Free-to-play models in video games have been a topic of discussion for developers and players alike for decades, but the fighting game community (FGC) is really starting to gain momentum thanks to a number of popular releases.
Fighting game developers aren’t exactly new to the conversation, with several like Bandai Namco and SNK experimenting with the idea in their own way over the years. But with Brawlhallas initial success, MultiVersus reaching 20 million players in just over a month, and Project L on the horizon – F2P is now the hot talk within the FGC.
In an interview with VGC, SNK producer Yasuyuki Oda spoke about the inherent benefits of the F2P model, the concerns he and SNK have about embracing it, and the potential it holds for the future. This includes his take on MultiVersusthough he can’t play it himself.
“Obviously, most of the conversation right now is about the merits of free-to-play; you get millions of downloads and so on and so forth. But there are also disadvantages,” Oda said.
“For example, MultiVersus is 100%, blocked in Japan, we can’t play it. I’ve tried everything, I can’t even download and play the US version on PSN… I’m getting login errors because they don’t actually have any servers.”
MultiVersus is currently unavailable in several regions such as the Philippines, Malaysia, and Japan, but outside of its inaccessibility, he sees that explosive growth in user base as the model’s greatest strength, in part because it’s easy for someone to just tell a friend and then play together at essentially no cost.
However, despite that inherent power, Oda describes how the content is adapted to that type of product and the potential loss of historical impact that could also come from the F2P model.
Related: Continued skepticism about ‘F2P’ models in fighting game development
In his opinion, scaling content to an F2P model is the most difficult aspect of actually developing that kind of game, because in a way it becomes the business model; the “average money paid per user will be less than a premium title.” That means you should try to produce high quality content at a consistent pace to try and drive those smaller purchases across that expansive player base, making the project much larger over time compared to a project that is considered a complete product is launched and then adds content after the fact.
Not to mention the eventual shutdown of servers for those F2P games, limiting playtime through official channels compared to traditional releases.
“For a genre like fighting games, for example, Sign of the wolves is now getting a new game, and one of the reasons for that is that people have been playing the old game for almost 30 years. You don’t really know what’s going to happen with a server-based game,” Oda told VGC.
“If something happens to, say, Warner Bros. Discovery, and the game closes, it’s gone forever. That’s the biggest concern for us when we think of a free-to-play model for a very iconic genre like fighting games.”
With those concerns, Oda notes that he’s more of an “old-school traditional” when it comes to game development, as he wants to ship a complete package to avoid those complications.
And it’s not like he doesn’t have experience taking out multiple mobile games during his tenure at SNK. The company has a long history of publishing titles such as the ongoing F2P beat’em up The King of Fighters All Star.
“It hurts a little bit as a maker because we’ve had free mobile games and things like that that didn’t have a big hit, and then it shuts down. And for us, it’s kind of sad to know that that content is now gone forever,” Oda told VGC. “I’ve always been concerned, and I think that’s one of the little negatives that free-to- play balancing it’s something you really have to think long and hard about it’s always a possibility and there are more examples of it happening now with games being overshadowed and removed from stores and stuff.
The same concept applies to the dwindling number of traditional arcades in the world and the loss of history that has come with switching completely to a console market over the past two decades – something that SNK, Capcom and Bandai Namco have specifically dealt with a lot. .
You can read the full interview with Oda-san, with a focus on the next episode of fatal anger and his thoughts on the larger video game industry at VGC.
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