I truly think they way they released the game was great and I wish more games were released that way.

I'm glad I didn't have to wait until the story mode was ready to play the game. Capcom was always upfront about the release schedule and I don't get why people didn't just wait if they really cared that much.

I'd much rather be able to buy Tekken 7 now then have to wait for all the extra stuff to be ready to go.

Yeah, from my perspective this release model was perfect (outside of some networking hinks that actually didn't impact me much at all). I've had so much fun playing hours upon hours of SFV I can't imagine waiting until now to play it. I've wondered if things would have been better if they had rebranded it as "arcade edition" or something, but even then I don't think any of the people complaining about SFV even understand the typical release cycle of Japanese fighting games.

The core mechanics of SFV are fantastic.

Everything else around it has been, yes a mess. You can tell they are trying very hard to fix it all. It is there fault for trying to match the tournament schedules with releases.

I'm sure whenever the Super edition comes out it will be fantastic.

Didn't the game launch with busted servers? Didn't it take them a while to implement a system to penalize rage quitters?

I get why the majority of people excited and enjoying SFV don't care about the complaints regarding single-player content but it hardly had a great launch.

@hunkulese: Dude I'm in the same boat I was hoping SFV would have success using their release model so that Bamco would rip off Capcom once again and give us Tekken 7 earlier. Now they are gonna take all the extra time to polish the story mode and whatever dumb VR bullshit they are trying to put in.

SFV is the first SF I've tried learning how to play and I'm having a lot of fun with it, and the monthly model always gets me hyped for the next update. Online has been a bit bumpy for me since the latest update but I can't tell if that's Capcom or something wrong with my internet/equipment. SFVServer did acknowledge that people are having problems though so maybe I'm one of them.

This release model is good if you're into Street Fighter already (apart from the server issues). But it's extremely unappealing if you're not.

Capcom might be okay with this, selling the game to the ones that are deep into it. But if this was supposed to get more people into Street Fighter, or at least get the game into more households, this is the complete wrong way to release the game. When the eyeballs were directed at SF5, it was a bummer.

Outside of some purely technical issues, I think the issue was largely how they sold it. If the original SF5 release was marketed as 'early access' or even 'tournament edition' with the full release marked for around now with the story mode etc. it would have probably been received a whole lot better.

@rockyraccoon37: Servers were hit hard on release similar to like 99% of online games nowadays but that smoothed out quickly. It's true they didn't have a system to penalize ragequitters but /shrug that didn't impact my ability to enjoy the game one iota.

I've been playing ARC fighters for a decade now and I'm honestly baffled at all the bitching SF5 is getting. It seems no worse than other fighters feature wise.

@rockyraccoon37: Just curious if you actually bought the game because I get the sense that most of the complaining is coming from people who are only hearing about issues like servers not working and rage quitters ruining the game. The server issues were mostly solved after a day or two and people rage quitting wasn't a major issue at all.

I actually think the way the set up the game modes is much better than before. Think about how people use Arcade mode. Casual players use it as a way to play the CPU and get some dumb fun story stuff at the end. More active players use it sometimes to test their skills with new characters against the CPU on the harder difficulties. SFV makes this much better with the small story stuff and the Survival mode. You now have a dedicated mode to the dumb story stuff, which the stuff in the individual stories in SFV is pretty similar in quality to a Arcade mode ending, that is easy and allows new players (even babies apparently) to complete and get a feel for all the different characters. Then Survival move allows you to test your self in an offline setting, with Easy mode being more difficult than the story but still manageable for a newer player, medium being a bigger test and probably a real challenge for a non hardcore fan, then Hard and Hell being difficult challenges for more experienced players. The cinematic story mode just makes the situation better, but even with out it the game still has all the elements of an Arcade mode but in what my opinion is a much better layout. The only real complaint I have with how the game launched is that the store, trials, and guide stuff should have been in the game at launch.

I don't think it is viable to launch a fighting game with a wide market approach anymore. The only game that can really do that is Mortal Kombat/Injustice because of the heavy focus on story and general way their games are built. The fatalities, ease of basic combos(kombos, I am sorry), character design, etc. all make a game that is more attractive to a wide audience, but in turn often makes the games not very attractive to a more hardcore audience. Yeah the NRS games are still popular in the FGC but nearly to the level of Street Fighter. I think Capcom made the right decision with SFV in focusing on the hardcore players and pro scene. Out of all the fighting games that are popular right now, with maybe the exception of Smash but even that I doubt, Street Fighter is in the best position to be elevated to the status of a eSports game like Dota or CS. It has a very large community, established rules that work well for streaming, has been streamed and had major tournaments run for years, and is a good mix of simple at the base but complex in the meta that most other fighting games lack. Capcom is betting on the long term future of the series rather than immediate sales, trying to bring SF to the level where they don't just make money off sales of the game and dlc but from running tournaments like Capcom Pro Tour and having exclusive streaming rights to those tournaments. I mean look at how many people EVO brings in to view on Twitch, by making it a CPT event Capcom has been able to get exclusive streaming rights to Street Fighter during it. That allows them to go to advertisers like Red Bull, Mad Catz and other peripheral companies, etc. and make deals for ads during that broadcast.

The idea of releasing the content in waves is probably fine but let's not sit here and pretend that the SFV release has been anything but a mess. Even if you ignore the busted servers at launch (which is a massive issue in and of itself), the lack of a working storefront which was essentially the backbone of the entire release plan and the continued inability to meet the release schedule which they have been 'upfront' about is pretty inexcusable for a game they put out at $60. Capcom have as much said that they rushed it out earlier to meet the needs of the Pro Tour. Whether or not they should have done that is another issue altogether but I don't see how you could call this 'great'.

Yeah, I dunno. It's something I've wondered about with games (mostly multiplayer) where you're presumably coming to it for the core gameplay, but hear complaints about a lack of progression or content. I played Street Fighter V because it was fun to play and there was a good amount of characters, and it's the same type deal with stuff like Overwatch or Left 4 Dead. I'm there for the gameplay-ass gameplay, so as long as it's supported by enough directly relevant content (characters/maps/weapons), it not having a ton of modes or an involved progression system doesn't take much, if anything, away from my experience. Load up a match, fight it out, then do it again, do it again, do it again.

But yeah, I guess if you're coming to it for something different or something more you'll come away disappointed.

And to be clear, I was into Street Fighter II as a kid but couldn't do shit, was super into Alpha 3 but still wasn't crazy competent, and bought SSFIV after GB coverage hyped me up for it but then proceeded to not play very much of it at all. SFV was the first time I actually wanted to go in there and learn the terminology and learn how to do combos and actually jump online and all that. It's also probably some of the most fun I've had with a fighting game. But in fairness a good chunk of that increased interest in fighting games was from playing KoFXIII on PC and having a goddamn ball, as it was the first time I actually began to think about and appreciate fighting game gameplay. I mean, technically it was thinking about Dota 2 and HotS while playing KoF that led to me thinking about spacing and timing and matchups, but nevermindddddvideogaaaaames. fightinggamesaremobas.

Although I'm someone who loves playing this game, I still think it's somewhat of a mess. The game clearly seems designed to be more accessible to the casual fighting game fan, yet everything they've done outside of game mechanics design seems completely contrary to that intent. I want Street Fighter to be a successful franchise, that's why it's frustrating to see what they've done. They did the hard part already, all they had to do what rope in the casual audience with compelling content; a solid story mode, a well thought out tutorial mode (see Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator for an example of that done ridiculously right), their shops actually working etc.

It's disappointing BECAUSE the game is so damn fun.

Splatoon had a staggered release, which was prompt and arrived in a timely manner.

Street Fighter V took months, and in the meantime they've released plenty of microtransaction content whilsst people were patiently waiting for the rest of the content. It wasnt marketed as early access so understandably people paying $60 for a game only to receive half the content would be upset. My friend bought it without knowing the release strat (im sure this is the case for plenty of people) and they were furious.

If a game I actually cared about released in the manner SFV did I would be furious, its a raging garbage fire.

The only thing that really, really bugged me was the lack of lobbies at launch. As someone who largely just wants to play with people I know, being launched into ranked for month to play at all wasn't exactly optimal. If they had just had at least that at the start, I would have taken the rest of the bullshit more in stride.

@imhungry: People keep on saying "they can't meet their release schedule!!!" and keep griping about it, but c'mon folks, they literally missed May, and that's it. In the last update they released both Ibuki and Balrog so that more than makes up for it to me to be able to play Balrog.

As for the complaint "they released the June update... in July," it sounds silly but I guess complaining that it was released a minute later than what was still in June seems kinda petty, no?

Servers for SFV were kinda broken on release but that's every online game. They were up and working just fine a couple days later. MKX's online was terrible for a long time until they fixed it; as someone who plays fighting games to play against real people I would always choose better online vs a story mode 100% of the time.

Also even while SFV really has had meh sales, they just passed 5000 players for EVO, which is more than twice as many as the previous record for a game, which was USF4 last year.

At the same time, if the minute difference seems so insignificant then they should have been able to complete the process a day early and avoid that criticism altogether.

As for the servers, I'm still getting issues when playing ranked where the match results fail to get recorded and points aren't distributed. Also when playing single player, basically any of the character models with cloth/hair physics would bug out during the cutscenes. They would flop around and clip through things while the character is just standing around talking.

While playing the game is still fun, so much of the things they built around the game is still disappointing.

I pretty much only play fighting games against the AI, and definitely never online against randoms, so their lack of singleplayer content (and supposed lack of quality for that content now that it has been released) has definitely turned me off buying it. I'll probably just stick to Skullgirls as far as fighting games go for now.

They shoule have just called it early access, and i think most people who complain about it didn't follow the news about before release. Most probably bought it because it is street fighter. But whether they were upfront or not they released an unfinished product for full price so people have a right to be upset.

Personally i was expecting arcade mode, i havent even loaded the game up to play this cinematic stuff.

I never realized people were so passionate about Street Fighter lore.

Core game - amazing

Release - tragic

Why is there no arcade mode? Just let me play through against a variety of AI difficulties playing the usual best 2 of 3 format against the computer, like it has in USFIV and also from the start of fighting games. The story snippets is pretty poor, the survival mode isn't that enjoyable. The online match lobbies have improved but they could still be better.

The gameplay is so so good, but the launch and everything following it has been pretty poor. As a returnee to the series (played a bunch of SFII as a kid) I was seriously disappointed with how it went. The style of content release has worked well for Hitman, but has worked very very poorly for SFV.

@bollard: Did... did you buy SFV?

I only ask because, as someone who cares about SF more than practically any other game series, I have been having nothing but fun from the jump.

From what I've heard, they have not been upfront with the release schedule. They have missed set release windows, have abandoned a currency (which may end up being a good thing, still shows how much of a mess the whole thing has and is).

I get the argument for not letting the story mode stop them from releasing the other parts of the game-letting people enjoy those parts sooner rather than later. But to act like everything else has been on the up and up, is to look at it with rose colored glasses.

Whatever anyone thinks about their esports focus and strategy, it's hard to overlook the game's technical flaws and of course the game's sales numbers have already indicated that their strategy was probably the wrong one.

This is still Street Fighter, the daddy of all modern fighting games. Seeing it released in such a state and continuing to struggle while other series like Guilty Gear or Killer Instinct do it so much better is disheartening. Or when Mortal Kombat of all series now has a better online mode than Street Fighter. (Anyone putting Mortal Kombat on anywhere equal footing to Street Fighter in the 90s is out of his or her goddamn mind.)

And then there are reports of troubles at Capcom and Capcom USA and Capcom Japan apparently not getting along or at least not communicating very well.

A milestone series like Street Fighter deserves better than this.

@sloppydetective: They were super upfront with the release schedule, missed one window, and accelerated another one to help make up for it?

Hitman is using a similar release style and is now being almost universally praised for it.

@jesus_phish: Hitman had a $15 option, it's servers worked after a couple hours, it has a good interface, it had a story on launch, it's online elements (leaderboards, contracts) worked and they've added new content on a frequent basis while being consistent with public communication.

They fucked up pre-release but when the game came out they've hit every nail on the head. SFV did everything said above poorly and still continues to do so in certain regards.

I have very little against the core of SF5 i think it plays well, but everything surrounding its release is such a bummer, i also can't ignore certain design choices they made, the lackluster character roster with no interesting additions on the roadmap, the faces of some of the characters and how they made Alex look like a marshmallow slug man, the incredibly bad English voice acting (yes i turned it off but nobody else seems to so i still hear it), the boring soundtrack (except the main menu djent), the fact that the only new move Chun-Li was going to have was removed before release, the long load times between matches, the mild punishment of rage quitters, the multi step process you have to go through to change characters in ranked, similarly the lack of stage select in ranked so the same few stages show up (i wonder how many people have set the new casino or Guile stages in their settings), the STUPID STUPID survival mode grind colour unlock system which IS NOT FUN and for lots of beginners not even possible, the fact that every new addition to a game which released at full price needs to be bought with in-game currency or real money, "the story dlc is free!!" FREE? You're adding part of the game that wasn't finished!!
The more i think and talk about it makes me dislike the game more and more, it needs something to make it feel worth it but my list of dislikes might be too long to ignore.
@starvinggamer said:

That would be difficult without an arcade mode, another thing still missing.

That breaks my heart, you've already stated you prefer buying cut down early versions of these games so my thoughts on it are irrelevant, but the thought of Tekken, one of SF's rivals, coming along as a full complete package is going to bring comparisons to SF5 which it'll have a hard time defending, it's already showing very well.

@jesus_phish: Most important part there is that they gave you the option to pay $15 for the content that was already out, as opposed to only having a $60 price tag on an unfinished game.

The comments from the peanut gallery surrounding this game can be infuriating at times. Like Brad calling Jason a "Capcom apologist" on the recent Bombcast. All Jason has ever said about SFV is the core fighting mechanics are a lot of fun, but everything around it has been a mess. Seems logical to me. Brad seems like the kind of guy who plays fighting games once in a blue moon with some friends and beers (may or may not be Blue Moon). Making a big deal about the June update slipping to July 1st when we actually got an extra character that wasn't expected is just piling on for piling on's sake.

I think Capcom made a decision that they were either going to serve the hardcore fan/pro player or chase the mainstream money and they chose the former. I can't say they made the wrong choice, even if their execution on that plan wasn't the greatest. For me personally, the way the game has rolled out has been fine. I'd much rather have the game and be able to play it in a bare bones state without a lot of features than wait for months for it to come out as a content complete version. I get how a more casual fighting game player may not agree, though.

@jesus_phish: Hitman is an episodic game and the content that is released is levels not features so it`s not really comparable.

SFV was a huge disappointment for me. The game did not release in a finished state by my standards. The fact that this game doesn't have a single player arcade mode is mind boggling.

I find the constant negativity from people who don't play, and never had the intention to play, fighting games to be absolutely maddening. The game certainly had a rocky launch, but some of the complaints are borderline idiotic. Hey guess what everybody who doesn't know anything about fighting game mechanics, it having 3 more frames of input delay doesn't mean shit to you and isn't the reason why you lose all the time. People like Brad, Jeff, and (sometimes) Jason actively turn positive news like the recent update into a negative, because they don't keep up with details and prefer to dump on the game for the billionth time on the podcast. There are plenty of things to complain about, but at least get them right!

I used to be sad that the wider gaming community never talked about fighting games, but now I wish they'd go back to ignoring them wholesale again.

The notion that so many people value the ability to fight bad AI in a series of 8 random contextless battles so highly is a bit mystifying to me.

I think the thing that confuses me the most is, if you're someone who likes SFV and plays it all the time, what difference does it make to you what anyone else thinks? Why do you care if other people think the game is a garbage fire? How does some unknown internet person's opinion about the game affect how much fun you are having with it?

This strikes me as getting upset, disheartened, or finding it maddening that the Steam user reviews of one of your favorite games are Mostly Negative. Just ignore it and play your game.

I think anyone trying to paint this as them doing a good job with it is being too defensive and is just not being accurate. But at the same time, I think they basically have done what SF always does at this point: not have the extraneous (very appreciated by many) features of a MK game. They just don't care to do that stuff as much even though that is a mistake. The raw fighting game seems really good and I think for the people who mostly care about that they are really happy. I understand it because I feel a similar way about the NBA 2K games. Some of the extraneous features may suck but I find the basic gameplay so good and improved in the new version in ways I think are easy to miss if you don't play a crazy amount of it. But at the same time, I don't give them a pass for having annoying issues and a dumb story in their career mode either.

Capcom hasn't done well and the game has not sold well at all. But I do think the outrage by some who don't actually care about Street Fighter that much is something out there.

I think they care about what other people think because they don't want the game to be so unpopular that we have to do 10 years without a new street fighter once they're done updating SF5 like what happened after the SF3 series bombed. If the competitive community was big enough to support high games sales on it's own they wouldn't care as much about what casual players think, but it's no where near big enough for that.

You're right, but it's still silly and the casual players showed what they thought when they didn't buy the game.

I was just bringing up my love of NBA 2K in my other post, how about now you guys know how some huge sports game fans feel when those games get covered on the site. It is not something to get angry about.

I would have bought the game at launch had they charged $30 for it and then charged more as they released more. $60 for what they released at launch and then more charges after that isn't all that great in my opinion. You also have to go and look back at what they were saying the game was going to be a year, 6 months, and a few months before launch. They were hyping things that ultimately didn't happen. It's disappointing. I have friends who are completely content with how it turned out because they just want to play matches. I think it'd be fairly reasonable for people to understand that some of us are disgruntled at the way things were handled. They released an unfinished game for full box price.

@jayzilla: They're only charging more for the stuff they were always going to charge more for. The other stuff is free.

It actively harms the community to not have that content. If Mortal Kombat X released with the kind of content that Street Fighter V had, it wouldn't have been nearly as successful. I know I wouldn't have bought it if it only had online. But it had a large amount of solo content, and I enjoyed it greatly and ended up playing it online for a long time.

People who would otherwise have played the hell out of SFV have avoided it because of the state it is in. I know I was planning to buy it, and am now avoiding it completely.

Yes nothing wrong with releasing an incomplete game at full price, with the rest of the content arriving piecemeal and way later than what was originally announced.

GJ, Capcom!

P.s.: no arcade ladder mode is supremely dumb. I get that l33t pro-evo-fighting-game-champ-wannabes only need the one mode where they can stomp people online to prove how godlike their skills of copying strats from pro-grade players are. But for peasants like me, spending a lazy thursday night playing against the AI and getting to see the ending for each character is a huge part of the appeal of fighting games.

@rafaelfc: You... can still do that?

@starvinggamer: I hope you're not suggesting that the Character Story mode where you get 2 or 3 fights against AI that basically walk into you counts as an acceptable substitution for a traditional Arcade mode. The fights in the Cinematic Story mode aren't really any better.

I don't see what's so confusing about this. Some people don't want to play against other players and would like to play against an AI instead. I know of people who only play bot matches in LoL and have no interest in the ladder.

You sound like a dude who got kicked out of Street Fighter Camp for not being able to throw fireballs and have remained bitter about it ever since.

@officer_falcon: It's confusing because an arcade mode is but a tiny bit better than the survival mode or the character story modes.

Spoiler alert: in the current singleplayer offerings for SFV you can practically just fireball everyone to death, and that's exactly what you could do in SF4's arcade mode.

@mike: For one it's disheartening to constantly hear your favourite fighting game shit on by people who don't play fighting games. Some people like yourself evidently have tough skin and don't care what other people think. The majority of us though, do. For another, lately it's not just been the internet but we get to hear about it on the bombcast frequently. And finally shitting on the game is one thing but often spreading misinformation is another. I don't think Jason or anybody should be labelled a "Capcom apologist" when what he's saying is essentially "the game is great but many of the bells and whistles are broken."

As for me I'm psyched to see over 5,000 people play SFV at EVO :)

@belegorm: A tiny bit better? Are you serious? None of the single player offerings allows a full 2/3 match.

I don't know what you played of the SF:IV arcade mode but those AI can at least block. The mode itself still showed its arcade roots with things like secret end bosses. That's leagues more than what any of the modes in SF:V offers.

@belegorm: From their conversation during UPF it seems like the guys realize that SFV is a good game for the hardcore fans (even though there are still some things that seem like they should have been better at launch for those fans). But if you are looking at it from the view of a general audience those "bells and whistles" the game is missing are actually pretty important. As a casual fighting game player myself at least the lack of a good tutorial and good single player content did a lot to push me away from the game. The story modes from games like DOA, MK and Tekken allowed me to get comfortable with the different characters and the game genneraly while enjoying some fun story content. So while those things might not be important to you, they are to me and is part of what made SFV a lot less enticing to me than for example Tekken 7.

As for the Jason thing I think Brad said that because Jason looks at the game from the perspective of a hardcore fan which makes it easier for him to forgive a lot of the problems with the "bells and whistles" the game has. It was too harsh, but I even think Brad immediately admitted so himself.