Colt47 said:
So in other words, if a megaman game were to come out, we'll have to pay $15 USD to unlock the right to use a different mega-buster configuration and a third of the bosses are going to be locked behind a pay wall. Speaking of which, this company does realize the economy in general hasn't been too good lately and that while cutting back the number of games being developed is a good idea, throwing more DLC into the picture might ruffle a few feathers?
Meh, I think it might be a sign that Capcom is feeling the effects of gamer rage. Their practices have certainly caused me to buy a lot less Capcom products (and I spend a decent amount on games) and if message board responses are to be believed it seems plenty of people have listened to Capcom's plans and decided that they could pretty much go pound sand. Capcom having screwed people to the point where I think their very name has become an anathema of sorts.
Of course like most game companies they seem to be slow to realize the problem, or perhaps more accuratly don't want to accept it. They are pretty much re-doubling their efforts on the things that they want to be the most popular and will make them the most money, despite the fact that this isn't what the consumers want. They want to force feed us DLC for example, so they seem to be hoping that they can kind of outlast the market that hates the idea, or the market that embraces it will grow, as opposed to abandoning it.
Think back to last year and the year before with the number of people complaining about how their games were DLC loaded (with On-Disc DLC to boot), complaints about quality, marketing, and Capcom simply not giving the western audience a lot of the games it wanted to begin with. Complete with passionate declarations from people that they weren't going to support Capcom or buy their products. Here we are now, Capcom's profits are half what they expected (though they are sadly not LOSING money, just not making as much as they want), I personally think there is a connection.
As far as cutting ties with Western developers, I kind of suspect that they are being held responsible for the resistance of the Western market, and probably for telling Capcom things they don't want to hear. There seems to be a major push for asian video game companies to want to infest everything with petty DLC of a sort that Asians lap up (chance boxes even in single player titles, etc...) which has had at best limited penetration with the Western market. You'll notice for example that in response to western chance boxes for example that the usual response is "I will pay for a certainy, not a lotto roll on a virtual item", with the people buying into such programs tending to be those that are acting to support the game, rather than people specifically chasing the item or in love with the idea. Outside of the MMO arena, you see this with some JRPGs like say "Hyperdimension Neptunia" and the like which launch with tons of on-disc DLC and which try and sell hundreds of dollars of virtual items and upgrades for extra money... in a single player game. With fighters you've seen things like "pay to win" boost gems in "Street Fighter X Tekken" and similar things.
At any rate, I'm rambling, the basic point is that I think Capcom is facing the repercussions of it's business practices and doesn't want to face reality or change it's ways.
As far as the ending note of the article, let me put it this way, them releasing "Ducktales" is irrelevent if they want to charge you for tons of pay locked DLC. I'd rather see no "Ducktales" at all, then see the game come out with tons of DLC packs to play as your favorite characters, change costumes, or unlock certain areas, only to find out that most of this DLC is on your disc (having been developed to begin with) and they are simply trying to extort an extra $100 or so from you over a period of time for things that should have been included to begin with. The original game was decent, but I'd rather it remain a pleasant memory than be tainted by Capcom's business practices.... of course I DO find a degree of irony here, people tend to liken the practices of game developers like Capcom, EA, Activision, etc... to Uncle Scrooge, and make cracks about the execs swimming in money bins and such... it does seem oddly appropriate that a game about Uncle Scrooge would serve to gouge money out of the players.
