Killer Instinct Characters Cost $5 Each

[Vivi22]

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.

 

[Angelous Wang]

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.

FTP only works well if you have people playing for years. Hence it's an MMO model.

Plus $5 a character? What?

A full $60 Soul Calibur or Tekken game has an average of over 25 characters.

25x5=125. Buying them singly you have to pay an additional $65 at a minimum to get a roster equal to a normal fighter game.

25-8x5=85 If you take that one pack into account you still have to pay an additional $25 to get a roster equal to a normal fighter game.

... Unless they were to keep releasing them in combo packs of 8 then at least you'd get a close 24 characters for $60. But then what the fuck was the point of FTP?

 

[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.