which then took a severe dip once gaming shifted into the home. The technology to constantly add content and update games on a mass scale over the internet simply wasn't there yet, so games had to be good to go out of the box or they'd be outcompeted by other, better games that offered more. That meant games had to have lots of features, lots of content in order to justify their purchase. What about now though? So much in games is now built around the promise of future improvement, future content. As these kinds of monetization become steadily more acceptable (and really, in the companies' eyes they have already been embraced by the public) there just isn't much of a reason for game companies to put in the kind of work that games used to have. No reason, of course, except for pushback from the players. That's why people can't just accept this crap, they need to be vocal about the fact that they're against it. Furthermore, they need to reward the games that still offer a huge trove of content for a reasonable price, to send the message that it's still worth it to create games that way, while also punishing the games that engage in predatory practices with very visible negative feedback and lower sales. (Tekken 8 launched without the shop and BP for a reason.) Don't threaten anybody or cause harm, but frankly telling people "no, don't play this game" is about all the power anyone really has to try to effect some change (y'know...like a boycott). Getting those reviews to "mixed" or "mostly negative" is the only power that people can collectively wield without just abstaining completely from something that they still enjoy, because you'll never be able to convince the people who would buy microtransactions not to do it. But those red letters can certainly give a person pause as to whether they should jump into a game to begin with.

Surprised you didnt bring up the mortal kombat series

Mortal kombat is already doing rotational shops arent they.

MK already has had rotating shops for a while but then again its less of a fighting game and more of a fatality youtube compilation machine

I know this is unrelated but does anyone know the music staring at 9:38 ? I know it but cant seem to remember the name and its driving me insane

A rotating shop is indeed the worst thing that a game can add to

You CANNOT convince me that Capcom is making any money off the battle passes. No, seriously, they are making $0 on them. They make at most $5 per SF6 player, since each pass pays for itself/the NEXT pass. Not only is there nothing of value in the passes, but they are actively losing money on them. At best they're a loss-leader intended to just get people spending fighter coins on other stuff in the shop... But the only things in the shop are the same type of shit that comes in the passes. So again, I do not believe that Capcom is making any money off the battle passes, and is actively losing money with each pass that is made and released. Season/Year 2 had better get rid of the monthly passes in favor of timely DLC character releases, but Capcom is run by baboons so I doubt it.

I'm a bit surprised you didn't mention a hidden positive to crappy battle passes. No pressure to buy them, so they're incredibly easy to ignore.

Capcom already has a rotating shop in SF6 lol

I will tell you now that Season passes suck ass as they hide what you are buying. YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE PUTTING MONEY IN. I rather pay for title updates rather than battle passes because I know what im getting into, and we can ripp them apart with reviews if its bad.

I would be so upset if Project L was actually good. My two friends with whom I play fighting games both play a lot of League and I have no doubt they'll switch if it turns out to be a good game. Having played League and a bit of Valorant, I just KNOW they will make this game a disgustingly predatory money printer like League and especially Valorant.

Surprised there was no mention of killer instinct's live service model with rotating free characters.

shiori mention holy fuck

11:57 I see Gekko is a Novellite. Good taste, or too used to red flags.

Am fine with it

As much as Fortnite has become the face of shitty live service games they are actually pretty good with anything not involving FOMO. Their battle pass gives you enough premium currency to buy another battle pass next season and skins arent super overpriced. Heck if you bought Fortnite: (The single player game) before they axed develpoment you STILL have access to free premium currency every day for playing just 1 mission which is honestly way more than id expect from a greedy live service game

For GGST my friend made a crack to get all the dlcs for free. Idk how he did it. But thank god he did.

Foghting games dont need to have constant new content to he the one game you play, as you come back for the game and counity, and the work to get better

Got any grapes?

The way you buy alt colors and costumes in SF6 pisses me off. It feels like a mobile game with its multiple currencies and shit, and the fact that the base game only has two colors for each character in the first place is outrageous.

Gekko, the spy x family avatar cosmetics where 500 tickets each... you got 1000 for loging in... those where free my guy, still the battle pass sucks

I think having to pay for the new characters is ok as long as prices are reasonable. MK and SF are definitely way over reasonable but i think ggst has ok prices.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the video (I rarely comment, but watch all of them and love them), but I just had the honor to get my ass kicked by your Baiken on your way to Celestial and it was a pleasure to not be able to gatekeep you :3

"for the love of god don't put a rotating shop into one of these games" doesn't Tekken 8 have that tho? The classic costumes rotate weekly.

Real on not calling it 2xko 😌

No mention of DOA costume packs, I guess you really want to keep your sanity in check then.

im kinda checking out of fighting games, i used to be a huge fan of most, but man, after paying full price and still getting fleeced for more im just done. Especially since all the things that used to be in previous iterations of these game are now sold separately on purpose, and the guilt tripping the players into buying them is just disgusting(Tekken8). Fuck battle passes(T8, SF6), and season passes that barely offer anything.

He really convinced himself to buy the hairstyle accidentally

KZfaq boost this video please

tbh I expected a shiori joke, when it happened it caught me off guard like a baiken parry