Oh yes, it's time I spoke about the gift that keeps on giving: Street Fighter X Tekken. For those of you not following everything that's been going on, this has been one of the most successful launches, not just in fighting game history, but in the history of all video games. Let's start off with the pre-launch festivities and go on from there.

The Capcom-sponsored promotional event Cross Assault was billed as the first video game reality show, and a chance for some of the fighting game community's best talent to get their hands on the game and, in turn, show it off for viewers. It seemed to be going well enough, but one of the players on Team Tekken, Miranda "SuperYAN" Pakozdi, had been sexually harassed for the entire event by the team coach, Aris Bakthanians. Here's some prime video of the first day of the week-long event where Mr. Bakthanians is seen controlling the camera to focus on Pakozdi's body and walking up to sniff her like some subway stalker. Warning: This can be hard to stomach.

On day 5, it got even better. Twitch.tv community manager Jared Rae is talking to Aris about the sexual harassment that is endemic in the fighting game community, which is a separate issue, but we're looking at the convo itself because it's part of the Capcom PR disaster. You can skip to one hour and 45 minutes in this video, but to summarize, Aris throws the entire community under the bus and makes the case, with a straight face, that the culture would be damaged irreparably if sexual harassment were removed. Mind you, Aris is a team coach, someone in a supervisory position, presumably being paid by Capcom for this. In front of tens of thousands of people, he makes some of the most damning comments one can about his community. Of course, it blows up on Giant Bomb, Destructoid, Kotaku, all the usual suspects, and the best both Aris and Capcom can muster is a canned, non-apology apology before moving on, lending credence to the pig's viewpoint. So the game's PR is off to a running start, with any qualities of the game completely overshadowed by a damning rebuke of those who play fighting games. BTW, thanks Aris. We gamers really need to give more ammo to our hobby's critics.

Anyway, moving on, the game releases, and what DO you know? Looks like the 12 Vita exclusive characters, AND two of the PS3-exclusive characters, are on the 360 disc, with their beginning and ending movies and full movelists, the whole nine yards. It's discovered within hours of release by Xbox 360 hackers who got pre-release copies of the game, because Capcom didn't even bother trying to hide the damned things. Now personally I couldn't care less, as I've never bought DLC and never will and the game still looked pretty sweet at the time, but as you can imagine, people blew up at Capcom once more trying to leverage their fans' dedication in a cynical, exploitative way. Not only that, but the characters are going to be held back until the release of the Vita version this fall. The amazing PR circus continues.

Then the game comes out to the general public, and it gets stupid awesome. Megaman and Pac-Man aren't ready for the launch on PS3 and have to be unlocked via a patch the following week. Not only that, but both versions of the game have a bug that causes the sound effects and music to cut out at random intarvals throughout the match. Then there's couch co-op. The game was advertised as having the ability to take an offline friend online for 4-player games. However, the 360 version doesn't have this functionality. Capcom at first gave a flimsy excuse, but when the entire community pointed out that many games on 360 allow the functionality (Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, Halo, etc), Capcom changed their tune and said that it would take too much time and resources to patch the 360 version's multiplayer to be compatible with two local players going online. In other words, they basically said they didn't care.

We're not done yet though. So Megaman and Pac-Man are patched into the PS3 version of the game. Things don't go as planned. Remember, these are characters that were supposed to be among the PS3 exclusive characters, they weren't ready at launch and had to be patched in the following week. It's absolutely inexcusable. What the hell were they doing? So now we get the image of a company that didn't view the core content as being all that important compared to the online.

That image is cemented later on, when a series of pretty damned easy-to-perform infinites are found in the game. There are at least four confirmed infinites that can be performed without gems, including one for PS3 exclusive Pac-Man, which, for those of you keeping score, was withheld for a week because he wasn't ready. The image of a game that wasn't bug-tested at all has now taken shape. By themselves, the bugs and infinites are excuseable (with the exception of Pac-Man and Megaman being glitched to crap), but collectively, it confounds the mind that users are able to find these things so quickly before the end of the first month of the game being released, yet months of play-testing didn't yield ANY of these glitches? This is a shameful showing.

And now, a final insult, unless Capcom somehow manages to fail again with the Vita version. You know those on-disc characters being withheld? Well, it seems hackers aren't content to unlock the characters for offline use. No, my friends, they're taking it online. Apparently there's no screening to make sure these characters aren't being used before release.

So there we have it, folks, both versions of the game are broken messes, meant only to serve as a vehicle for DLC. I'm not normally a big anti-Capcom person, but there is no way to defend the way they created this mess of a game. I personally will be waiting for the Vita version to pick the game up, if I even remember it by the time it hits shelves. I suggest you all do the same.

Well, this thread certainly is a bag of stupid.

Why did you not just make this a blog?

Bought it, playin' it, enjoyin' it.

The game is fun.

oh its not so bad lol

Thank you, but obviously, you won't be gettin' much love here, seems like "fans" are just used to bending over to Capcom, so...

Capcom will keep doing it, as long as sheep keep trowing money at them.

Let's just hope this shit stays with Capcom, and doesn't influence Namco, and Tekken...

Who am i kidding, looking at Soul Calibur 5, it already did...

So, thank you Capcom, and thank you "fans".

I'll never buy another Capcom product again, that's for sure, at leaat untill they stop using these shitty business practices.

As much as i love some of their franchises, i just can't support this shit.

@YukoAsho said:

Oh yes, it's time I spoke about the gift that keeps on giving: Street Fighter X Tekken. For those of you not following everything that's been going on, this has been one of the most successful launches, not just in fighting game history, but in the history of all video games. Let's start off with the pre-launch festivities and go on from there.

The Capcom-sponsored promotional event Cross Assault was billed as the first video game reality show, and a chance for some of the fighting game community's best talent to get their hands on the game and, in turn, show it off for viewers. It seemed to be going well enough, but one of the players on Team Tekken, Miranda "SuperYAN" Pakozdi, had been sexually harassed for the entire event by the team coach, Aris Bakthanians. Here's some prime video of the first day of the week-long event where Mr. Bakthanians is seen controlling the camera to focus on Pakozdi's body and walking up to sniff her like some subway stalker. Warning: This can be hard to stomach.

On day 5, it got even better. Twitch.tv community manager Jared Rae is talking to Aris about the sexual harassment that is endemic in the fighting game community, which is a separate issue, but we're looking at the convo itself because it's part of the Capcom PR disaster. You can skip to one hour and 45 minutes in this video, but to summarize, Aris throws the entire community under the bus and makes the case, with a straight face, that the culture would be damaged irreparably if sexual harassment were removed. Mind you, Aris is a team coach, someone in a supervisory position, presumably being paid by Capcom for this. In front of tens of thousands of people, he makes some of the most damning comments one can about his community. Of course, it blows up on Giant Bomb, Destructoid, Kotaku, all the usual suspects, and the best both Aris and Capcom can muster is a canned, non-apology apology before moving on, lending credence to the pig's viewpoint. So the game's PR is off to a running start, with any qualities of the game completely overshadowed by a damning rebuke of those who play fighting games. BTW, thanks Aris. We gamers really need to give more ammo to our hobby's critics.

Anyway, moving on, the game releases, and what DO you know? Looks like the 12 Vita exclusive characters, AND two of the PS3-exclusive characters, are on the 360 disc, with their beginning and ending movies and full movelists, the whole nine yards. It's discovered within hours of release by Xbox 360 hackers who got pre-release copies of the game, because Capcom didn't even bother trying to hide the damned things. Now personally I couldn't care less, as I've never bought DLC and never will and the game still looked pretty sweet at the time, but as you can imagine, people blew up at Capcom once more trying to leverage their fans' dedication in a cynical, exploitative way. Not only that, but the characters are going to be held back until the release of the Vita version this fall. The amazing PR circus continues.

Then the game comes out to the general public, and it gets stupid awesome. Megaman and Pac-Man aren't ready for the launch on PS3 and have to be unlocked via a patch the following week. Not only that, but both versions of the game have a bug that causes the sound effects and music to cut out at random intarvals throughout the match. Then there's couch co-op. The game was advertised as having the ability to take an offline friend online for 4-player games. However, the 360 version doesn't have this functionality. Capcom at first gave a flimsy excuse, but when the entire community pointed out that many games on 360 allow the functionality (Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, Halo, etc), Capcom changed their tune and said that it would take too much time and resources to patch the 360 version's multiplayer to be compatible with two local players going online. In other words, they basically said they didn't care.

We're not done yet though. So Megaman and Pac-Man are patched into the PS3 version of the game. Things don't go as planned. Remember, these are characters that were supposed to be among the PS3 exclusive characters, they weren't ready at launch and had to be patched in the following week. It's absolutely inexcusable. What the hell were they doing? So now we get the image of a company that didn't view the core content as being all that important compared to the online.

That image is cemented later on, when a series of pretty damned easy-to-perform infinites are found in the game. There are at least four confirmed infinites that can be performed without gems, including one for PS3 exclusive Pac-Man, which, for those of you keeping score, was withheld for a week because he wasn't ready. The image of a game that wasn't bug-tested at all has now taken shape. By themselves, the bugs and infinites are excuseable (with the exception of Pac-Man and Megaman being glitched to crap), but collectively, it confounds the mind that users are able to find these things so quickly before the end of the first month of the game being released, yet months of play-testing didn't yield ANY of these glitches? This is a shameful showing.

And now, a final insult, unless Capcom somehow manages to fail again with the Vita version. You know those on-disc characters being withheld? Well, it seems hackers aren't content to unlock the characters for offline use. No, my friends, they're taking it online. Apparently there's no screening to make sure these characters aren't being used before release.

So there we have it, folks, both versions of the game are broken messes, meant only to serve as a vehicle for DLC. I'm not normally a big anti-Capcom person, but there is no way to defend the way they created this mess of a game. I personally will be waiting for the Vita version to pick the game up, if I even remember it by the time it hits shelves. I suggest you all do the same.

Fighting game with a lot of characters has a few issues with infinites and/or other balance. SHOCKING NEWS! I bet you'd have had a fit if you were writing hyperbole during Marvel vs. Capcom 2's era.

Not all of the infinites are easy to do, 2 of them involve 1 frame links that aren't reliable offline, let alone online, as for the other two then yeah they're easy, the Kazuya one only works on a few characters, not sure about Kuro's.

Infinites are getting patched out, as is the sound issue soon. Nothing to see here, and yes the DLC stuff with the characters is bullshit, but whatever. The game is still not a broken mess.

@BPRJCTX said:

Thank you, but obviously, you won't be gettin' much love here, seems like "fans" are just used to bending over to Capcom, so...

Capcom will keep doing it, as long as sheep keep trowing money at them.

Let's just hope this shit stays with Capcom, and doesn't influence Namco, and Tekken...

Who am i kidding, looking at Soul Calibur 5, it already did...

So, thank you Capcom, and thank you "fans".

I'll never buy another Capcom product again, that's for sure, at leaat untill they stop using these shitty business practices.

As much as i love some of their franchises, i just can't support this shit.

Used to bending over to Capcom? How?

Super Street Fighter IV came out adding around 10 characters, new stages, new music, updated trials, improved online lobbies and other less important features, it cost $40 and had much more content than the original $60 game.

AE came out with a re-balancing, 4 new characters, some new music, 1200MSP. Not bad. AE 2012 came out, free re-balancing patch. Nice.

UMvC3 came out adding basically exactly what SSFIV added to SFIV. Nothing wrong with that, just the timing of it upset some people. Whatever, it was still good value, even if it should have been released as DLC.

The only really offensive part of this is Street Fighter x Tekken's on-disc character DLC, that is ridiculous. Nothing else Capcom have done up until now is particularly bad.

You don't make a very good argument as there's no evidence that people have been bending over to Capcom in the past, because like I say, nothing offensive was done with SFIV/SSFIV/AE/MvC3/UMvC3.

Now I'm out of this stupid thread before more mindless Capcom bashing is posted.

haha, "this mess of a game". maybe it's because I've been around for so long, but that a fighting game with some infintes is called a broken mess is hilarious.

@BPRJCTX said:

Thank you, but obviously, you won't be gettin' much love here, seems like "fans" are just used to bending over to Capcom, so...

Capcom will keep doing it, as long as sheep keep trowing money at them.

Let's just hope this shit stays with Capcom, and doesn't influence Namco, and Tekken...

Who am i kidding, looking at Soul Calibur 5, it already did...

So, thank you Capcom, and thank you "fans".

I'll never buy another Capcom product again, that's for sure, at leaat untill they stop using these shitty business practices.

As much as i love some of their franchises, i just can't support this shit.

Okay, seriously. Shut the fuck up with your mouth-breathing, snarky "The 'faaaans' are just used to bending over and taking it up the ass" comments. Try to construct an argument without sounding like a twat. You're entirely welcome to hate Capcom for their business practices, but there's no need to insult people who enjoy the game; they're not your enemy, so get over yourself.

Personally, I feel much of this SFxT debacle is the result of a boardroom meeting where some suit said, "How can we monetize this new brand like a F2P? Have you guys seen that 'League of Legends' game? It's making money hand-over-fist! How can we replicate that?" To which the answer was copious amounts of DLC regardless of whether or not it was a good idea. It feels like there's a strong disconnect between the developing team and the publishing team, where the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, and as such, we were left with a spectacular mess of a launch. I imagine their logic was two-fold: 1) More money, yay! and 2) By holding back content and releasing it later, even free, they reinvigorate the brand on a regular basis and increase its longevity. Unfortunately, if you piss off a significant amount of the player-base on day one, this logic falls flat on its face.

Of course, not all of the fault lie with the producers, as the responsibility for the infinites, crappy online, and sound issues rests squarely on the developers' shoulders. When even Namco -- the butt end of shitty online jokes for a good while -- can release Soul Calibur V with, arguably, some of the best day one online connectivity, it's inexcusable that Capcom did such a piss-poor job with theirs. The fact that their dev blog makes it sound like they don't even think there's a problem with the online outside of, "We had to sacrifice sound for good online" makes it sound like they're ignorant to anything outside of the scope of their own online experience within Japan. I wish all of the people I played online games with were within an area the size of Japan, but that's simply not the case, and I find myself not even being able to connect with some of the friends I can play just fine with in any other game, and many I can connect with, lag like crazy.

And ultimately, that is the one thing that really bothers me.

Shitty business practices are nothing new and something we, as consumers, are unfortunately having to come to terms with whether we like it or not. Infinites and sound bugs are silly, but also kind of known quantities in new fighting games; I can deal with them and they'll be patched eventually. But not being able to play with the people I was excited to play with? That's a deal-breaker, right there. That's not to say I'm not enjoying the game when playing with those I -can- connect with, but if their goal is brand longevity, they won't keep me, personally, interested for long if another game comes around that -all- of my friends and I can play before they address and fix the issues with this one.

@Sooty: No, you're kinda right right about those, but there's always other Capcom games we can talk about...

I could list some of those if you want, but you probably already know.

They have been fucking ppl over for a long time, this isn't new, but they just hit a new low, this is ridiculous.

Capcom has invented new and exciting ways to fuck up.

Lets see if Tekken X Street Fighter can top this.

@PixelPrinny said:

@BPRJCTX said:

Thank you, but obviously, you won't be gettin' much love here, seems like "fans" are just used to bending over to Capcom, so...

Capcom will keep doing it, as long as sheep keep trowing money at them.

Let's just hope this shit stays with Capcom, and doesn't influence Namco, and Tekken...

Who am i kidding, looking at Soul Calibur 5, it already did...

So, thank you Capcom, and thank you "fans".

I'll never buy another Capcom product again, that's for sure, at leaat untill they stop using these shitty business practices.

As much as i love some of their franchises, i just can't support this shit.

Okay, seriously. Shut the fuck up with your mouth-breathing, snarky "The 'faaaans' are just used to bending over and taking it up the ass" comments. Try to construct an argument without sounding like a twat. You're entirely welcome to hate Capcom for their business practices, but there's no need to insult people who enjoy the game; they're not your enemy, so get over yourself.

Personally, I feel much of this SFxT debacle is the result of a boardroom meeting where some suit said, "How can we monetize this new brand like a F2P? Have you guys seen that 'League of Legends' game? It's making money hand-over-fist! How can we replicate that?" To which the answer was copious amounts of DLC regardless of whether or not it was a good idea. It feels like there's a strong disconnect between the developing team and the publishing team, where the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, and as such, we were left with a spectacular mess of a launch. I imagine their logic was two-fold: 1) More money, yay! and 2) By holding back content and releasing it later, even free, they reinvigorate the brand on a regular basis and increase its longevity. Unfortunately, if you piss off a significant amount of the player-base on day one, this logic falls flat on its face.

Of course, not all of the fault lie with the producers, as the responsibility for the infinites, crappy online, and sound issues rests squarely on the developers' shoulders. When even Namco -- the butt end of shitty online jokes for a good while -- can release Soul Calibur V with, arguably, some of the best day one online connectivity, it's inexcusable that Capcom did such a piss-poor job with theirs. The fact that their dev blog makes it sound like they don't even think there's a problem with the online outside of, "We had to sacrifice sound for good online" makes it sound like they're ignorant to anything outside of the scope of their own online experience within Japan. I wish all of the people I played online games with were within an area the size of Japan, but that's simply not the case, and I find myself not even being able to connect with some of the friends I can play just fine with in any other game, and many I can connect with, lag like crazy.

And ultimately, that is the one thing that really bothers me.

Shitty business practices are nothing new and something we, as consumers, are unfortunately having to come to terms with whether we like it or not. Infinites and sound bugs are silly, but also kind of known quantities in new fighting games; I can deal with them and they'll be patched eventually. But not being able to play with the people I was excited to play with? That's a deal-breaker, right there. That's not to say I'm not enjoying the game when playing with those I -can- connect with, but if their goal is brand longevity, they won't keep me, personally, interested for long if another game comes around that -all- of my friends and I can play before they address and fix the issues with this one.

Hey yo dawg, don't be like that, i ain't speaking english form birth you feel me?!

I learned dat sick language from watcjhng gansgsta rao movie, oh hell yeah omtheafuckah!!!

But still, you spoke well, so, nice job.

And btw, i wasn't trying to insult ppl who like the game, i played it a little, i like it too, but ppl who bought the game, "should" feel like shit about all this.

I didn't buy and i still feel ashamed.

@PixelPrinny said:

@BPRJCTX said:

Thank you, but obviously, you won't be gettin' much love here, seems like "fans" are just used to bending over to Capcom, so...

Capcom will keep doing it, as long as sheep keep trowing money at them.

Let's just hope this shit stays with Capcom, and doesn't influence Namco, and Tekken...

Who am i kidding, looking at Soul Calibur 5, it already did...

So, thank you Capcom, and thank you "fans".

I'll never buy another Capcom product again, that's for sure, at leaat untill they stop using these shitty business practices.

As much as i love some of their franchises, i just can't support this shit.

Okay, seriously. Shut the fuck up with your mouth-breathing, snarky "The 'faaaans' are just used to bending over and taking it up the ass" comments. Try to construct an argument without sounding like a twat. You're entirely welcome to hate Capcom for their business practices, but there's no need to insult people who enjoy the game; they're not your enemy, so get over yourself.

Personally, I feel much of this SFxT debacle is the result of a boardroom meeting where some suit said, "How can we monetize this new brand like a F2P? Have you guys seen that 'League of Legends' game? It's making money hand-over-fist! How can we replicate that?" To which the answer was copious amounts of DLC regardless of whether or not it was a good idea. It feels like there's a strong disconnect between the developing team and the publishing team, where the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing, and as such, we were left with a spectacular mess of a launch. I imagine their logic was two-fold: 1) More money, yay! and 2) By holding back content and releasing it later, even free, they reinvigorate the brand on a regular basis and increase its longevity. Unfortunately, if you piss off a significant amount of the player-base on day one, this logic falls flat on its face.

Of course, not all of the fault lie with the producers, as the responsibility for the infinites, crappy online, and sound issues rests squarely on the developers' shoulders. When even Namco -- the butt end of shitty online jokes for a good while -- can release Soul Calibur V with, arguably, some of the best day one online connectivity, it's inexcusable that Capcom did such a piss-poor job with theirs. The fact that their dev blog makes it sound like they don't even think there's a problem with the online outside of, "We had to sacrifice sound for good online" makes it sound like they're ignorant to anything outside of the scope of their own online experience within Japan. I wish all of the people I played online games with were within an area the size of Japan, but that's simply not the case, and I find myself not even being able to connect with some of the friends I can play just fine with in any other game, and many I can connect with, lag like crazy.

And ultimately, that is the one thing that really bothers me.

Shitty business practices are nothing new and something we, as consumers, are unfortunately having to come to terms with whether we like it or not. Infinites and sound bugs are silly, but also kind of known quantities in new fighting games; I can deal with them and they'll be patched eventually. But not being able to play with the people I was excited to play with? That's a deal-breaker, right there. That's not to say I'm not enjoying the game when playing with those I -can- connect with, but if their goal is brand longevity, they won't keep me, personally, interested for long if another game comes around that -all- of my friends and I can play before they address and fix the issues with this one.

As much as I like to agree that the people who bought and enjoy the game shouldn't be insulted, there ARE people who should be ashamed of themselves for their blind defense of Capcom's actions. Seriously, you should see the dick-sucking going on by some in the shoryuken.com comments sections whenever this comes up.

@YukoAsho: So go tell those people as individuals to shut up through valid counter-arguments. Don't generalize or resort to countering with petty insults like, "Yea, well ur just a fanboi who lieks it up teh butt!"

All the retarded bullshit aside the game is actually incredibly good.

And since i bought a game, it's doing well for me in my book.

It's the first fighting game i'm able to play with my gaming partner online with, so it's basically perfect for me.

Yes we understand all the bad parts about it, but none of that shit enters our minds when actually playing the game, since the game part of it is perfect.

@PixelPrinny said:

@YukoAsho: So go tell those people as individuals to shut up through valid counter-arguments. Don't generalize or resort to countering with petty insults like, "Yea, well ur just a fanboi who lieks it up teh butt!"

That's a good point, and well made.

You are posting in a thread that only fans of sfxt will see. People that don't care about this game aren't following its forums.

@TechHits said:

You are posting in a thread that only fans of sfxt will see. People that don't care about this game aren't following its forums.

Pretty much. Don't see how allowing a game company to put copious amounts of DLC on a disc to sell to you is excusable. Grow some fucking balls fightan gaem community, such a waste of space.

@CaptainCody said:

@TechHits said:

You are posting in a thread that only fans of sfxt will see. People that don't care about this game aren't following its forums.

Pretty much. Don't see how allowing a game company to put copious amounts of DLC on a disc to sell to you is excusable. Grow some fucking balls fightan gaem community, such a waste of space.

Because we're fighting game fans - we're all rich and successful. When I'm not being consulted to secure international, high-stakes business deals - you can find me purchasing whatever DLC characters were released this week by our good friends at Capcom.

@Canteu said:

All the retarded bullshit aside the game is actually incredibly good.

And since i bought a game, it's doing well for me in my book.

It's the first fighting game i'm able to play with my gaming partner online with, so it's basically perfect for me.

Yes we understand all the bad parts about it, but none of that shit enters our minds when actually playing the game, since the game part of it is perfect.

Definitely this.

This game is so duuuumb but so good. Too bad I get bodied hard by 200yen every day.