Killer Instinct Characters Cost $5 Each

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

Microsoft! Stop. Fucking. Up. KILLER FUCKING INSTINCT!
The Engine is good, the Gameplay is Hype as hell, Tons of Fan Service, at this point, all you have to do is nothing and leave Rare and Double Helix to do their thing.
It's good, Don't change that!

 

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

How is this free to play? How? How? How the fuck can they call it that? It's a fighting game, and you pay for the fuckin' fighters. How many fighters do you actually get for free? If it's less than 10 then this is messed up. I don't suppose they'll let you try out the characters before you buy them? No, that would make too much sense.

From what I heard, Only Jago is free, He's the Ninja Guy who plays like Ryu.

 

[Tanis]

So...basically...
WAIT A YEAR!

Just wait a year, or so, get the retail 'Ultimate Killer Instinct: Super Combo Version - Deluxe Ultra Edition' that's bound to get released with all 25 fighters and 100 skins.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I don't believe they've said anything at all about a sort of trial system. I would imagine that each character will get a preview video like has been happening for Injustice, and it's possible that while you can't play as a character you haven't purchased you may be able to play against them to at least see what they play like.

If they don't at least let you try a character before buying then this will be an awful system. Bad enough to lock the full meta game of a supposedly competitive fighting game behind a paid gate, but to force them to buy the characters to even try them out is absurd. If you're not willing to let people have free trials then just let them buy every character there is or will be up front because buying them piecemeal with no trial won't be fair to the customer.

But even putting that aside, the real money in FTP doesn't really seem to be in selling the competitive game to people (and do not get me started on the possibility that if this game is poorly balanced it will be pay to win). Plenty of games give you the ability to earn things that affect gameplay by playing the game and do very, very well.

I agree completely that this sort of system is going to be a major blow to KI's viability as a competitive game. That is, of course, assuming that the game is going to be entertaining, balanced and competitive at it's core level anyway (which is an assumption I'm certainly not going to make given the history of both the developer and the series in general). It's definitely not the pricing I'm worried about, it's the actual game itself and the business model.

This made me smile.

FTP side-scroll fighter? Seriously?

I don't know about anyone else but for me fighter games are not a long term investment, you play them for like 6 months on and off to go through the characters list and see all the (bad-written) stories without it becoming too repetitive. Maybe a bit of online play in between. And then you dump them.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you are clearly not a dedicated fan of fighting games then. The quality of a fighting game is determined in large part by how well it stands the test of time. If a fighting game were to last only 6 months, it would be considered a massive failure. Street Fighter 4, for a recent and well known example, was released in 2009 and is still the most widely played fighting game in the world. Sure it's seen several updates and patches since then, but it's atill the same core experience. Heck, there still is a viable and vital scene for Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo which came out in 1994.

 

[Plinglebob]

It was inevitable someone would try this sort of sales modal with a beat-em-up at some point so tbh I'm glad it was Microsoft rather then a heavy hitter (hee hee) like Capcom as the results of if its successful are going to be more realistic compared to if it was done with a new Street Fighter.

 

[Suikadon]

As of yet, we don´t know how many characters the game will actually have, so speculation about the size of the roster seems pointless. Maybe the game will have fewer characters compared to other titles, but I don´t see that as that much of a problem if the game itself is solid. The original games had few characters and were still damn good (I reckon they´re old, but my point is roster size isn´t proof of quality).

As for the quality of the game itself, I must admit I was a bit skeptic when I heard Double Helix was devoloping it, but as more information about the game surfaced, with gameplay footage and mechanics being explained by the developers, I was pleasently surprised to see I was wrong (only my opinion, of course, but I do have some experience with fighting games).

I don´t quite understand how this system would harm the competitve scene. I´d imagine someone interested in playing the game competitively would simply buy the whole thing (which I very much doubt will cost more than the standard $60).

 

[neppakyo]

It's not free to play at all. Unless they make it so over time you can unlock characters without spending money. So far from the videos I have seen, pretty generic fighter game, not worth spending money on. Seems like they made a poor game to cash in on the nostalgia of the old KI Gold.

Plus it being an xbone game only doesn't help it.

 

[Bashful Reaper]

The UK prices are insane. The equivalent of $27 and $55 for the normal and deluxe editions respectively. I'm starting to see why they had the Microsoft points. It allowed MS to charge more in different countries without them finding out how ripped off they were getting. That's a full £10 ($15) more you have to pay for living in Europe.

Not really something I was going to get anyway, but it just seems daft to not have even vaguely equivalent prices globally.

 

[Suikadon]

So far from the videos I have seen, pretty generic fighter game, not worth spending money on. Seems like they made a poor game to cash in on the nostalgia of the old KI Gold.

Plus it being an xbone game only doesn't help it.

That seems to be entirely subjective. I assume we've seem the same stuff about the game, but I'm very excited for the new KI (probably going to get a Xbone mostly because of it). The mechanics seem solid and it looks like all the hype that defines Killer Instinct is there. The way I see it, it's not a poor game at all (which is not to say someone may not dislike it. Your opinion, your decision to get the game or not).

 

[Frankster]

How much do i pay to enable no mercys/knockouts (ki equivalent of fatalities) again?
Yes im still bitter over that ¬¬

Killer instinct was one of the few fighting games where i didnt have a "favorite" so played with everyone (and sucked about the same with all), so this is just another slap in the face as far as i'm concerned.
Oh well not like i was planning to get an xboxone anyways...

 

[Ninjat_126]

It was inevitable someone would try this sort of sales modal with a beat-em-up at some point so tbh I'm glad it was Microsoft rather then a heavy hitter (hee hee) like Capcom as the results of if its successful are going to be more realistic compared to if it was done with a new Street Fighter.

It's kind of sad that I'm not even surprised that someone pulled this bullshit.

Some people think League of Legends is obnoxious about this... League gives you a rotating roster of 10 characters, swapping every week, covering pretty much every role and including brand new dudes who cost more points to buy. Yeah, it still tries to pull you into spending all your money, but at the very least it gives plenty of variety without it. Hell, you can play the game for ages without even spending your points, there's enough variety in the free rotations (most times).

With no way of learning the characters besides from a shop screen, how are you supposed to decide which one you want to buy?

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Wait, let me see if I'm reading this right.

The game is completely FREE to download and gives you 1 character. Then you pay $20 and get 8 more characters. So you pay $20 for what is (as far as I can tell) a AAA game, with the potential for more fighters in the future.

How is this a bad deal again? Granted, we don't know how many characters there will be beyond those original 9, but this doesn't sound like a bad deal at all, especially when you consider that DLC characters for "Injustice" or "Mortal Kombat" were pretty much all $5 a piece.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

So the League of Legends system of "Free-To-Pay", but without the ability to unlock characters by playing, and in a fighting game...

I already hate League of Legends system. Can't believe someone decided to make a system that's worse. Also not surprised that it was Microsoft if it was going to happen though.

Wait, wait, wait, what's wrong with the LoL system? You can unlock the champions by actually PLAYING the game. And there's 10 you can play for free every week. Even the newest champion gets a free week every 2nd or 3rd week or so.

 

[ace_of_something]

What would work better is if all the characters available to buy would be playable in 'training mode' (where you fight against a dummy) from the get-go so you could at least see if you like how they play.

 

[Drejer43]

whats the point making it free2play then, why not just release as a normal game and then have a store for skins and such.

 

[idarkphoenixi]

It gets to a point where "free-to-play" is nothing but a technicality and a marketing gimmick.

This is nothing more than a glorified demo.

 

[Lunar Templar]

It's hilarious reading some of the knee-jerk responses in this thread, I guess a lot of people simply read the title and proceeded to lose their minds.

$20 for 8 characters of your choice is a very good deal considering that arcade fighters are all about picking a character (or a few) and mastering them through endless practice.

This is FAR better than the game costing the standard $60 AAA price.

Not a good enough excuse, they are basically doing exactly what every one fears Day 1 DLC is, IE cutting content from the game to sell, and there's no excuse for it.

There's no reason for them to hide almost the whole roster be hind a pay wall save greed, not when things like costume packs are an option, and that's not to say they can't add more fighters later, but this? Cash grab, nothing more and I hope it bites them in the ass.

 

[The_Echo]

This is the shittiest design for a fighting game I have ever seen.

One free character. 8 (9?) in total Day 1. For $20. And then $5 more for each character they roll out who-fucking-knows-when.

You know what will happen to Killer Instinct? The online will be absolutely riddled with the free character. Then the group of eight. And virtually nobody will buy the auxiliary characters beyond that because when they finally roll out, everyone will be used to playing one of the other characters.

Give them the full roster for standard price. Let people play all the characters right off the bat, so they can find their main and start learning how to play them.

Paid DLC roster characters are bullshit. This isn't how you do an FTP fighter. Tekken Revolution is how you do that shit (though that's not without flaws).

 

[SilverBullets000]

Alright. So I suppose the stages will at least be free? What about the story mode; do we have to pay for that to? Will there even be a story mode now that it's a Free to Play title?

I'm wary of this. Just seems like there isn't enough information and too many ways they can screw you over. Still, I'm not getting an Xbone, so perhaps I shouldn't be.

 

[Valkrex]

Once again big publishers miss the point of free to play...

In order for free to play to work, the player needs to be able to unlock ALL the content in the game WITHOUT paying ANY money, but it will take a very long time in order to make paying seem worth it, and the micro-transactions need to be priced in a way that would cause the player to feel as if they are getting a good deal. The option to pay should be there for convenience, and convenience ONLY. Games like Tribes: Ascend and Blacklight Retribution do this VERY well.

(possibly League of Legends as well, I don't know, didn't play it long enough to see)


This... this is just stupid. ONE starting character, with NO way to unlock anything aside from paying real money? And at five dollars a character? I'm sorry, but that does not seem like a good value to me, and with no way to unlock the characters besides paying, the game goes from merely promoting real money as a faster and more convenient way to unlock content, to holding the content hostage for rather high prices.