But free to play would mean wed have to pay for cosmetics and character, with minimal single player content. Oh wait…

Speaking as someone still looking for a fighting game that fits him well enough to actually get him into fighting games, yeah. I feel this. The price barrier means I do not get to try many games out, which is especially galling when you're trying to find your first real "I feel motivated to get good at this" game.

The thing that fighting games need is to expand their content past just being an arcade fighter. That has the potential to make the games worth the money and to bring in more casual people who might not want to play online right away. NRS does this in MK through the story, towers, krypt, etc. Smash does it as well. Most other fighting games set up a decent "arcade fighting game environment" and call it a day. Which to a random gamer isn't even close to being worth 60 bucks when compared to other games. BUT, if certain fighting games want to keep the pure arcade fighter layout then being free-to-play is a good way to evolve things and bring people in without necessarily adding a bunch more content.

I would spend $60 on a fighting game if it has around 26 characters, 16 stages, good online and plenty of single player content like some sort of story mode.

Something I think isn't being considered a lot when Brawlhalla comes up is, there's a much different dev cycle for those characters. They all share a base and are like, 90% similar in DNA. all normals are from a shared pool, there's only 6 unique moves per character. That allows them to produce content, characters and skins, much faster and keep the content cycle going at a steady pace because at least half the work is done on every character they'll ever make. Thats really different than a big budget fighting games where reports say each character takes forever and even costumes are slow to roll out. F2P doesn't work if the studio can't keep pumping out new things at a constant clip.

As someone who sucks at fighting games (I only tried GG Strive for a few weeks before falling off because I realized I didn’t have enough motivation to improve), this is my perspective on the problem. Part of the reason why people have such a problem with F2P is probably a trust issue. They simply don’t trust that the companies behind these games will not resort to predatory practices (such as encouraging “whaling”, where a small percentage of players spending ridiculous amounts of money on the game contribute most of the profit as with many mobile gachas) to rake in money. In this sort of situation, for the most part the objective quality or merit of the idea does not hold as much weight. It is entirely possible that some company could produce a legitimately amazing F2P fighting game that doesn’t resort to predatory methods to turn a product, but the inherent lack of trust might mean that most potential players wouldn’t even give it the time of day. But at the same time, some sort of legitimately great F2P game is probably needed to sell the potential merit of the concept. And therein lies the catch-22 dilemma of this idea. The idea needs to prove itself to earn the trust and recognition of potential players, but the lack of trust itself may prevent most from recognizing genuine merit.

I'm glad Max acknowledges that he is being overly optimistic about the idea. He does bring up a good point about how we've just become "fine" with the rising prices of this type of game. Part of that, I think anyway, is the thought of "it could always be worse." And for a lot of people who have seen how badly F2P can go, F2P is that "worse." You're probably not going to convince anyone with that fear, and at this point I think it is near impossible for devs to overcome that stigma. You'd basically need an entire generation of fighting games doing F2P right in order to gain back that trust, and I'm not sure that's ever going to happen. Kudos to Max for taking the time to explain his reasoning better though, makes it easier to understand where he is coming from at least.

It's only the DLC costs for fighting games that do push me away sometimes, since I play other stuff too. These things are $60 at launch, but then the whole DLC set of characters at the end is like +$60 with less than 1/4 of content compared to the game. I know DLC development costs extra, but we've seen games that basically get a whole new game for it, that range from $20 to $40.

For me, I like fighting games as a casual fan. So after SF4, I became just fine waiting until the definitive version of a fighting game is released. The only time I would ever invest in a fighting game every season pass of the way, is if I'm trying to get tournament competitor good. Other than that, the waiting game is my destiny. 😎👍

I think one thing that holding back fighting games is probably a lack of modes. Like, most games now a days have a variety of modes that shake up the game a bit and make you play in different ways. Like bring back the fun mini games or have the characters have random effects and stuff.

Its a really interesting issue, because I do agree that fighting games are way too expensive, and yet the idea of ftp fighting games still scares me. I think the primary issue with fighting game cost for me is characters, because while I agree the dev time spent on them is certainly worth charging to a degree, it feels very weird as a consumer to buy a character that you cannot try out beforehand. So you really don't know if you will 100% vibe with them until you've already got them, and when studying matchups, you also do not have access to practicing against them either. $4-6 a character just seems a little steep when a season is usually 4-5 characters because the game already cost $60 and most likely doesn't have that great a starting roster (speaking very generally). FTP can get worse i feel because while the base game will be free, it can get out of hand really easily based on what the company wants to leverage. Lol is probably the best example i have. You start out with some free champs that rotate out every week or so, you can buy more with in game currency acquired after matches or riot points (paid). And there is the option of buying skins and colors for the champions with riot points as well. Its decently well balanced overall, but then theres stuff like the new halo where you will actually have to pay around $8.00 for the color blue that only works on one piece of armor. And then the content halted for infinite as well, which gives the idea that FTP really wasn't the right call for its multiplayer. IDK. In conclusion, I think something needs to change with fighting games, and I would give a FTP one a chance, but they've really nickle and dimed the hell out of players for years.

"Is this game worth 60$?" In my country, no. Never. No game is worth that amount. Something I've noticed a lot of people online fail to consider when it comes to the anti-F2P sentiment is any region of the planet that doesn't have a good economy. The reason why games like League, Fortnite, Apex, etc can be as big as they are is because they're Available (See: on PC which everyone has, and for free) to people who can't justify to spend money on something as trivial as a videogame when you gotta survive. ESPECIALLY when it's a genre that's tough to get into, like fighting games. People are just going to gravitate towards what's accesible and stay there and have fun, not save up for months for a game that's tough to learn, has a poor playerbase, and is just seemingly unforgiving. It doesn't make any sense. Of course this comes with the caveat that it has to be a GOOD F2P system not like a weird paid DLC one, which is why I'm excited for Project L because I Know Riot knows how to make that work. And even if you don't like that game, it should set a standard for the industry to look at and try to match, otherwise they won't be able to compete with it.

Tekken 7 has kept me coming back to it over and over and I have probably only played online once. The story, ghost battle, bowling, arcade mode, and the customization!! These things always have me coming back. Companies should tackle this way of customization in my opinion.

The scummiest practice fighting games have is that u can't even lab against dlc characters in training unless u buy them. So essentially if you want to take the game relativity serious your forced to buy whatever dlc they release.

All that DLC in Dead or Alive (5 usually being the one people talk about.) is costumes that were added over the course of the game's life which was 7 years. That game if you actually brought it has only TWO DLC characters and costumes you don't need to have fun or play. If you had the free version you had to buy the rest of the base cast besides the four you start with. There was also free access to two random characters every day or week, I don't remember.

I think that they could bring back demo version, maybe make a rotation of like 1/5 of the cast or the shots of the game to try out the game ,with a possibility to upgrade to full version with their saves intact etc ...

Like I said, only the big dogs like Capcom & Bamco could really risk going F2P. NRS could also do it, but WB Games already has a F2P fighting game on the horizon with MultiVersus & will likely continue to position Mortal Kombat & Injustice as their AAA fighters. Even with Brawlhalla, they had Ubisoft backing with them being the publisher. And Project L has Riot’s war chest of cash. Because of that risk of the game not taking off, I can’t see ASW or SNK going F2P. Plus ASW doesn’t have many options for monetization with no alternate costumes. In the case of SF6, Capcom seems to be giving the game a AAA budget (bigger than past SF games in recent memory). So in that case, I don’t see it going F2P. Maybe they could do it with a new IP.

I play mostly single player versus mode with the AI, and never really commit to any character, mostly try every character on move on, that's why I usually jump aboard when the complete editions arrives to the bargain bin.

This has been a problem since the arcade scene died off in the west, since fighting games, more than any other genre, relied on the social gathering aspect due to their inherent competitive gameplay. The problem is, no developer has been able to find an effective replacement for that kind of environment. Should they be full-on f2p? No, but they need some kind of "trial" version out there with just enough content to get people interested. The problem is where do you draw the line. Everyone had to jump in that "den of wolves" at some point; only then, you had the choice of just dropping a few quarters, rather than throwing down $50-$60 like it is now

To me, there’s a very important aspect in feeling what the games plays like. I can decide if I want to play other characters that are locked behind money later. But to play the core game for free and see if I rock with the feel of the game is super important to me. This goes for things like VF, KI, DOA6, and other things that let you try a core roster for free to get a feel for the game

Honestly unpopular af opinion: give me season passes any day over having to buy a new edition of a game every 2 to 3 years with extra content Ultimate Marvel 3 is probably the most egregious offender in why I don't like this model I do think devs can get trigger happy with the insurmountable amount of DLC and what they charge for it, but I still think re-releasing the game when its only additions are new characters and balance changes just sucks

I think if a fighting game has content equivalent to a netherrealm game it’s fine to be full price. A good full fledged story mode, a good arcade mode, online with a handful of game modes and character customisation. But other than that I think fighting games should be free to play if the main focus is just multiplayer

Fighting games have become expensive, for sure. And even if I get that they make skins and costumes for every fighter in a game to appeal to all of its players, that might want that extra bling for their favourite combatant, its also to be said that back in the days, you'd unlock stuff such as skins and costumes by ending a character's storyline fulfilling certain requirements. Today you have to reach for your credit card rather than the instruction manual to see the tips and tricks, but since the gaming market came up with much worse than paywalled costumes, this practice have been normalized. I'm afraid that it's never gonna go now that it's here, alas.

I spent $120 CAD on MK11 before the Aftermath expansion even came out. By the time I saved up for Aftermath and Kombat Pack 3, NRG had already announced the game was dead lol

f2p player here, and daym people in the comment section really dont like and dont know what a good f2p game is. In my experience COMPETATIVE f2p games(League and Valorant) isnt as Predatory as people fear it to be, and sure f2p games "CAN BE" more expensive cause of the "OPTIONAL" cosmetics/skins, battle passes are meh its still optional and cheap, But All Core Content(Characters) are avaible or really easy to obtain for the players, all events are free. So over all my experience was really was really fun. IMO, Riot Games' Project L plus thier monetizations methods may lead the way for Fighting games to be f2p.

Fingers crossed for a successful f2p model to have the fighting game player base grow larger

Thank you for explaining your perspective, and empathizing with those who are skeptical. I appreciate it Max.

Tbh League does it kinda right (the Game is Free2Play no Pay2Win and even a Player who doesnt want to pay money can earn some Cosmetics). Skins and Events keep the Game fresh and give People a Reason to return to the Game or play a different Character. Ofc Skin prices must be reasonable but they also ensure a steady income for Devs and a reason to keep supporting a game.

I think the solution is just for fighting games to just cost less at launch. 20 - 30 bucks should be the launch price for a game thats gonna get multiple character passes that usually cost 30 bucks a pop.

It's crazy to think how many good fighting games are out there. I'm not going to lie, I spend a good chunk of money on fighting games the last few years!!😅

Problem with fighting games costing 60 dollars is that the payments don't stop there. Everyone releases a mountain of DLC characters over the course of months or even years, which is fucking scummy as shit.

Dead or Alive actually did a pretty great job. The game had a full version with all the characters and modes and had a free to play version that had 4 base characters and 2 monthly rotating characters. The free to play version players could do pretty much everything in the game except play story mode and play with the other locked characters (that you could even buy just a specifict one if you liked it!). Yes the game had way to much DLC, but it was almost all cosmetic stuff. The core game was there for free.

Sony: Hold my beer - $70, €80, £70 for the base game.

For me Soul Calibur was always one of those games that gave me enough content to amuse myself (even though it is more on the arcadey side) and the online multiplayer was just a bonus. And thankfully it has also been generally one of the less predatory games microtransaction wise.

There's the base game, the DLC in order to learn the new matchups (or your new main). There's the cost of PS Plus or whatever allows you to play online if on console. There's the cost of gas/train to travel to locals to even make use of your skills. Then there's the risk that people drop the game in 3 months. Or some new patch ruins the balance or your play-style. It's a big commitment that could honestly be made softer from the top down I think.

In Argentina DBZF base is $3k, Ultimate edition is about $5.5k ,all the dlcs $ 11k. Tekken 7 base $2k, ultimate around $ 5k, all dlcs $ 10.7k. SFV base is $470 Champion Edition + Season 5 Premium Pass Bundle $2 k (all dlcs $11.3k). Keep in mind minimun salary here is $47.8k and also keep in mind that, all purchases made online, like buying games, or spotify etc have a 65% taxes. So yeah, Plz make something FTP! we getting fucking milked this side of the planet!

Here's the thing: FGs as a genre, are so "old school" and rooted in their own principle that the people who usually make them don't feel the need to innovate or risk going too far away from what made them great. RPGs, shooters, card games, action games, PVE and PVP alike have at some point had a game that shows "this free to play model can be applied to us" at a massive scale. Brawhalla of course comes to mind but it's not a "big" game. Not saying that a game has to be fortnite or LoL to be comparable, but I'm sure that's what the big game companies think is justifiable to make a F2P fighting game. Nobody (so far) has been willing to make that risk because FGs are a very niche genre that only has mainstream appeal when big IPs are attatched to them. Also they don't really generate a long term income for the company unless you make new story arcs for the casual audience to come back. We can only wait for the LoL FG to come out, see if its F2P, have them make millions and then maybe capcom will go "i want one of those, make capcom vs capcom", only to then say "why we are not making as much money as them" because they got in late.

I think the real barrier to entry with fighting game is the requirement of wired connection. If the multiplayer can’t be done relatively good with wifi connection, fighting game is not going anywhere

Hello Max! I don't usually comment much, because I don't write very well in English. I'm Brazilian and also a content creator - a year ago, I made some videos talking something similar to what you mention recently in your videos and social media about game prices. Here in Brazil everything is even more complicated. Due to conversions from the dollar to our currency, in addition to extremely high taxes, games reach R$ 300.00 (Brazilian currency) for Playstation - to give you an idea, the minimum wage in the country (which is the value considered "minimum to survive") in Brazil is R$ 1,212.00. Today, so that we can have a Playstation game with the season pass at launch, we spend about 1/3 of what is the minimum to survive. Of course, this value is not standard, but it is a basis of comparison of how expensive the games are here. A price decrease, or even the F2P format would help a lot (in my view) the spread of the game here, and in other third world countries. I'm so glad you're addressing this topic, because it's necessary that high profile people can finally talk about how much we spend on a genre that makes so much money! Congratulations and thank you!

This just makes me think of how much fun I had playing Soul Calibur II. It was so worth my money in my opinion with how much there was to do solo. But nowadays I only appreciate other people who play fighting games, since I am a part of the casual crowd and don't have the time to dedicate myself to climb online ranks.

The most I've ever spent on dlc for any game is about $105 for SFxT for the extra characters, all the costumes, and about $15 for gems.

I played sf5 in the hope that the characters could be picked up without buying but the grind was so huge that I got discouraged, especially when I had to fight an unknown new character

As a man who spent 85 dollars on King of Fighters already. I must say, I feel pain. That said, it's not the money keeping people out. It's the skill and study. Casuals don't like competitive games that require hours of research and study just to be at a basic level.

Okay, but why is the camera quality so crisp on this? It’s reminding me of local news switching to 1080p for the first time. So much definition. So CRISP

I think the most money I put into a fighting game was buying costume sets for SC5. CAS is a hell of a drug

I miss buying a game and unlocking all the goodies through gameplay. This whole thing where you buy 60% of the game at full price then pay more for the remaining 40% (dlc) is a big turn off.

Convert these prices to other countries and you get some prices that are just ridiculous. Tekken 7 costs R$529,59, our minimum wage is R$1.212.

Hopefully riots new project L pops off and brings their mastery of free to play into the genre.

I think the divide on the F2P discussion is largely die-hard FGC and players who are either more casual, or have significant experience in other genres that are predominantly F2P. The old-school FGC players will spend $60 on a new FG without a lot of complaint because they are already invested in the genre, they aren't scared of getting bodied online, or if they even like this type of game. They know going in what they are likely to get, and if it has characters/features they want, they'll buy it, and the DLC, often for multiple platforms. There seems to be this obtuse almost willful ignorance or perhaps gatekeeping about non-FGC players and how intimidating the barrier to entry into the FGC appears to them. Like Max talks about here... if I don't even know if I would like the genre, but something about the game catches my eye, they have to decide: * What is my play experience going to be like if I have never played a FG before * Is the game going to be too hard for me to pick up, so I will have just wasted $50-60 * Is the single player mode going to be < 2 hours of content * Is the online experience going to be just me getting shit on for 50 games by people who are good at this type of game. * If there is DLC on top of the base game, how much of the DLC is "mandatory" to have a good time. * I've heard I need a special controller (a joystick or hitbox) to be any good, how much do those cost... *Googles* oh fuck, $200, hell no. These people don't have an investment in the genre already, they are intimidated by the perceived difficulty, and the challenge of 1v1 online play, and frankly lack of other features in most FGs. This makes buying a full price game seem *risky* because they may just be throwing their money away. Contrast this with a F2P model like League of Legends. You have heard about the game, probably good and bad. If you are ever curious if the game is fun, you can download it for free, go through a basic tutorial, play against some bots, and get access to some of the characters from the roster. There is NO barrier to entry even if you are worried the game will be too hard or not fun. Worst case, its not for you, you delete the game and move on. If you DO get pulled in, now you have progression opportunities, F2P ways to earn new champions and skins, daily missions, larger events, esports, etc. I don't think FGC old-heads understand the volume of people being blocked out of even *trying* a FG by the full price game with expensive DLC model. If 1% of the League of Legends player-base tries Project L and sticks around, it will be the biggest game in the FGC. It's true that not every company can afford to go the F2P route, because developing FGCs is expensive, and because its so niche, the sales are really modest compared to other games. The solution is to make the genre less niche imo, not to double down on the behavior that's kept it a tiny community for 3 decades. Finally F2P doesn't mean that "things will cost more". Ideally it means that the things you pay for change. In the Riot League of Legends way, you can (slowly) earn champions and even skins with in-game currency that you achieve over time. You can also buy access to champions (or champion packs with a bunch of champions at a discount) using RL money. Then the real $$$ comes from cosmetics and non-game items like icons, titles, skins, pets, backgrounds... etc. This model has been proven again and again to work at scale, and it should work for FGS too.

I always hear. I’m not paying 60 dollars to play this game I’ll just wait till it’s on sale, the major problem with this is by the time it’s on sale the online dies down and the only people that play are killers!

Thank Ryu the big dog in the fighting game community acknowledges this very expensive fighting game problem in the 9th generation era. It's been a trend ever since Street Fighter V started the season DLCs business model. Sheesh.

CAN'T WAIT for part 2!! Max using "to be continued" after his videos?? As if I didn't have enough reason to hit that notification bell

These kind of topics are always tough to think about. Especially for people like me who aren't directly involved in the industry. While I see where Max is coming from and the prospect of more fighting games going free-to-play is interesting, I genuinely think this would only work for IPs that are already popular or have a notable legacy. I just don't really see this working for most fighters given just how niche they are. I know "Killer Instinct" is one series that followed this model somewhat and was a massive success, but again, it was the return of a fan favorite classic with big name influencers, like Maximilian here even for that time, pushing hard for it. Something like "Brawlhalla" being such a success despite being a new IP is amazing but isn't guaranteed to happen again. It started off very small but through good reputation of being a decent "Smash" alternative with actual competitive focus, something that wasn't that widespread at the time yet, it could afford to gradually grow much larger. Though even then, you can still see the cracks of how small it was. Then I'm thinking of fighters as niche as stuff like "Chaos Code", "Blade Strangers", or "Arcana Heart"...this is where I'm not remotely optimistic about this. They aren't big enough to make returns for continuous investment nor are they small enough to just brush off the lack of returns. And heck, most FGC influencers, like Maximilian, don't really like these fighters, if not have actively lambasted them in the past, so there's literally no one to champion them. I don't know, it could work, but likely not for the demographic I'm residing in.

Words from me who is a F2P player since i was a little boy. Just as the pandemic started i saw some fighting game video contents on YT and i started to learn more about the genre because i was finding very interesting and the hype and passion of it was almost palpable, i could feel it. SFV went free at PS+ so i started my journey there. When i started to look into other fgs i realized that all of them that you have to buy, no exceptions, were nothing more than "hey, give me your money and MAYBE you'll have fun playing me!". Long story short, where i live the usual prices represent about 10% of minimal wage when they're ALREADY on sale and are the primary/simple version and being able to cost a whole month of my salary for... I barely spend money on things i'm already positive that they'll be useful and i'll like them. The most valuable and precious thing i have it's my time and not only fighting games require a lot of time to play and the companies tell me i have to pay them just to check out their products? I'm not giving my sweaty money for a MAYBE, F*** NO! I don't care if it's a good game or not, i wouldn't expect nothing less than being great/well made for a product that's trying to get my money. Still not buying fighting games until they're changing this dumb business mode.

"NRS are the Kings of releasing a full product" kind of stings after mk1's launch...

Fighting games are indeed expensive. Not only cosmetics, but whole ass characters have been relegated to DLC/paid content. It sounds harmless enough at face value, but with how many characters continuously get added it no longer feels as additional content but rather, the remaining half of a game. Buying a base version of a fighting game is a kneecap and with how many tiers developers create, the ultimate or definitive editions of games that contain every dlc character ends up being stupidly ridiculous.

My issue with F2P is more related that F2P means theres no physical version. I like owning my games, even my fighting games. But I also agree that theres an insane amount of dlc tied to fighting games not everyone can afford and puts people off. Sometimes you want the whole thing, sometimes you want unlockables that arent insane. 60$ is too much for the average casual player to invest in a fighting game these days especially if you add all the DLC tied to it. Instead dont make it F2P but lower the entry bar. Make it 20$ for the base game, free online, add a decent amount of single player content and if you want the rest like costumes, stages and everything make that what you pay for as an extra dlc. And always include a physical version for those who want it. Maybe an unpopolar take but thats how I see it

I think a great way to make people jump into a fighting game are free trials (like for a week) or open betas, I remember falling in love with DBFZ on its Switch open beta and loving the strive's ps4 beta

FGC doesn't want to hear this but $60 buys you either Elden Ring, 150+ hours of guaranteed content or GGS, 12 maps and 20 characters. You have to think outside of the FGC, what sounds better to them?

From what I have seen from riot's latest implantations of F2P titles such as Valorant and LOR Which still receive regular updates and first party tournaments to this day, I think Project-L is the closest we can get to a good F2P fighting game title. I really have high hopes for that game.

Laugh in COD, Fifa and other same type of game

Given how fighting games are expensive, you'd think that these companies would do things that are relatively low cost & things that would get fans excited... I'm talking about more compilations on modern consoles with minimal modernizations like roll back net code, graphical filter options for the games, etc. Marvel vs. Capcom Collection ◾ X-Men Children of the Atom ◾ Mavel Super Heroes ◾ X-Men vs. Street Fighter ◾ Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter ◾ Marvel vs. Capcom ◾ Marvel vs. Capcom 2 ◾ Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Capcom vs. SNK Collection ◾ Capcom vs. SNK ◾ Capcom vs. SNK PRO ◾ Capcom vs. SNK 2 ◾ SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom ...etc

That's why skullgirls is my first (and only sadly) fighting game, it's $20 AUD-ish and $10 on sale

I'm just scared that a fighting game will take a page from something like Candy Crush's free-to-play model and start charging money for more continues in arcade mode, for example. Give it enough time and someone will try that.

I know I'm talking outta my ass here, but I think all it takes is for just *one* really well-executed attempt at a F2P fighting game to set the foundation for what it *could* be if more devs take a shot at it in the future.

Looking forward to some developer taking this all the wrong way and goes back to the arcade days where you have to pay 50 cents to play

In other markets, they're even more expensive. In South America, for example.

Games like Elden Ring, costing 60.00(how many dlcs of 25.00?) will give you THOUSANDS OF HOURS FOR MANY YEARS, while current fighting games are much more extensive and wont give you that much content.

when i buy fighting games, it doesn't feel like i'm buying a complete game, it feels like i'm buying access to a store. I'm not optimistic about things going F2P, companies will always push how much they can get away with in terms of monetization, i expect things to get only more and more egregious rgardless of the model.

I wanna say, the thing I despise so much about DLC and buyable characters is that 9 times outta 10, you can't try them out in training mode to see if you like them! SF5 is the worst contender of this, because you either buy or grind for a character you don't even know you're gonna like. Not even in training mode! This is also the same reason i rarely play sfv.

Max, you forget to mention the situation of other countries like Brazil, where the complete package of MK11 costs 889,74 R$, wich translates to basically 80% of the minimun wage.

I think the answer isn't being free but just giving casuals more to do. The notion of HAVING to get good to enjoy a game is one I see spread around by so many casuals that are hesitant about the genre, and I think THAT'S the issue. They don't look at the genre and see games that they can just hop in,dick around with a character they like and be set just with that. They're caught up in this idea that they have to reach an online contending skill level to simply be able to get enjoyment and I think the answer is simply just giving them more to do outside of that. Not even talking story modes, but just something to hold over the ppl scared of going online. Even myself as someone who grew up on the genre but mostly as a solo player, it took me a long time to feel comfortable with the idea of fighting someone outside family. The primary issue isn't making the game easier or the price it's seems to be the INTIMIDATION that from their point of view is built into the genre. More solo content could also placate the price factor for all those types that feel traditional fighting game model isn't worth it.

Yeah that hit me when I picked up dbfz on ps4 and realized how much the game costs with all the passes. Just picked up my team and went off

The total cost of Dead or Alive DLC is over 2K

There have been so many games that I hardly played and spent full price on. I was basically an SF4 '09er that wanted to ride on that wave of all the new fighting games, but it was just so hard to get that same satisfaction that SF4 gave me. As games get older, everyone just gets better and it becomes so hard to catch up if you never started.

The DLCs or year 1 passes on top of the 60 dollar tag is what keeps me from not buying fighting games, the normal editon just feels like a Incomplete Editon.

Imagine if fighting games actually went the free to play route, yikes. It would be even more expensive. That "free" label would go straight to their head and make them think that justifies all kinds of heinous practices

As a Fighting game newcomer, the first fighting game I brought with the full price was Grandblue VS, I even purchased it on two platforms. Why? Because I love this IP. And because of that, I get to know that Arc system work is a great company who can make great fighting games. Which lead me to buy GG strive on day one. However, I also know that it requires tons of hours just to get a start of the game for a beginner. That is why when I looked at KOG XV, I hesitated. It's XV. It's a different art style, and it's from another company. I don't even know if I could survive from the beginning stage. Buying with full price is a lot of pressure.

I think one thing that could help is to have special demos of fighting games. Basically, you could play online and such, but you would be limited to only a few characters. Just the simplest characters of each archetype to let people feel out the game.

I just want to play fighting games and stuff with other people, but I'm a poor-arse uni student in a new city without anyone to play with, and games are pricey as balls here in Australia. I don't feel like I can justify laying down $60-90AU for something I'm only really going to be playing on my own in a 3x5m apartment, which is a bummer.

im honest i already spend over 120$ in mk11 with all the dlcs and that was the dumbest Thing i ever did..... played the game 2 month and then never again.... 🤷‍♂️

The best F2P experience is still TF2 in my mind, things you needed to affect the gameplay were easy to come by/ grind for and were plentiful, where as the cosmetic items was where valve made its money I’d say the major downside to the cosmetic pumping model is that it can start to make your game feel cluttered and lose its identity over the years, but with fighting games a new release in a series comes out every 5 or 6 years anyway

I'm making a fighting game. Hearing your take on these things certainly gets the wheels turning.

I believe part of the situation is also that players nowadays know what fighting games are actually like gameplay-wise, and thus "pure" ultra-complex fighting games without something a little extra like what Smash and NRS fighters have, or instantly appealing original characters a la SF, DS or Tekken, are contained to an enthusiast niche. I think the key to going beyond that niche is good marketing of what you have in order to show what your game has to offer and tutorializing worth a damn. It's certainly not overly altering your game to the point of breaking its series's identity just to pull in more people. Strive did all three, so it's a great one-stop example of what to and to not do.

I don't still 100% buy into F2P as it could affect balance of the game. However, I do agree that 50-60 euros for an arcade fighting game is too much. It should be around 20-40 euros or so, depending on roster size and single player content.

make MP free to play, but give us an expansive single player mode that cost money. Do you guys remember the side scrolling beat em up mode for one of the guilty gear game on the psp? bring that shit back and add the GBVS RPG mode into it, add the tower mode from MK, the multiverse shit from injustice, don't just give us the barebone arcade mode and versus, that's EXPECTED

Brawlhalla is free to play and is the most played fighting game on steam. It has 2-3 times as many players as Tekken, GGStrive, and SFV put together. There is a market for FTP fighting games and Brawlhalla has proved that. The Riot games fighting game will most likely be free as well blowing out competition or at least forcing competition to adapt to a FTP model in order to compete.

Yeah it's definitely a bit intimidating when you go on the add-on sections of fighting games and see it has like over 100 items. For a casual like me it just makes you think "wait, which characters are better ? How much for all the customisation pieces, and is it worth it ? If I don't buy all the add-ons, am I just playing a lite version of the game ?". If you only play fighting games it's easy to justify just buying everything, but if you buy a lot of other games too it becomes a bit expensive. Having said that it's not just fighting games that do this. I tallied up all the add-on content (with the bundles) for Monster Hunter World and it was like 130$ for everything too

To be honest, I don't like playing fighting games online. I love living in Training Mode, passing the time discovering stuff. My main gripe is the lack of single player content, outside of Story Mode and Arcade Mode. If you gave me content like SFA3's World Tour or Dramatic Battles, I would be happy. I often wait until the hype subsides and all the DLC's are released and packaged into a Definitive Edition and then I purchase them. Hell, I even wait until it is on sale. I bought Tekken 7: Definitive Edition at $29.99. And I will do the same for KOF15 and GG Strive. I like collecting fighting games.

What free games does Max play and like? What free games are considered good? What percentage of free games get sequels? Where's the next Killer Instinct? Where's the next Dead or Alive? A free to play model might get a Virtua Fighter 6 made, but we'll never get a Virtua Fighter 7. F2P games tend to stew in their own juices until they wear out all their goodwill. I think they'd kill the genre, siphoning players away from healthier franchise models.

I've been a big proponent of a "random difficulty" mode, where you face off against varying difficulties of ai fighters. It's not a complete simulation of the online experience, but i think for the casual fighting game player, it would provide enough variety for them to come back and play it every so often. Not to mention it would also help them with the adjustment from a fixed difficulty to the widely varying difficulty of fighting against other people.

That"s why a lot of people are still playing on fightcade instead of buying new fighting games, basically. I was hyped by the last capcom collection, but every friend of mine I talked said the same thing "but we can play them on fightcade already, I'm not buying it".

As someone that only plays the "complete" version of games. Unfortunately, that means I won't be buying into fighting games. They are far too expensive, and even if they went free-to-play, I can't see a model that would interest me.

I'm surprised that max didnt mention when talking about SFV, the scumbag practice of reducing fight money for missions etc, thereby increasing the grind to unbearable levels in effect forcing you to buy content with real money.

I like when fighting games add game modes like soul edge had edge master mode Alfa 3 world tour Virtua fighter 4 had a nice career mode and this mode had costumes swords abilities

Really glad you're having this conversation, Max. As someone who doesn't really play fighting games, even I'm disgusted over how greedy companies have become with their overmonetization horseshit.

Yeah, fighting games are crazy expensive. It's my favorite genre and I have almost each of them (in modern days) but I have bought very few of them as they were released. I usually wait a few years to get into them, cheaper. But I don't think the ideal solution is to make them FTP. I HATE that model. I hate it. With all my heart. Very few FTP games are actually good games and don't try to exploit the players at the same time.

F2P games have always been one of the most predatory models out there, so it's not suprising seeing people having mixed feelings if there were a F2P fighting game coming soon. Being in a situation where you try out a F2P game, notice that the core game is actually good, but then realize that their monetization is predatory as hell would be frustrating.

When I was a student I bought GGXRD for 40% off. At first I thought it was great cause I love guilty gear characters, then I load the screen and I basically paid $35 for an arcade mode, practice mode, and an add saying “Buy Rev2” over the dead online. That “Casual Experience” has gotten me into almost every game I’ve loved, meanwhile I skipped out on Strive cause it’ll probably end the same way lol. I’d love to play, but my 2 favourite characters are already DLC anyways 😂

You know, I don't want to specifically call people out on the Twitch chat, but. I saw a whole bunch of comments about "I don't want free2play because that means there will be microtransactions." -- Are we playing the same fighting games here? Does DLC characters not count as a microtransaction? Are you not paying $60, and then on top of that another $5 ~ $10 for another character? Is it wrong for a fighting game to be free2play with character DLCs that could be around the same price of $5 ~ $10? People don't talk about it very often, but damn Fighting Games do be expensive.