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[Gaming] A breakdown of modern fighting game content models

As you probably know, I've been playing different genres of games for almost my entire life, and the fighting genre was always something that I loved to play, even though I never managed to master any specific title like the older Street Fighter, Tekken, or Soul Calibur games. I always just enjoyed and kept playing when I was young, in a time when online matchmaking wasn't a thing.

Before talking about modern days, we briefly need to go all the way back and try to understand how it all began. I'm not sure if this is a common sense thing, but fighting games were initially created with an 'arcade machine' way of thinking, and the entire game design was made around it, with most games being easy to learn and hard to master, and the classic 'insert a coin to challenge the player' dynamic. This created a dynamic where the core loop of the game revolved around getting a deep understanding of the matchup, knowing how to execute moves with your character, and putting everything together during a match. All of this has a huge social aspect to it, since in the arcades you might be facing someone right next to you (yeah, physically, this was a thing back in the day, lol).

There are a lot of discussions related to video game monetization nowadays, and this is also a factor. When it comes to fighting games, all the way back we had multiple versions of the same game like Street Fighter 2 and all its different versions, where every new launch had Capcom improving it with different character balances and addressing player complaints.

Yeah, these decisions made sense back when games were packed into machine stations and we had no internet updates. "Oh, but most SF games were also present on most consoles at that moment like Genesis and SNES." Yes, but the 'main game' was made for arcades.

Having that in mind, you can understand how 'packing the same thing multiple times, addressing stuff, and adding a little more content' was how the industry structured itself, with a collective mindset of, "If they're doing it and people are enjoying it, why can't we do the same?" More than 20 years later, we find ourselves in a completely different moment where news and information are much more accessible, yet we are still seeing the same collective mistakes not just from Capcom, but from almost every developer/publisher that creates fighting games.

Let's take a sneak peek at how content is handled for us nowadays:

You launch a base game with 15-20 playable characters.

You promise that a few more will come over the next two or three years.

You keep supporting the title and creating side content for it.

Sounds good, right? Yeah, but the flowers aren't smelling that good. Let's use Street Fighter 6 as an example:

So, just to have the full roster, you will need to spend $120 USD on the game. They are still planning more content like C. Viper, a classic character to be launched soon and probably will be part of the "Year 3 Fighter Pass".

Recently Capcom launched a video running a few numbers on their latest title, and I was baffled by the growing numbers of the game, even though I bought it for both PC and Nintendo Switch 2, and am a tiny part of these growing numbers, lol.

After this video, I actually got myself thinking about how "badly served" we are. We need to accept that we will be paying more than double the price for a game that will receive minor updates from time to time and add content that was mostly cut from previous installments. Yeah, you can argue that there were many environmental and engine improvements from SF5 to SF6, and I kind of agree with that, but I also disagree with the fact that if I want to play a full game, I need to hand over more than $120 USD to a highly profitable company that takes ages to redevelop things they already created over the last 10 to 15 years.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the worst part of this yet. We really need to talk about the Battle Pass system and all the collabs/costumes with a freaking bizarre price range. It's gotten to the point where, for example, if you wish to buy all 18 of the SF6 Outfit 3 skins, the price will set you back $108.22 USD.

So if you're planning to be an "addict" to this fighting game, I really hope that your credit card has a lot of funds. Please don't get me wrong, I love the SF franchise and kind of admire most of the games that Capcom has developed over the years, from Mega Man to Monster Hunter, I've played them all.

But yeah, nowadays we find ourselves in a toxic relationship that I have no idea how the FGC will fix, but we might need to. This is not exclusive to SF6; as I said, since the very beginning, all the other developers copied the same approach to handling their content, and now even these bad practices are being copied in a 'mirror match'.

The only solution I can think of isn't the most profitable one: for these big companies to step away from these practices and keep supporting the game by launching more characters without asking for more money, or even create a "Full Pass" for a few bucks, making everything more accessible for everyone. I know both ideas are too simplistic and sound like some fucking Utopian fantasy, but at the end of the day, as a player, I don't really care about the suits who are already rich and making these bad marketing decisions. I just want players to have fun and for more people to get into the game I love.

EDIT 09/28/25: I was writing this text and a few decisions about Capcom Pro Tour came in public. As if the marketing model wasn't enough, Capcom just decided that they want to kill the scene outside Japan by making the Capcom Pro Tour available only via Pay-Per-View a move that obviously turned out to be a really bad decision, as they are now charging money just to WATCH their game. As they say, the phrase 'the worst decision is always the next one' rings true for one more video game company.